U.S. Surgeon General Vivek H. Murthy warned in “Advisory on the Mental Health & Well-Being of Parents,” a 35-page white paper few will ever read, how parenting is stressful and can bring on mental health problems.
As the nation experiences its lowest birthrate in history, Murthy whines about parenting being a hazard to your overall health opining, “That’s why I am issuing a surgeon general’s advisory to call attention to the stress and mental health concerns facing parents and caregivers, and to lay out what we can do to address them.”
What the surgeon general fails to mention is by 2029, there will be more senior citizens 65 or older, than children. If that doesn’t startle you, try this one on for size: By 2038, the U.S. is expected to have more deaths than births. So, the vocation of child rearing is bad for our survival?
Parenting is not easy but must the surgeon general issue an advisory that received more than its fair share of headlines.
According to the Center for Disease Control, the real health threats facing Americans are cancer and heart disease. Then there are the self-inflicted wounds like obesity, and the high levels of drug abuse. Lost in the narrative is and the ubiquitous healthcare expenditures of Medicare/Medicaid that are simply unsustainable.
Yet here we are slowly overdosing on a plethora of prescription drugs, while healthcare providers allow for abortions and gender-altering procedures without parental consent.
Why should any parent depend on government to advise them on how to raise children?
Murthy’s assumptions are just another ploy to dissolve the nuclear family. To stipulate that having children is more stressful today than it was in the past is ridiculous.
If you need more confirmation other than the 63-million abortions since 1973 that we live in an anti-child culture, try taking four children under age six out anywhere and that includes church.
Parenting is a lifetime vocation that is now countercultural and in need of government solutions. Government only solves problems of their own making by demanding more government. Murthy desires a national policy of paid family and medical leave that incorporates additional federal programs that will train employers to identify stress and for doctors to provide mental-health screenings for all parents each time they bring their children for care.
The left believes there is no human condition that cannot be improved by increased federal spending directed by bureaucratic agencies. And where do you think the monies will come from? The last thing we need is government acting in loco parentis; rather government must be put back into its constitutional cage.
Marxism contends that government rather than parents are to raise children and is where the left’s refrain of “it takes a village” resonates the loudest. The last thing parents need or want is the prescription where less family and more bureaucratic government is the answer. Government needs to know its place by not violating parental rights.
Parenting is stressful, yes, but like any vocation it is – work. Parenting is also part of the human condition and being stressed does not necessarily negate happiness.
Studies show those with children live longer than people without and that children raised in two parent homes with a strong religious faith are much better adjusted.
Stigmatizing religious faith comes at an enormous cost. We are losing virtue and morality in society’s attempt to make life trouble-free.
There will never be enough government, prescription or other people’s money to heal self-inflicted wounds and fill what St. Augustine wrote in his classic Confessions: “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.”
Success and fulfillment come with doing something meaningful and challenging. A rewarding life is one spent in the service of others, and there is no greater job than raising the next generation.
Parenting is not easy, but nothing worthwhile ever is.
What else does one leave behind that is long term and has lasting effect other than your family?
