We need to keep talking about parental stress
Stressed woman. Stress is the body’s response to a challenge or demand.
What you need to know:
- Sleepless nights, breastfeeding challenges, and general anxiety driven by my imagined incompetence left me wondering if something was wrong with me.
- For a long time, before I understood that motherhood isn’t an endless well of joy that I could keep drawing from, I wondered what I was doing wrong.
In the early days of motherhood, I often found myself questioning whether I had made the right choice in becoming a parent.
Sleepless nights, breastfeeding challenges, and general anxiety driven by my imagined incompetence left me wondering if something was wrong with me.
“Overwhelming" is the only word that captures those first few months, and it frustrated me deeply. I desperately wanted to experience the joys of motherhood that everyone seemed to talk about.
“Did you have a support system?” A friend, a mother of three, recently asked me when I shared my experience.
I didn’t, but that was only part of the problem. I felt like I had no safe space to vent my frustrations or seek help. There’s a significant stigma around mothers who struggle with motherhood, as if we’re all supposed to naturally take to it.
It didn’t help that my peers—and even strangers on social media—seemed to have it all figured out. Scrolling through Facebook, seeing airbrushed photos of happy new mums, only deepened my anxiety and self-doubt.
For a long time, before I understood that motherhood isn’t an endless well of joy that I could keep drawing from, I wondered what I was doing wrong.
Recently, I found some validation in an article by Dr Vivek H. Murthy titled "Parents Are at Their Wits’ End. We Can Do Better" in The New York Times.
He argues that parental stress is a serious public health concern, comparing it to the impact of loneliness, workplace well-being, and social media on youth mental health. These issues, though often invisible, can take a steep toll.
A 2024 report by October Health, a platform that empowers individuals to be proactive in their mental health journeys, highlights that in Kenya, the leading causes of parental stress include financial hardship, lack of access to adequate healthcare and education, balancing work and family, and social and cultural expectations.
For me, societal and cultural pressures weighed the heaviest. I can only imagine the stress levels when all these factors come into play.
Dr Murthy admits that even he struggles to acknowledge when he feels he’s falling short as a parent, and I couldn't empathise more. Writing about my challenges felt almost sacrilegious, even though I now understand that many factors contributed to my experience.
Openly discussing the joys and challenges of parenthood, without judgment, is a crucial first step in easing parental stress. Maybe knowing I was not alone when I became a new mum could have made a difference to my experience.
The writer comments on social and gender topics (@FaithOneya; [email protected]).
