Becoming a parent can be a rewarding experience, but nowadays it is impossible to ignore the stress that comes with it.
According to a recent study from the Department of Health and Human Services, there are currently 63 million parents in the U.S. with children under the age of 18.
“We stress harder than the child,” said Darrin Rayford, a parent.
In the days since a loaded gun was brought by a student to his son's school, this thought from Rayford echoes the growing concern of parents in the U.S. over the past decade. Data in the Parents Under Pressure study from the U.S. Surgeon General's Advisory on the Mental Health & Well-Being of Parents show almost half of parents say their stress is overwhelming most days, nearly double that of a childless adult.
“We have to worry about their safety, their well being," said Rayford, "because we have to provide for them, and we can’t be there every step of the way, so it’s really traumatizing.”
Elements of Life Founder Elizabeth Tolliver runs parenting classes through the Memphis non-profit and said more Memphis parents struggle to keep up with food prices or find a job or housing, a problem Tolliver said is not isolated to a single neighborhood.
“It can be a struggle," Tolliver said. "It’s a whole variety.”
Thanks to community partners like the United Way, Elements of Life connects in-need families with critical resources to tackle the most pressing issues. However, Tolliver said more needs to be done by elected leaders to make parenting classes more accessible and develop additional intervention programs in schools.
“So we can get to the route core and cause of the problems, because a lot of things that are going on in the school systems starts in the home first,” Tolliver said.
For a full look at Parents Under Pressure, you can check out THIS LINK.