Parenting has become the most stressful verb in the English language.
Over the past three decades, the act of raising children to adulthood—the oldest work in the world—has transformed. The amount of time parents spend with kids went vertical in the late 1990s, and there has been no relief since—so much so that a 2023 survey by the American Psychological Association found that 41 percent of parents say that most days they are so stressed they cannot function. That’s about twice the percentage of adults without children.
Theories abound as to why. These range from plummeting birth rates (fewer kids to soak up all that adult attention) to greater economic uncertainty (parents are more likely to adopt intensive styles when the stakes of success are so high) to increased fears for children’s physical safety (a 2025 Harris poll found that an astounding 50 percent of parents thought that two 10-year-olds playing alone in a park were likely to be kidnapped).
Historians will tell the story in time. What we can see right now, as clinical psychologists who focus on children and families, is that much of parenting today is guided by the belief that a parent must be everything to their child—as wise as Solomon and supportive as Snoopy.
Parents—and we know because we are both parents ourselves—are bombarded with extreme and emotionally charged messaging.
Continue reading at The Free Press.
Camilo Ortiz, PhD, is a clinical psychology fellow at the Archbridge Institute. He is an associate professor and Director of Clinical Training in the clinical psychology doctoral program at Long Island University-Post. His scholarship focuses on parenting, disruptive behavior problems in children, child anxiety, and elimination disorders. He is the developer of “Independence Therapy” for child and adolescent anxiety. Dr. Ortiz received a Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. He is a licensed psychologist in New York State and maintains a private psychology practice where he sees adults and children.
Psychology of Flourishing
Parenting has become the most stressful verb in the English language.
Over the past three decades, the act of raising children to adulthood—the oldest work in the world—has transformed. The amount of time parents spend with kids went vertical in the late 1990s, and there has been no relief since—so much so that a 2023 survey by the American Psychological Association found that 41 percent of parents say that most days they are so stressed they cannot function. That’s about twice the percentage of adults without children.
Theories abound as to why. These range from plummeting birth rates (fewer kids to soak up all that adult attention) to greater economic uncertainty (parents are more likely to adopt intensive styles when the stakes of success are so high) to increased fears for children’s physical safety (a 2025 Harris poll found that an astounding 50 percent of parents thought that two 10-year-olds playing alone in a park were likely to be kidnapped).
Historians will tell the story in time. What we can see right now, as clinical psychologists who focus on children and families, is that much of parenting today is guided by the belief that a parent must be everything to their child—as wise as Solomon and supportive as Snoopy.
Parents—and we know because we are both parents ourselves—are bombarded with extreme and emotionally charged messaging.
Continue reading at The Free Press.
Camilo Ortiz
Camilo Ortiz, PhD, is a clinical psychology fellow at the Archbridge Institute. He is an associate professor and Director of Clinical Training in the clinical psychology doctoral program at Long Island University-Post. His scholarship focuses on parenting, disruptive behavior problems in children, child anxiety, and elimination disorders. He is the developer of “Independence Therapy” for child and adolescent anxiety. Dr. Ortiz received a Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. He is a licensed psychologist in New York State and maintains a private psychology practice where he sees adults and children.
Julia Martin Burch
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