Babies are finally asleep, and that gap between their bedtime battle and yours is finally here. If the first thing you do when you sit down on the couch is open your phone and switch between watching your Instagram Reels or your TikTok channel, you’re not alone. And if your algorithm is anything like mine, between hot pop culture photos, funny animal videos, political rants, and videos of how your neighbor’s ravens bring you gifts (OK, maybe that’s just me and being too niche), I suspect you’ll also get a steady stream of stinging bites. parents tips on every topic imaginable.
Is your child not listening? There’s a video for that! Want a 90s summer for your kids? Here’s a nostalgic look at what your child is missing! Any questions you have –How can I get my baby to sleep at night? How do I stop yelling at my kids? How do I get mine? teenager are their phones off?—an algorithm seems to know (or, of course, listen), and an endless supply of videos is ready to tell you exactly what to do.
Our nervous systems were never meant to absorb so much information. Our ancestors certainly wouldn’t have processed videos of the devastating events immediately following a parenting script that would surely have kept the kids from hating them to watch them take their sweet vacation, all while sitting on the toilet or waiting in line for their caffeine fix.
I’ll never forget the day in 2024 that the US Surgeon General issued a warning to parents stress as an epidemic. I was in a particularly tough “get out the door” moment with the kids when I looked at my phone and saw a news bite. It felt validating. It even addresses the stresses that parents face in the digital age Social mediaall this was not surprising for anyone. But my next thought was, “…and now what?” I was glad we named it, but the parents needed real help.
This is an intense period of parenting forcing us to optimize everything. We live with less support from our community and immediate family and feel the pressure to do everything for our children with fewer resources so they can have a better future. These ideals may have started in white upper-class communities, but pressures and expectations have spread across neighborhoods and income brackets, so that what was once an enrichment choice has become the standard for what “good” parents look like.
We must also recognize that among all these things for our children (and it is work), labor is often not equally distributed among partners. In heterosexual partnerships, mental charts optimize everything for our children during this intense period fall disproportionately on mothers. I’m talking about the mental schedules of coordinating summer camps, the social dynamics of your child’s world in your head, and any appointments, paperwork, or emails they need. The burden is heavy, invisible, and from a young age women are trained to take on these jobs. to take care of and coordinating roles.
If you’re a mom reading this and can relate to the late-night search for answers on Instagram and TikTok, it’s not because you’re obsessed or there’s something wrong with you. That’s because you’re trying to survive under the pressure of optimizing every little thing for your child, you’re short on resources, and in places that honestly require more nuance and specialized support than a graphic or minute video.
Well, I have to mention the elephant in the room. I am a parent content creator on the same platforms. A lot of my clients find me there and I really try to squeeze my specialties into the trending audio format, sometimes not very successfully if I’m honest. Bite-sized and “fit to trend audio” isn’t exactly my natural niche. But then it was like that a viral TikTok about mental stress. Once I went viral and immediately decided it wasn’t for me. (Comment sections can be a scary place. As Taylor Swift’s lyric goes, “To you, I can admit that I am too soft for everything.”)
I’ve been on both sides and believe me, there is anxiety and pressure on both the creation and consumption side. Yes, there are good intentions out there, from the creator who wants to nurture and support and the consumer who wants to learn and grow. But the settings are not working for us. It occupies all the margins in our days and causes us to be overloaded with information and constantly monitored.
Essential reading for parents
Here’s what I found in my research and years of sitting down with moms at home to move the needle. therapy room (and fair warning, it’s very satisfying to watch on camera): Breaking the cycle doesn’t happen when someone finally finds the perfect four-step formula. It happens when they start paying attention to what is behind it they triggers, how to break cycles based on they context and how to make connections with they kid
So I don’t blame us parent content creators. I sincerely believe that most of us just want to translate what we have learned in classrooms and research and training to our stakeholders: parents. What we all need (really) is paid family leave, affordable child care, and communities that share the burden of parenthood, because the Surgeon General was right, and naming it is not enough. Parents deserve real structured support, not just better content.
But in the meantime, maybe before you open the apps tonight, just pause for a second and ask yourself: Is more parenting information really what I need right now? Perhaps talking to a therapist might be a good step for you. It might be worth a try to read one of your favorite parent teacher books. Or, perhaps, protect this margin of time for yourself by doing something else – something fun or restorative. Because I think you already know more than you think. It’s hard to hear over all the noise.
To find a therapist, Visit Psychology Today’s Therapy List.
