Parenting Mental Health Crisis?: Another False Alarm

Parenting Mental Health Crisis?: Communists seek to undermine the family, labeling parenting as unhealthy. The U.S. Surgeon General’s mental health warning echoes this dangerous agenda.

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NOTE: Professor Jordan Peterson famously says that responsibility is the “same thing” as adventure. There is no greater responsibility than bringing children into the world and raising them well. This week’s offering from Greg Maresca exposes the Communists’ (let’s call them what they are) plan to re-characterize parenting as a great “misadventure.” By reducing birthrates and manufacturing an inevitable population crisis, the Statists seek to destroy then subvert one of the fundamental building blocks of human civilization: the nuclear family. Tricking vast swaths of the Western populace into the belief that parenting is somehow “unhealthy” will lead many to the self-inflicted wound of a life devoid of a distinct happiness and purpose that only family can bring. Make no mistake: this is the Communists’ plan. And when high government officials like the U.S. Surgeon General make these sorts of pronouncements unchecked, it proves the Communists are succeeding in their ideological subversion.

By Greg Maresca

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.”

The surgeon general fails to mention that 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, is the vocation of child-rearing 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 Centers 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. The ubiquitous, unsustainable healthcare expenditures of Medicare/Medicaid are lost in the narrative.

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 the 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 the church.

Parenting is a lifetime vocation that is now countercultural and needs government solutions. The government only solves problems of its own making by demanding more government. Murthy desires a national policy of paid family and medical leave incorporating additional federal programs to train employers to identify stress and for doctors to provide mental-health screenings for all parents when they bring their children for care.

The left believes no human condition cannot be improved by increased federal spending directed by bureaucratic agencies.  And where do you think the money will come from? The last thing we need is for the government to act in loco parentis; rather, it must be put back into its constitutional cage.

Marxism, a political and economic theory advocating for a classless society where the means of production are owned and controlled by the state, contends that the government rather than parents are to raise children. This 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.  The 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; stress does not necessarily negate happiness.

Studies show that people with children live longer than people without and that children raised in two-parent homes with a strong religious faith are much better adjusted. This is a testament to the enduring value of family and faith in our lives and the lives of our children.

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.”

We have devolved into a society of narcissistic self-obsession.  Being married with children is not an illness.  The constant marginalizing of the family by leftist ideologues is the disease the surgeon general should be concerned about.

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. Your role as a parent is not just a duty but a noble vocation that shapes the future.

Parenting is not easy, but nothing worthwhile ever is. Your struggles and challenges as a parent are not in vain; they are a testament to the significance of your role and the value of your efforts.

What else does one leave behind that is long-term and has lasting effects other than your family?