A new school year is underway, which can bring new challenges, routines and financial stressors to a nation of parents already facing unprecedented pressure. The mental health of American parents is in such a state of crisis that it recently was the subject of an advisory from the U.S. Surgeon General, who warned that a dramatic cultural shift is needed to prevent generational impacts of deteriorating parental wellbeing—an effort to which employers are critical.

The advisory, Parents Under Pressure, released on Aug. 28, highlights the confluence of factors driving up parental stress: from growing financial strain and economic instability to lack of time, concerns about children’s safety and parental isolation. Parental stress has been climbing over the past decade, researchers wrote, and today, about one-third of parents report having experienced “high levels” of stress in the past month, compared to 20% of non-parents.

Collectively, Americans’ mental health has “declined substantially within the last decade, and parents are among those most severely feeling the effects,” says Jessica Vanscavish, head of Disability, Absence, Life, and Supplemental Health at life insurance company Guardian.

The life insurance company found in its recent Mind, Body and Wallet® report that financial concerns are most significantly impacting employees’ mental wellness, “a reality that many parents feel acutely.”

Among the solutions the Surgeon General recommends are better access to childcare and mental healthcare, paid time off for working parents and enhanced social connection for families, all of which fall squarely in the lap of employers.

“Parents have a profound impact on the health of our children and the health of society. Yet, parents and caregivers today face tremendous pressures,” Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy said in a statement. “I am calling for a fundamental shift in how we value and prioritize the mental health and wellbeing of parents.”

A collaborative approaching to curing parental stress

That shift, Murthy emphasized, must include action by governments, community organizations, schools, healthcare professionals, families themselves and, importantly, employers.

Murthy wrote in the report that, together, these entities can rethink “cultural norms” about parenting. Currently, many parents feel “guilt and shame” about the stress they’re feeling, leading them to hide their struggles and perpetuate those feelings.

“The work of raising a child is work, no less valuable than the work performed in a paid job and of extraordinary value when it comes to the impact on the future of society,” he wrote. “While parents and caregivers bear the primary responsibility for raising children, society as a whole must see itself as sharing in this responsibility—and shaping policy, programs and individual behavior accordingly.”

For employers, Murthy offers three primary recommendations:

• Expand support for parental wellbeing: Among the policies employers can target are paid parental leave, medical and sick leave, flexible scheduling and childcare access.
• Train managers: Managers should be trained to identify red flags for stress and mental health challenges among employees who are parents or caregivers and to direct them to support. Organizations can also ensure parents and caregivers have equal access to development and advancement, to model the potential for career progression.
• Invest in mental healthcare: All employees should have access to “comprehensive and affordable high-quality” mental healthcare through company health insurance, along with offerings like employee wellness and employee assistance programs.

Childcare: A primary driver of parental stress

Parental stress is nothing new, says Stephen Kramer, CEO of Bright Horizons, an educational support services company. However, the obstacles facing today’s parents are growing, particularly when it comes to childcare, he says.

Kramer frames the childcare crisis as a “trilemma”—working parents are struggling to find access to care, care that is affordable and high-quality care.

According to a report by Care.com, working American parents are spending nearly a quarter of their household income on childcare; nearly half of those polled by the organization spent more than $1,500 a month. Meanwhile, more than 40% say it’s harder today to find childcare than just a few years ago, and 65% have been on a daycare waitlist.

“They are unable to be productive at work when they are struggling to piece together care for their children,” Kramer says.

And most employers aren’t doing enough, according to Bright Horizons’ recent Modern Family Index Research Study, based on a survey of more than 2,000 working parents. The report found that more than one-third of working parents with children under 5 say access to childcare has worsened, while about the same amount have very little or not much support from loved ones or their employer with childcare. This population is far more likely than those who do have support to say that their mental health while they are at work has declined since having kids (57% versus 37%).

It’s not just employees’ mental health that’s suffering.

According to Guardian’s Standing Up and Stepping In report, nearly a third of working caregivers have had to reduce their hours, compared to just 14% of non-caregivers. At the same time, one in five has taken a leave of absence and/or demotion.

“These challenges aren’t just taking a toll on parents’ mental wellness and overall wellbeing; they’re also having an impact on organizations more broadly,” Vanscavish says.

What do employees think could help combat parental stress at work? According to the Bright Horizons report, the top-cited benefit is assistance with childcare costs, which only about 29% of employees said their employer currently offers. Employees also suggested on-site childcare centers, as well as more flexibility and access to unlimited remote work.

“The fact is that most Americans work in an environment where they don’t receive family supports,” Kramer says. “The findings should be a wake-up call to all employers to move quickly and substantively to offer these benefits as part of their talent acquisition strategies.”

“Forward-thinking” companies, he says, are investing in on-site childcare centers, facilitating access to near-site childcare or covering back-up care for their working parents. As employers consider expanding their benefits offerings to better support their working parents, they should consult with organizations on the leading edge, which may be able to offer data on people-related impacts like candidate volume, retention, absenteeism and employee performance, Kramer adds.

Nontraditional benefits to support working parents

While childcare is often a source of parental stress, concerns about early childhood are not the only ones plaguing working parents. Caregiving is a journey, Vanscavish says, and employers can support their employees at every turn—from when they welcome a new baby to when they send them off to college.

“Parents constitute a large part of the workforce,” she says, “yet they often struggle with finding the right balance between work and caregiving responsibilities, especially amid return-to-office mandates.”

That balance is more achievable, as Murthy recommended in the Surgeon General report, if employers can re-examine their leave policies through the lens of what working parents need, Vanscavish says.

For instance, purchase short-term disability coverage with a waived waiting period for maternity claims. This will provide new mothers one to two more weeks of coverage, she says. A paid leave benefit rider for short-term disability policies, she adds, can also be helpful in states that lack mandated paid family and medical leave policies, providing equal access to leave for all employees.

Disability benefits—which caregivers may be more likely than others to need because of increased reliance on leaves of absence—should also include support services, she says. For instance, Guardian partners with Wellthy to offer personalized caregiving support services in disability insurance, from access to tutoring and special education to health and wellness support.

“While digital tools are a good aid, the real support comes from that personalized coordinator who understands the unique situation of that employee,” Vanscavish notes.

Supplemental health insurance is becoming increasingly popular with employers, and can be “especially impactful to working parents,” Vanscavish says. Hospital indemnity insurance, for instance, can defray costs associated with a planned childbirth, while accident insurance plans can be written to include a “child-organized sport benefit” to assist with healthcare costs related to injuries suffered in organized sports. Meanwhile, critical illness insurance can include everything from IVF and family planning to children’s medical diagnoses like Down syndrome and cystic fibrosis.

To ensure employers understand what benefits can be most effective in targeting parental stress, Kramer says, leaders must lean into employee listening, including through regular surveys and partnerships with employee resource groups. For instance, Kramer notes, when Walmart was redesigning its Bentonville, Ark., headquarters, it asked employees what they wanted to see most in the location—and the top-cited amenity was an on-site childcare center.

The retail giant responded by developing a 73,000-square-foot childcare facility that can accommodate up to 500 children.

To get senior leadership on board with creating or expanding support for working parents, Vanscavish says, HR should focus on the business impact—for instance, how more supportive benefits can turn around declining productivity and increased leaves of absence from parental stress.

“When leaders understand the corresponding implications on recruitment, retention and business outcomes,” she says, “they are more likely to understand the importance of supporting working parents.”

A focus on family first

Traditionally, working parents’ stress was compounded by the fact that talking about caregiving responsibilities in the workplace was somewhat taboo.

“Ten years of data show parents historically worried about negative bias, many feeling their professional status diminished by parenthood in the eyes of colleagues and supervisors,” researchers wrote in the Bright Horizons report. For example, 40% fear that utilizing family benefits will draw judgment from colleagues and about the same are concerned about negative performance evaluations.

However, the tides are changing: In the last 10 years, Bright Horizons found that the number of working parents surveyed who worry about how caregiving will impact raises, promotions or their jobs has dropped by 10-15 percentage points.

In 2014, nearly 40% of those surveyed said they would be nervous to talk to a supervisor about missing a work event for a family commitment, a figure that now stands at 24%. Fears over vocalizing a desire for reduced hours and remote work both have been cut in half.

According to the survey, 78% of workers believe parents today are more comfortable talking about their family responsibilities at work than they were a decade ago.

It’s a shift that was accelerated by the pandemic, which shattered the lines between work and home, leading employees to become more vocal about their parental stress—and about how they expect employers to “play an integral role in supporting” them both at work and at home, Kramer says.

According to Bright Horizons’ research, two-thirds of working parents surveyed who hope to have more kids may wait to do so until they’re at a company with more family-friendly benefits. Meanwhile, 70% deem benefits that support work/life balance as “non-negotiable.”

“Today’s working parents are more emboldened and speaking up for the benefits they want and need for themselves and their families,” Kramer says. “And they are willing to go elsewhere to find them.”