Why Is Parenting so Hard in the Modern World?

Aged 34, I thought I was ready to be a Dad. Thanks to a challenging career, I knew what it was to work really hard, 7 days a week for months on end. I had no idea how hard parenting can be in the modern world… 

Raising a child is such a mental and physical challenge, and has such an impact on the world; it’s almost surprising that you don’t need a licence to be a parent! To add to the challenge, parenting isn’t a project that comes to an end but the gateway to a new life phase from which there is no return. Nevertheless, we try our hand at parenting because there is nothing more rewarding. I love our children more than anything, and nothing is more fulfilling than being their parent. It just feels like a long, hard slog at times, leading to feelings of guilt and frustration.

I’ve often wondered – was parenting easier in the past? The world has evolved so rapidly that even my own childhood seems so simple and stress-free compared to our experience as parents today. 

Please read on to find out if parenting is indeed harder today, explore 12 factors that complicate parenting, and make parenting easier with 5 stress-relieving tips. 

Jump to section: 

• Is Parenting Harder Today?
• What Factors Affect Our Parenting Experience?
• How Can I Make Parenting Easier?
• Summary of Why Parenting Is Hard in the Modern World
• How Simirity Can Help With Parenting 

Is Parenting Harder Today?

Each generation has its own advantages and challenges when it comes to parenting. 

Our ancestors had problems we couldn’t dream of:

• High infant and child mortality rates.
• Limited medical treatments and medicines to help ill children.
• Poor living conditions; overcrowded and unsanitary, which lead to the rapid spread of diseases.

Children died from measles back then, so who are we to complain that modern-day parenting is hard?

Never have parents had so many resources and information available to assist with parenting. An abundance of expert advice for parents. Support groups and communities can be accessed online, so even those living remotely are not facing challenges alone. Yet often, despite this apparent support, parents face challenges alone and feel isolated and stressed. Our extended family members often don’t live nearby and everyone else we know is always so busy.

Share a photo on social media and hundreds of people might ‘like’ it and add comments.

Ask for physical help looking after your ill child, and you might struggle despite being so well connected.

Another monumental shift is in our perception of what parenting is.

In the past, with so many children dying at birth, parents felt they did a great job if their children survived. Today, that’s all but taken for granted; instead, we put pressure on ourselves to raise the perfect child and offer them every opportunity possible. And if it doesn’t work out, we get frustrated and feel guilty for failing in the most important role we’ll ever have – being a parent.

So, is parenting harder in the modern world, or not?

I personally feel like it depends on the individuals and the situations they face. Many factors impact our parenting experience. Parenting in one era is not necessarily easier than in another, but the experience would have been significantly different. 

So, instead of comparing parenting today with parenting from the past, perhaps the smart question is: What factors affect our parenting experience?

Then we can identify how we can make parenting easier.

With so many horrific parenting concerns no longer in play, like life-threatening measles, if we find the right balance of factors, modern-day parenting can be the best and most rewarding it has ever been. 

What Factors Affect Our Parenting Experience?

The following 12 factors can help or hinder us as parents of small children and adolescents. We’ll briefly examine how these have changed over the years and what’s best from the parenting point of view.

1. Experiences before parenthood

US Consensus data shows that in the 1850’s families with six to nine kids were common. Such large families meant elder children got a hand in raising their younger siblings. This armed them with precious skills and insights into the role of parent. 

Today, the average US family size is closer to 3 and UK National Statistics show it’s only 2.4 in the UK. Often, children are just a year or two apart in age, as was the case with my sister and me. Prior to being a parent, I had no experience looking after children. 

Modern parenting is all the more challenging due to our lack of parenting competency before having children of our own.

This is a problem that our ancestors would have felt less acutely as they were more likely to have helped raise their brothers and sisters.

2. Reality vs expectations

As just discussed, previous generations had a good idea of what parenting was all about. Today’s parents arguably have much greater expectations, making the reality so much harder to come to terms with. 

There is much joy in parenthood, but with everyone only sharing their family highlights in social media it’s easy to mistakenly think parenting is nothing but happy family moments where the sun is always shining and nothing ever goes wrong.

I find my life is a lot easier the lower I keep my expectations.

Bill Watterson

The quickest way to live a happier life is to lower our expectations.

Previous generations often delayed naming their children until they were a couple of weeks old, anticipating the early days to be a challenge for the baby’s survival. Their expectations were as low as could be. Our expectations today are sky-high in comparison, setting us up for disappointment after disappointment.

3. A realistic view of our influence

We humans increasingly feel we can control the world around us. We’re surrounded by upbeat messages like the one below, reinforcing the belief that everything is possible and no dream is out of reach.

I think anything is possible to anyone who dreams, dares, works and never gives up.

Xavier Dolan

Certainly, hard work and grit can help with things like learning a language or submitting tax returns. But raising children is a far greater challenge, with a plethora of hidden variables, many of which parents can’t hope to ever control.

Believing we can control everything is a double-edged sword. It’s led us to many achievements our ancestors would never have thought possible. But it also puts pressure on us to control the uncontrollable. 

As parents, we can’t control our kid’s every move and optimise every outcome! That’s an unachievable goal that risks undermining your child’s independence.

Arguably, our ancestors better understood what was in their control and what was outside. Freeing them from unhelpful worries and focusing their efforts where it mattered.

The chief task in life is simply this: to identify and separate matters so that I can say clearly to myself which are externals not under my control, and which have to do with the choices I actually control.

Epictetus

By working on your dichotomy of control, you can unburden yourself and feel the freedom your ancestors might have felt. 

4. Managing educational expectations

Education used to be more collaborative with everyone feeling invested in it and working together. Today, it has become a desperate race to the top.

Children are facing greater expectations to excel in academics and extracurricular activities. A 2022 National Healthcare Report in the US showed that approximately 20% of children and adolescents aged 3-17  are affected by mental, emotional, developmental, or behavioural disorders. And there was a 40% rise in suicidal behaviours among high school students in the years leading up to 2019. 

Parents, believing they can control their child’s educational path, feel the stress of providing assistance, materials, and opportunities. High educational expectations often require financial backing, which results in parents spending more time away from family as they dedicate themselves to earning money for their child’s education.  

Our ancestors didn’t face the unrealistic standards that we do today. 

5. Feeling judged

Parenting has become one big competition, and as a parent, you always feel judged for your decisions.

A 2022 PEW Research Centre survey showed that:

• 44% of parents feel judged by their own parents
• 35% of parents feel judged by other parents in their community
• 29% of parents feel judged by their friends
• 25% of parents feel judged by people on online message groups or boards (of those respondents who answered).

With social media and chat groups, the details of our family life and the decisions we make as parents have never been more on display. It’s a day-in, day-out stress that can make us fearful and cause anxiety.

Even our ancestors would have felt judged, but the audience who would judge them would be far fewer in number than today. And the standards they felt they had to live up to were far lower. 

Sometimes, you just have to ask yourself: What would I choose if I knew no one would judge this decision?

6. Your work-family balance

In 1967, 49% of mothers with children younger than 18 did not work outside the home. In 2012, this number was down to 29% (data from a 2013 PEW Research survey).

As modern-day parents, we feel the financial pressure to earn sufficiently well to give our families the best opportunities in life. 

We end up feeling trapped between a rock and a hard place – do you spend less time with family to earn money for them, or spend more time with family but have less money for enhanced opportunities together?

It’s a tough decision.

A PEW Research Centre survey showed:

• In 1970, 31% of two-parent families had both Mum and Dad working full time 
• In 2015, it rose to 46%.

People clearly feel the economic pressure to work full time. However, this can leave parents exhausted as they struggle to fulfil both family and career responsibilities.

Parenting is hard enough if you are fully dedicated to it! But if your priority is with your career, compromises that affect family life will have to be made. 

If you find yourself in these situations, try to create a boundary that projects your family time from being swallowed up by other activities. 

7. Community 

These days, upping sticks and moving to a new town or country is nothing new. Travel is cheaper than ever, and the sense of adventure and economic incentives are hard to resist.

A 2022 US census shows that 40% of young adults don’t live within 10 miles of where they grew up. I personally live in different time zones to my parents and my sister’s family. I’m far from alone; 3.5% of the world population (272 million people) left their home country and this percentage is growing every year.

Families used to stay within their home town or village. You might not live with your parents or siblings, but their house was a walk away. As a parent if you needed help, your family would physically be there for you. For many modern families, this would be a dream come true. 

Beyond our family, we have our neighbours, other parents and those we meet socially. We could connect more with these people. However, as we busy ourselves in our daily lives, it’s harder to spend meaningful time with them and build the type of meaningful relationships that we need.

Overall, the outcome is that we feel increasingly alone.

8. Children’s peer orientation 

Historically, children looked to their family for role models—primarily parents, siblings, cousins etc. As a result, children learned to view life through the same lens as their family and agreed on what was right and wrong.

Today, technology and social media have made peers outside the family home more influential than ever. Influencers with millions of followers can overtake the authority of traditional paternal figures—and all from a distance, on the other side of a camera. 

Naturally, children orientate themselves towards the people who feature most in their lives. Traditionally these were parents, school teachers and other responsible adults.

However, as families spend less time together, these relationships can be less impactful than the colourful and endless stream of influencer videos.

If children are orientated towards people outside of their family with different family values and beliefs, parenting can feel like an uphill struggle. If your child is showing rude behaviour and being disrespectful to their family, show them unconditional love and attention to gradually reorientate them towards their family. 

9. Use of technology

Not only is technology offering alternative role models to children, but it’s also reducing the quality time that children spend with their family.

Instead of talking, playing family games and doing tasks together, children have headphones on, and eyes transfixed on the screen. Their perception of time lost – the hours passing in a flash.

Technology is vitally important of course, especially during adolescence. You don’t want your children to miss out. Many passions can be explored online, skills can be learnt and new and healthy relationships can be formed. And there’s a surprising number of benefits from playing computer games. I help teach children English as a second language, so many of my students have learned English through online friendships (TikTok seems to be the favourite) and online games. 

However, it does add a complexity for parents that even our parents’ generation did not face: Establishing and upholding family rules about the use of technology while navigating issues such as online safety and cyberbullying. 

10. Healthy use of information

With so much information available, it can feel so overwhelming.

Our ancestors had access to a tiny fraction of the parenting information available today. With their limited knowledge, they did their best and felt satisfied.

Search any parenting issue online, and you will find many views, often conflicting. Reading through the various arguments and forming your own opinion can make you feel anxious and doubt your parenting abilities. 

And then there’s the books – so many parenting books written by ‘expert’ parents, sociologists and psychologists. One reason parenting may feel so hard is that we simply can’t decide what decision to make in light of such an abundance of information. 

Don’t let information overload get on top of you – use your parenting instincts, choose your sources of information wisely and seek expert help if in doubt. 

11. Mental health

Our modern lives appear to be having a very negative impact on our mental health. In fact ‘mental health’ is still relatively new; the first International Congress on Mental Hygiene took place as recently as 1933.

Since then, changes have been fast. A 2022 PEW Research Centre survey showed that 40% of parents were extremely concerned about their child struggling with anxiety or depression. And a National US survey showed that 23.1% of adults experienced a mental health condition in 2022.

• How can our children lead their best lives if they struggle with mental health? How can they have a balanced temperament and show empathy for others when they feel such overwhelming stress and anxiety?
• How can adults be a good parent in such situations? How can they face their child’s tantrums with positivity and avoid yelling back?

It’s time to reverse the current trend and take action to ensure the mental wellness of our families. In doing so, parenting becomes easier and more rewarding.

12. Health and safety concerns

From the toddler years into early adulthood, parents have to navigate a myriad of health and safety concerns.

In 2021 in the US, 2,590 children were killed by guns—an increase of 50% since 2019 (PEW Research Centre). In the UK, there is a 7% increase in knife-related incidents and 78 young people were killed (Benkinsella statistics). These are horrifying things to consider as a modern parent. 

As if that wasn’t enough, you’ve also got cyber bullying and the increasing prevalence of drugs to worry about. 

And then we can add more modern concerns, such as food allergies and environmental toxins, to the list of risks that parents somehow have to minimise. 

How Can I Make Parenting Easier?

 Tip 1 – Be kind to yourself

Remember you have been criticizing yourself for years and it hasn’t worked. Try approving of yourself and see what happens.

Louise L Hay

The first step is to accept that parenting is difficult. When we accept that parenting is difficult, we can set aside the unrealistic expectation that parenting will be easy. 

You will make mistakes, but always remember that you are a good parent! You are enough. Sometimes, you might miss the standards you set for yourself, but don’t beat yourself up about it. You’re a good person who had an off day, and there’s no more to it.

Make the highs of family life higher and the lows less low; celebrate your wins and catch yourself before you fall. 

Tip 2 – You can’t do it all

It takes a village to raise a child.     

African Proverb 

Raising children is not only the job of parents. Even today, many cultures and communities come together and support each other through parenthood.

Build your community. Start small. Try new clubs and groups in your neighbourhood. Spend time physically with people, face to face. Offer help looking after your friend’s children. Organise meet-ups. Find people in the same shoes as you or those who would love to help but rarely get asked. 

Tip 3 – Understand your priorities

Success is only another form of failure if we forget what our priorities should be.

Harry Lloyd

We instinctively want to say yes to everything, but the truth is there are only 24 hours in a day, and compromises are often needed. Know where your parenting priorities lie. Are your child’s extracurricular activities more important than time spent developing social skills? Is time spent working and earning more important than time at home? 

And remember that you are a top priority too. Ensure you look after yourself so you are in a fit state to care for others.

Tip 4 – Manage your expectations

Unhappiness is best defined as the difference between our talents and our expectations.

Edward de Bono

Having goals and aspirations is great, but not if they make you miserable. After processing tips 1 and 2, namely accepting that you can’t do it all and prioritising your parenting goals, set realistic expectations that are achievable. Feel happy about meeting these lower goals; anything extra is a real bonus. 

Tip 5 – Accept what you can’t control

If you focus on what you can’t control, you’re a little crazy inside, angry and depressed. If you focus most of the time on what you don’t have instead of what you do have, you’re going to be extremely unhappy.

Tony Robbins

Even your now lowered expectations might sometimes not be met. Parenting isn’t a work project with all variables under your control. Life has its own plans for you and your children. When difficult parenting times hit, think about what you can and can’t control. 

Summary of Why Parenting Is Hard in the Modern World

Parenting in the modern world is uniquely challenging despite the abundance of resources and support available. We can’t say parenting is harder than in the past, but it certainly requires a different and broader skillset that can make us feel overwhelmed and stressed. 

For me personally, it feels that:

1. There are more ways than ever to fail in our parenting role.
2. We are under more pressure than ever from society to get it right.
3. There’s less time to connect and invest in our family relationships.

To navigate these challenges, be kind to yourself, build supportive communities, set realistic expectations, and accept the limits of your control.

By focusing on these strategies, parenting can become more rewarding and less overwhelming.

Here are six insights about how you can harness the support of your extended family, even if they live afar.

How Simirity Can Help With Parenting 

Simirity is a family business with parenting challenges just like yours.

We believe that raising children is not something for parents alone. We built a private story-sharing app to help you feel closer to your extended family. You help you feel a part of each other’s lives while connecting your children with members of their family who they don’t regularly see. 

If you can strengthen the bonds between your children and their aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents, you are not alone in raising them.

Simirity App is a private storytelling app that unites your extended family in stories, even if you live apart.

Over time, your entire family can build an archive of digital stories, filled with memorable photos, videos and audio, that share your experiences with young generations.

If you would like to learn more, visit our home page.