One day, when I was a new mother, I was offered a choice.

I had a premature newborn, one who seemed to spit up every drop of milk he drank and who was incapable of sleeping anywhere other than in someone’s arms.

Getting enough nutrition into his tiny stomach so that he could meet his growth goals had become not just my job but a mission. I was doing something that lactation experts call “triple feeding,” which was breastfeeding as much as I could produce, then bottle feeding to make up the rest and, finally, sitting at a breast pump to encourage my body to make more milk for the next time.

Some days, I did virtually nothing other than feed my child, sleeping at times only two hours a day. I could not escape the influx of messages that “breast is best” and the crucial role breastmilk plays in a premature baby’s development, but the demands of it exhausted me to the point of collapse.

I began to understand why sleep deprivation is used as a method of torture.

My mother-in-law, who often helped, stopped by one morning and saw the sorry state I was in.

“I’ll watch the baby,” she offered. “Take a shower or a nap, or get yourself something to eat.”

Gratefully, I went upstairs, wondering which I would choose: nap, food, shower. I needed all three, but I told myself that I didn’t have time for them all.

I sat on the bed.

Nap?

Food?

Shower?

I stayed there, zombie-fied, repeating to myself, “nap, food, shower,” over and over again, like an incantation. I was frozen, too exhausted to decide, and I watched, dully, as the time ticked away on the clock. When the time was up and my mother-in-law had to leave, I stood up. I had spent the entire time sitting on the bed. I was too embarrassed to tell her that, too humiliated to ask for more time.

I felt dumb, and hopeless. But a person has only so much bandwidth, and when it is all occupied, she will shut down entirely.

I have never since been as completely paralyzed as I was that day, but I have had many moments in child-rearing of inadequacy, of confusion, of dismay.

Raising children has always been challenging, but these days, it feels particularly intense. We know more than ever about child development and the importance of early interventions. We are told that everything — the food children eat, the TV they watch, their activities, their schooling — makes a difference in the long run. Yet we are less able than ever before to pay for and provide the kinds of experiences we are told they need to thrive.

We’re responsible for so much, and the stakes couldn’t be higher.

As a result, parents, especially those with babies and young children, are doing more than ever while feeling the pains of their mistakes even more keenly. Financially, the pressure has never been greater. If you’re a parent yourself, you already know the severity of the problem, but if you’re not, here’s some good evidence.

In 2024, Dr. Vivek H. Murthy, then the U.S. surgeon general, issued an advisory called “Parents Under Pressure” about the extreme stress parents face. In it, he referenced a recent American Psychological Association study revealing that “48 percent of parents say most days, their stress is completely overwhelming, compared with 26 percent of other adults.”

A survey by Care.com published on Jan. 29 of thousands of parents with children 14 and younger found that 90% of the parents say they are losing sleep, and 71% of them are experiencing health issues, 80% are crying (a number that rises to 90% of moms) and 75% feel a sense of dread. The survey found that 29% of the parents said that they have considered killing or hurting themselves.

The reasons for the parental burnout crisis are legion, and the potential remedies seem unlikely and far-off. Meanwhile, parents are told to take time for themselves — “self-care” — while they’re also told that it’s selfish and deleterious to their children to shirk any sacrifice. Hence comes a series of unsolvable dilemmas.

As society evolves, the childfree portion of the populace loses patience with parents and their offspring, and businesses capitalize off parents’ desperation. If you don’t believe me, just try getting on a plane with two kids some time.

Conservatives like Elon Musk, Tucker Carlson and J.D. Vance like to wring their hands at the country’s declining birth rate and what they say is an imminent population collapse. But they’re unwilling (or unable) to advocate for changes that would make it easier and more desirable to parent.

If we’re to grapple with this problem, the first step is acknowledging its existence, and prioritizing solutions. It must be an apolitical mission, to lift the weight of childrearing (at least a bit) from the backs of overburdened parents, particularly from mothers.

Because many parents are like I was that day, years ago, frozen in the face of overwhelming stress. They cannot advocate for themselves.

It will be up to all of us to advocate for them, and to find a way to thaw them out — if not for the parents themselves, then for their children, and for all the children who might and could come in the future.

It’s a future that is not only theirs, but ours as well.

EDITOR’S NOTE: To learn more about Georgia Garvey, visit GeorgiaGarvey.com.