The kids are finally asleep, and that margin of time between their battle of bedtime and your own is finally here. If the first thing you do when you plop onto the couch is open your phone and switch between watching Instagram Reels or your TikTok feed, you’re not alone. And if your algorithm is anything like mine, between the pop-culture hot takes, funny animal videos, political travesties, and videos on how to get your neighborhood crows to bring you gifts (OK, maybe that’s just me and too niche), I’m guessing you’re also getting fed a steady stream of bite-sized parenting tips on every topic imaginable.
Your kid isn’t listening? There’s a video for that! Craving a ’90s summer for your children? Here’s a nostalgic take on what your child is missing! Any question you have—How do I get my baby to sleep through the night? How do I stop yelling at my kids? How do I get my teen off their phone?—the algorithm somehow knows (or, yikes, is listening) and there’s an endless supply of videos ready to tell you exactly what to do.
Our nervous systems were never meant to absorb as much information as we do. Our ancestors definitely weren’t processing videos of devastating events immediately followed by a parenting script that would surely keep the kids from hating them, to seeing someone’s curated capture of their beautiful vacation, all while sitting on the toilet or waiting in line for their next caffeine fix.
I’ll never forget the day in 2024 when the U.S. Surgeon General released the warning naming parental stress as an epidemic. I was in the midst of a particularly grueling “get out the door” moment with the kids, glanced at my phone, and saw the news bite. It felt validating. It even named the stressors parents experience with the digital age of social media, all of which came as no surprise to anyone. But the follow-up thought I had was “…and now what?” I was glad we were naming it, but parents needed real help.
This intensive era of parenting is pushing us to optimize everything. We are living with less community support and family nearby, and feeling the pressure to do all the things for our kids with fewer resources, in hopes that they have a better future. These ideals may have started in predominantly white upper-class communities, but pressure and expectations have trickled across neighborhoods and income brackets so that what was once an enrichment choice has become the baseline standard for what a “good” parent looks like.
We also have to acknowledge that, amidst all of this work for our children (and it is work), the labor is often not equally distributed between partners. In heterosexual partnerships, the mental tabs of optimizing all the things for our children in this intensive era are absolutely falling disproportionately on mothers. I’m talking about the mental tabs of summer camp coordination, the current social dynamics of your child’s world held in your head, and all of the appointments or paperwork or emails that need attending to. The load is heavy, it’s invisible, and from a young age, women have been trained to take on these caretaking and coordinating roles.
If you’re a mom reading this and can relate to the late-night scroll looking for answers on Instagram and TikTok, it’s not because you’re obsessive or there’s something wrong with you. It’s because you’re trying to survive under the pressure of optimizing every little thing for your kid, you’re under-resourced, and you’re looking for any bite-sized tip or script in areas that honestly require much more nuance and specialized support than a graphic or minute-long video can offer.
OK, I need to name the elephant in the room. I’m a parenting content creator on these very platforms myself. A lot of my clients find me there, and I really do try to squeeze my specialties into the trending audio format, sometimes not very successfully, if I’m being honest. Bite-size and “fit the trending audio” isn’t exactly my natural habitat. But then there was that one viral TikTok about the mental load. The one time I went viral—and immediately decided it was not for me. (The comment sections can be a scary place. As the Taylor Swift lyric goes, “To you, I can admit that I’m just too soft for all of it.”)
I’ve been on both sides—and trust me, there’s anxiety and pressure on both the creation and consumption side. Yes, there are good intentions in there, too, from the creator who wants to educate and support, and the consumer who wants to learn and grow. But the setup isn’t working for us. It’s taking up all the margins in our day, and leading to information overload and a constant monitoring of ourselves.
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Here’s what I’ve seen actually move the needle, in research and in years of sitting with moms in my therapy room (and fair warning, it’s a lot less satisfying to watch on camera): The cycle breaking doesn’t happen when someone finally finds the perfect four-step formula. It happens when they start paying attention to what’s behind their triggers, how to break cycles based on their context, and how to build connection with their kid.
So, I don’t blame us parenting content creators. I genuinely believe most of us just want to translate what we’ve learned in classrooms and research and trainings to the actual stakeholders: parents. What we all need (actually) is paid family leave, accessible childcare, and communities that share the weight of parenting, because the Surgeon General was right, and naming it isn’t enough. Parents deserve actual structural 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? Maybe talking to a therapist can be a good cycle-breaking step for you. Maybe reading one of the books from your favorite parenting educators is worth a try. Or, maybe, 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 just hard to hear yourself over all the noise.
To find a therapist, visit the Psychology Today Therapy Directory.
