评论
打印
Today’s Parents: ‘Exhausted, Burned Out and Perpetually Behind’
如今的父母：‘疲惫，倦怠，永远落后于其他人’
In his recent advisory on parents’ mental health, the United States surgeon general, Dr. Vivek H. Murthy, said out loud what many parents might have only furtively admitted: Parenting today is too hard and stressful.
美国公共卫生局局长维韦克·H. 穆尔蒂博士最近在关于父母心理健康的报告中明确说出了一件许多父母只能偷偷承认的事情：现在养育子女太难了、压力太大了。
Of course, there have always been concerns about families’ well-being.
当然，一直以来人们都关注家庭的身心健康。
And while some of today’s parents’ fears are newer — cellphones, school shootings, fentanyl — parents have always worried about their children.
虽然如今的父母有一些新出现的担忧——手机、校园枪击事件、芬太尼药物滥用——但父母担心的一直还是他们的孩子。
So why has parental stress risen to the level of a rare surgeon general’s warning about an urgent public health issue — putting it in the same category as cigarettes and AIDS?
那么为什么父母的压力已经上升到了罕见水平，需要公共卫生局局长发出警告，称其为紧迫的公共卫生问题——将其与香烟和艾滋病归为同一类别？
It’s because today’s parents face something different and more demanding: the expectation that they spend ever more time and money educating and enriching their children.
这是因为如今的父母面临着一些不同的、要求更高的情况：他们被期望花费更多的时间和金钱来教育孩子和丰富孩子们的人生。
These pressures, researchers say, are driven in part by fears about the modern-day economy — that if parents don’t equip their children with every possible advantage, their children could fail to achieve a secure, middle-class life.
研究人员表示，这些压力部分源于对现代经济的担忧：如果父母不能为孩子提供一切可能的优势，那么他们的孩子可能无法获得稳定的中产阶级生活。
This parenting style is known as intensive parenting, as the sociologist Sharon Hays described it in the late 1990s.
这种育儿方式被称为密集型育儿，社会学家莎伦·海斯在20世纪90年代末描述了这种情况。
It involves “painstakingly and methodically cultivating children’s talents, academics and futures through everyday interactions and activities,” the sociologists Melissa Milkie and Kei Nomaguchi have written.
社会学家梅丽莎·米尔基和野间口圭写道，密集型育儿包括“通过日常互动和活动，苦心经营、有条不紊地培养孩子的才能、学业和未来”。
But we may have reached a point, the surgeon general and other experts suggest, where intensive parenting has become too intense for parents.
但是公共卫生局局长和其他专家认为，我们可能已经到了这样一个程度，即密集型育儿对父母来说已经变得过于繁重。
Parents spend greater shares of their money on their children than parents did a generation ago, especially for extracurricular activities like sports or tutoring.
父母在孩子身上花费的钱比上一代人更多，尤其是在体育或辅导等课外活动方面。
They spend more time actively engaged with them, reading or on the floor playing.
父母花更多时间积极地与孩子互动，包括阅读或在地板上玩耍。
Though rich parents are more able to make these investments, the pressure to parent like this reaches across class, research has shown.
研究表明，尽管富裕的父母更有能力进行这些投资，但这种育儿压力跨越了阶级。
Parents blame themselves when they fear they don’t measure up.
父母担心自己做得不够好时会自责。
A majority say they feel their children’s successes or failures reflect on them, and significant shares feel judged for their parenting, the Pew Research Center found.
皮尤研究中心发现，大多数父母称他们觉得孩子的成功或失败反映了他们自己的能力，而且有相当多的父母觉得自己的育儿方式被他人评判。
The surgeon general called out an intense culture of comparison, exacerbated by the internet.
公共卫生局局长指出，现在有一种强烈的攀比文化，因互联网而加剧。
“Chasing these unreasonable expectations has left many families feeling exhausted, burned out and perpetually behind,” Dr. Murthy wrote in his advisory, issued in late August.
“追求这些不合理的期望让许多家庭感到筋疲力尽、倦怠不堪、永远落后于其他人。”穆尔蒂博士在8月下旬发布的报告中写道。
Several factors led parents to feel this way.
有几个因素导致父母有这种感觉。
Scientists learned more about how early childhood experiences could affect children’s long-term outcomes, and some parents took it further, concluding that young children’s lives must be constantly optimized and stimulating.
科学家们越来越了解童年时期的经历如何影响儿童的长期发展，而一些家长则更进一步，认为儿童的生活必须不断优化和增进健康。
Many parents, even of very young children, were driven by anxiety about college, as a degree became more essential to earning a middle-class wage, and admissions became more competitive.
许多父母，甚至是孩子非常年幼的父母，都对大学感到焦虑，这是因为学位对于赚取中产阶级工资变得更加必不可少，而入学竞争也变得更加激烈。
