Hilary Baude and her daughters
Saying that Hilary Baude has a few things going on is like calling Times Square sort of crowded.
Baude is a 42-year-old mother of 11- and 5-year-old girls. She’s a full-time kindergarten teacher, an Ironman athlete and marathon runner, a kidney donor, and a doctoral candidate in her dissertation year.
“Every single moment of my day is occupied with the demands of a full-time job plus the typical motherhood routines, coupled with the requirements of my personal endeavors,” Baude said, adding that her stress “often manifests itself in ways that make me not present in the moment with my children.”
“For example,” she says, “I read to my daughter every night before bed, and being a kindergarten teacher, I can read pretty much any children’s book with expression and engagement. However, I have found myself not even remembering what I had just read to her because I was thinking about the several other things I needed to do before the morning.”
Stressors and Stats
Baude’s jammed-packed life may be exceptional, but her parental stress level is not.
According to a recent advisory from U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy, 48% of parents rate their daily stress levels as completely overwhelming.
“Parental stress is both an enormously significant and under-addressed issue,” said Jen Carricato, Senior Health Education Consultant at Capital Blue Cross. “Millions of American moms and dads deal with multiple challenges every day, and it can sometimes simply be too much.
“Yet as common as it is, there has been too little in the way of organized approaches to cope with this problem on either personal or societal levels, and we need to change that.”
According to the surgeon general’s 2023 data, parents are 65% more likely to say they’ve faced high stress levels in the past month than other adults.
The main stressors cited in the advisory are:
- Financial strain, economic instability, and poverty.
- Time demands.
- Children’s health and safety.
- Parental isolation and loneliness.
- Technology and social media.
- Cultural pressures and children’s futures.
Remedies
If you’re a stressed-out parent or caregiver, remember that caring for yourself is critical to caring for your family. Advocate for the care that helps you cope.
Consider these tips:
- Nurture connections with other parents and caregivers. For example, join or create an Employee Resource Group at work that provides specific support for parents and caregivers.
- Recognize how mental health challenges manifest and seek help when needed. Explore comprehensive, affordable healthcare plans that include quality mental health coverage. Capital Blue Cross, for instance, offers a VirtualCare telehealth option and can connect members to behavioral health professionals online or by calling 866.322.1657. Some companies, including Capital, offer employee assistance programs that make it easy for employees to access mental health professionals for any issue.
- Take advantage of helpful resources. Members covered by many Capital employer plans enjoy access to the insurer’s parenting-support app, which include comprehensive maternity and family health programs that include guidance and health coaching. The app also guides employers and employees through resources such as parental-leave and return-to-work frameworks, a supporting-families checklist, and other family planning information.
Taking Steps to De-stress
What’s most important, Capital’s Carricato said, is that parents acknowledge their stress and its potential perils, and take steps to address it.
“Not only for their own sake, but also for their children’s well-being,” she said. “Because there is an obvious trickle-down – if a parent is struggling badly with stress to the point of being perpetually overwhelmed, that will inevitably carry over to the kids.”
Which brings us back to Hilary Baude, the multi-tasking, athletic, goal-oriented – and sometimes overwhelmed – supermom of two, who says that a reliable set of coping techniques and supportive resources are “key for parents as they try to navigate this chaotic, overwhelming, and stressful period of life.”
“There is no time to go searching for these supports on my own,” she says, “so having a go-to list is essential for reminding me that I am not alone in this fog of motherhood, and that my stress is normal and expected considering the demands of daily life with children.”
For more resources and stories that can help you on your health and wellness journey, visit Capital Journal by Capital Blue Cross.
