Is parenting really harder these days, or is it just that everything else is?
It's not the kids. It's the apps, the sports, the internet and the overall state of the world
A generation ago, kids would roll their eyes as their parents described how, in their day, they had to walk uphill — both ways! In the snow! — to school.
Well, now those kids might be parents themselves, perhaps thinking that uphill both ways sounds pretty great compared to their mornings of:
- Exhaustion from setting an alarm for midnight just to get their kids into swimming lessons;
- Realizing little William managed to bypass the parental controls on Roblox;
- Checking the Class Dojo app, which reminded them they need to go into the Lunchbox app to sign up for Pizza Day and the class Google Drive to select a "read to the class" slot in the middle of their workday;
- Hoping they won't get arrested if they let the kids play out front alone for five minutes while they look for the keys to their Tesla (which, yes, they now regret, but who can afford a new car in this economy?).
If you feel like parenting is harder today than it used to be, you're far from alone. But given the state of, well, everything these days, some people are wondering if it's really the parenting that's so challenging, or if we're just raising kids in an impossibly intense time.
"The hardest part about parenting in 2025 is that the parenting part isn't really that hard. It's everything else," said TikToker Sarah Biggers-Stewart in a video she posted in February with 70,000 views so far.
"The amount of participation and engagement of parents expected in literally everything related to raising kids is inane."
On the one hand, parents today benefit from modern inventions, technologies and conveniences their own parents had to do without. But that also made parts of life a lot simpler to manage.
And nothing illustrates this more perfectly, says Biggers-Stewart, than how much harder and more complicated it has become just to take your children to the most magical place on earth: Disney World.
Before we lose you, keep in mind that for our purposes, Disney is a metaphor for modern parenting, and not an example of the worst hardship a person can experience.
But if this is a trip you've taken in recent years, you know one does not just show up to Disney. Meals are often booked months in advance. Time slots for attractions are coveted. One must learn their way around Lightning Lanes, Genie+, rope drop strategies, early entry, PhotoPass and the My Disney Experience app.
As Biggers-Stewart explains, it now requires a "multi-month booking process ... just in order to make sure that we can have a normal Disney trip."
"Extrapolate that to literally everything related to parenting and you start to understand how big of a f---ing lift it is now."
The 'intensification of parenting' is real
Modern parenting has become so intense that researchers now have a term for it: the intensification of parenting.
As examples, data shows parents today spend more time with their children than in previous generations, and the predominant modern parenting style centres on acknowledging a child's feelings — leaving many parents feeling burned out.
Children's sports are more competitive and demanding, and child care has become so coveted that parents are making daycare deposits in their first trimester and booking summer camps in January.
"I can't even take my kids to free public library programs without the sign-up being weeks in advance. If you miss it, it's full," a parent commented on Biggers-Stewart's video.
Meanwhile, parents are encouraged to become engaged and involved in their kids' schools even while more women are working full time.
There's the stress of policing our children's online activities in an increasingly digital and AI-driven world. And in the outside world, there's another term: "safetyism," used in parenting literature to describe the modern culture of overprotecting children through methods like softer, lower playgrounds and constant hovering.
And then — then! — throw in the current state of the world, like the anxiety, dread and fears many are feeling about the Canada-U.S. trade war, U.S. President Donald Trump's policies and what seems like an unending onslaught of bad news.
Crysta Balis told CBC Ottawa this week she has anxiety for her kids' future, saying in a protest outside the U.S. embassy she's fearful that "they've lived the best, freest years of their lives so far, and there's going to be a lot of change there."
U.S. writer and political commentator Elie Mystal wrote in The Nation last month that parenting in the Trump 2.0 era is like trying to prepare children for a dystopian future and giving them the tools to survive.
"I must figure out how to parent my children, my Black children, through this nightmare," he wrote.
'Nothing is like that in 2025. Nothing.'
Last September, the U.S. surgeon general issued a public health advisory about the impact of modern stresses on parents' mental health, saying today's parents face unique challenges, like social media and the youth mental health crisis.
Circling back to the Disney metaphor, in her viral video, Biggers-Stewart says she's had multiple moments in the process of planning her trip when she had to wonder if maybe it really was always this hard for parents. Maybe she just didn't realize how much effort it took when she was a child herself.
"But no. My parents have said, 'No, you could just show up to Disney. You just showed up, booked your hotel, bought your ticket and everything else worked out,'" she said.
"Nothing is like that in 2025. Nothing. Everything is the most intense version that requires the most effort and participation. That is why parents in 2025 are burned the f--k out."
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