Parents may be stressed by juggling full-time work and home life on top of worries about what the future holds for their children. (iStock)

Parents feeling anxious, overwhelmed, get advice

There are parents in Canada who feel anxious, guilty and overwhelmed and a new book aims to relieve that.

“(Parents are) are looking ahead and wondering what is this world going to be like when my child gets to be a little older,” says author and parenting columnist Ann Douglas. “Will there be decent jobs or will the robots have come for those jobs? And what about all those other things like climate change?”

Add to that the fact that in very few families is there a parent who stays at home full-time. For economic reasons, most often, both parents must work. And that makes it difficult to run a household and do things like attend meetings with teachers or take care of children who are sick and home from school.

Author Ann Douglas offers suggestions on how parents can overcome their stress and become happier.

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“I think we need to really, as a society, acknowledge the fact that our workplace structure doesn’t reflect the fact that parents are increasingly working full time,” says Douglas. “I think we need to really be honest and bring our social policy and workplace policy up to speed to reflect that reality.”

Parents could get support from each other, says author

Meanwhile, she says parents need to join forces with other parents to talk about their difficulties as opposed to putting on a brave face and simply feel they are doing it all wrong. She adds that parents should look for opportunities to pool their resources such as carpooling children to sporting or other activities.

“I think that the more we can rebuild our villages and our families and our communities the more parents will feel supported and not like parenting is this crazy individual indulgence that you are responsible for handling on your own,” says Douglas. “It’s never been that way and I really need to have a lot of talk about that right now.”

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