Parenting has become a daunting task for most parents in the current times. The reason why parenting has become quite challenging is due to the fact that our lifestyle is rapidly changing with newer requirements and demands being instilled into our lives. The time we live in is also to blame, since the worldwide pandemic and political turmoil in the world are changing the ways we live, work, and raise kids beyond recognition.

But since parents always want what’s best for their children, it’s hard for them to realize the world may not be as welcoming and easily navigated as it was for them. Today, parents are worried sick about their children’s prospects in an unstable world teeming with threats near and far—whole categories of jobs disappearing, global financial upheaval; terrorist attacks; refugees in misery; the environment under assault from poisons and rising temperatures.

Madeline Levine, Ph.D. a psychologist, educator and co-founder of Challenge Success, a project of the Stanford Graduate School of Education, spoke with various parents from all walks of life: public, private, liberal, conservative, rural, urban, and most everything in between. “For more than a decade I’ve been crisscrossing the United States talking about rising rates of anxiety and depression in our kids, and more recently, about parenting challenges in our rapidly changing and uncertain environment.”

What Levine found genuinely surprised her and it is the uniformity of concerns, regardless of which community she is in. “Parents want to know what to worry about and what they can safely take off their plates. They want to know how to prepare their kids to be successful in a future that seems so unpredictable. How to deal with the endless alarming news about children and teenagers,” she commented. “Most of all, they want to know how to protect their kids and ensure some stability for them in a world that seems anything but,” Levine added.

What’s interesting is that the effect of uncertainty and fear is visible not only in parents, but also in children’s changing behavior. Levine recounted that ten years ago, her young patients were in a fury about the parental yoke: ‘It’s my life! Tell my mom and dad to back off. I’ll figure it out myself!’ This is long gone in our times.

“One of the most disturbing developments in recent years has been the fading of youthful rebellion among the teenagers I see. It’s been replaced with resignation and a jaded demeanor I’d expect from folks many years older who had to work at jobs they despised in order to support a family or pay a mortgage,” Levine wrote.

“‘You don’t understand,’ these teens will say, shaking their heads. ‘There is no way out of the next three years. I’m just going to suck it up. I have no choice.’ The belief that you can’t act on your own behalf is a significant contributor to depression at any age,” Levine argues. No wonder humor has become so widespread on the internet. Today memes are no longer the thing of youth, parents are also looking for jokes to lift up their spirits and find comfort in laughter.