Grey’s Anatomy star Camilla Luddington has reacted to “horrifying” new statistics about the mental health of parents during a recent episode of her podcast.
Luddington plays Dr. Josephine “Jo” Wilson in the ABC series, having joined the cast in 2012. She hosts the podcast Call It What It Is alongside her friend and former Grey’s Anatomy star Jessica Capshaw. Capshaw became a regular on the medical drama as pediatric surgeon Arizona Robbins. She left in March 2018 after starring in 11 seasons of the hit show.
During Thursday’s episode of their show, the two friends, who are both parents, discussed the advisory released by the U.S. Surgeon General titled “Parents Under Pressure: The U.S. Surgeon General Advisory on the Mental Health and Well-Being of Parents.”
The summary reads: “This Surgeon General’s Advisory highlights the stressors that impact the mental health and well-being of parents and caregivers, the critical link between parental mental health and children’s long-term well-being, and the urgent need to better support parents, caregivers, and families.”
Newsweek emailed spokespeople for Luddington and Capshaw for comment on Friday outside of normal business hours.
“We have another episode on parenting, just the trials and tribulations, the things that come with it and how it all shakes down,” Capshaw said, introducing the podcast episode titled “Call It Short & Sweet: Parental Stress.”
“This also spurred a little bit because I sent a link to Jessica and I couldn’t believe this, the U.S. Surgeon General had issued an advisory on parent’s mental health and to sum it all up, this is what they said,” Luddington explained, to which Capshaw added: “I don’t know why it took them this long.”
Luddington then went on to read part of the advisory, which she said was “horrifying and overwhelming.”
“According to the advisory, get this, 48 percent of parents say that most days their stress is completely overwhelming compared to 26 percent of other adults without kids. Forty-eight percent of parents say they’re stressed most days is completely overwhelming, that to me, when I honestly read that I thought it was horrifying,” she shared.
Capshaw added: “Yeah because I think it’s the overwhelming part, being overwhelmed is not good for anybody, right? You’re under it, you don’t have a chance to come up for air, you’re completely submerged in whatever, you know, it is. And in this case, it’s stress, stress about parenting, stressed about your kids.”
The actor then asked if she remembered if Luddington’s parents were stressed when she was growing up, to which she said they were.
“But one thing that they’re talking about in this article is, not only, like, financial difficulties, those are conversations I heard my parents having when I was growing up, but now there’s also the social media issues with kids,” Luddington continued.
“I mean, we’ve talked about this before but that statistic sounded insane. And what they’re saying is, parents tend to focus on their kids’ health and well-being but there’s also this sense of shame and guilt sometimes around being a struggling parent, so, parents aren’t typically talking about how much they’re struggling.”
Capshaw said people are made to think that parenting should look like “no big deal,” to which her former costar agreed.
The two discussed how social media has had a negative impact on parenting, as these days, everyone has an opinion on how children should be raised.
“I think as parents now we get that, was not happening before, is so many cooks in the kitchen. Everyone has an opinion on how we should parent and it’s not just coming from like, our parents anymore, it’s coming from all the experts that you can find in two seconds on your phone,” Luddington explained.
“You’re not even looking for advice and suddenly you’re scrolling and it’s like, ‘That is why you shouldn’t feed them this or talk to them this way or mention this thing.’ So I’m to the point where I’m overly advised. But I’m—there are days where I lose my own instinct on what, like ‘Wait I do know how, this is my kid, I do know in this moment what I should be saying and doing. But there’s an overanalyzing of our parenting now that was not happening.”
Capshaw quipped: “No, I agree.”
Luddington has two children with her husband, actor Matthew Alan: Hayden and Lucas. Capshaw and her husband, entrepreneur Christopher Gavigan, share four children: Luke, Eve, Poppy and Josephine.
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