In this society, we expect people to be productive 100% of the time, even sleeping. We have watches that monitor our sleep and tell us how good of a job we did or didn’t do sleeping. If mental health truly mattered to people, things would change. It’s about the rich getting richer in this society though. Do you see CEO’s of companies working as hard as their employees under them? No. You see vacations and golf outings and “business” dinners and drinks. While their employees can’t take time off if they are sick for fear of lost wages. For some reason, everyone is good with this system. Those CEO’s worked hard to get where they are…well…..for the most part, no. For the most part, their parents worked hard and they were handed things on silver platters. For the most part, they already had enough money to take risks and it didn’t matter if that risk didn’t pay off because there was more money. Society reveres these spoiled adults and wants to be like them. Here’s the hard truth, 90% of people will not be like them. According to CNBC, “The top 1% owned a record 32.3% of the nation’s wealth as of the end of 2021, data show. The share of wealth held by the bottom 90% of Americans, likewise, has declined slightly since before the pandemic, from 30.5% to 30.2%.” What’s this got to do with mental health? Everything.
Money is the largest stressor for Americans. It ranges from, “Will I be able to afford food and rent?” to “How will we pay for college?” and everything in between, including mental health care. Have you ever noticed that most doctors work bankers’ hours? This means for basic, people need to miss work, therefore losing pay. Even with “good” insurance, every time you step foot through the door for a doctor, it costs money. And we’re just talking physical care. Mental health is a “specialty” which means that co-pays are higher. What that breaks down to for an average Joe with above average that they pay out the nose for is that when you walk in to see someone regarding your mental health, you’re paying about $50 each time along with missing pay. Then, of course, they want to see you every week, or maybe more.
How does this relate to children/teenagers? Even though it is this difficult for adults, it’s even harder for kids. In this day and age, kids are expected to be involved in all sorts of activities. The busier, the better. In fact, they need to be the best, so they will do these activities year round, 3-5 days a week on average. They are expected to be social, so they need to maintain and build friendships. When old enough, they are expected to get jobs. They are expected to get good grades. Children go to school about 7 hours a day, 5 days week. High schoolers get 3-4 hours of homework a night. Those is harder classes, get more. My son has days where he comes home from 7 hours or more at school (if he had club meetings) and does homework for the next 7 hours. That’s a 14 hour day. Adults are not expected to work 14 hour days. On average, my son, who is in all advanced classes, has 5 hours of homework a night. He also works. He would like to go to sparring class at karate, but normally does not have time due to homework. One of his best friends averages 7 hours of homework a night due to his class load. Every after school activity thinks they are the only activity these kids have going on. Band practices a ridiculous amount, including all summer. These kids are expected to do more than adults, all while their brains are still developing and they are trying to navigate the world. If mental health actually mattered, my kids wouldn’t be terrified to miss a day of school because it would be too hard to make up the work. There are no longer books that kids can go back to and read what they missed. All the information is given to them in class which means if you miss what a teacher said, you could miss a huge chunk of material and be lost. Teachers have so many additional responsibilities and are burnt out, that they don’t care to take the time to help students who have missed class. If mental health really mattered, the district wouldn’t send out little newsletters to parents saying sleep is important. They would change things at the building level so that kids didn’t have crazy amounts of homework and didn’t have practices for hours upon hours each night.
It’s all about appearances and not about the actual issue. Everyone wants to look like they are “doing something” to help people’s mental health when what people really need is a break. People need time. In this country, we focus so much more on productivity than health of any sort. It’s a sad world that we live in where teens are burnt out before even entering the workforce. People wonder why there is such poor work ethic among the younger generations. It’s because they are tired. I would love to say that we can make a change, but we can’t. It’s the 10% of people holding all the wealth that have the power to make the changes. In the educational system, it’s the same. Change comes from the top down. If all students protested and didn’t do homework, the only thing to change would be their grades, which would drop. People in power need to actually care about others rather than appearances and money.
Until this country actually makes a real change, I’ll keep being open to my kids taking time off from school when they need to and feel comfortable doing so, not filling our schedules so full we don’t have time to just be, and making sure we take time connect with not only each other but nature as well, because nature heals our souls. I’m thankful Spring Break is next week because we could all use a little extra time off.