00:01Liam, where are you?
00:03I'm in my house!
00:05Melbourne mum Nicole Tandy loves to play hide and seek with her four-year-old son.
00:10I'm in here!
00:11But she doesn't feel playful often enough.
00:14I don't have the village. The picture that I'm seeing on social media of people is people
00:19really loving it, thriving as a parent. And I love being a parent, but I just think, like,
00:25I feel sometimes like nobody's talking about how hard it is.
00:28Nicole is stuck in survival mode, working two jobs to make ends meet.
00:34Why are you eating that?
00:35Feeling overwhelmed means I might have less patience. I could definitely be more snappy.
00:40And then that kind of just contributes to that feeling of, like, shame and guilt.
00:44Parenting can feel like a never-ending juggle, and there's new evidence to support feelings of burnout.
00:50A survey of 10,000 Australian parents has found almost 60% are experiencing psychological distress.
00:56Lead researcher Dr Catherine Wade says loneliness, self-doubt and low self-compassion are to blame,
01:03and have been increasing for a decade.
01:05The struggle and the juggle is real. Parents are feeling under pressure.
01:09Dr Wade says her research shows the struggles are universal for mums and dads, rich and poor,
01:16and it's impacting children.
01:17They're less likely to do the sorts of parenting behaviours that we know children need to thrive.
01:24So they're more likely to get irritable with children.
01:26Demographer Dr Liz Allen says it's no surprise Australia's birth rate is at a record low.
01:32This is not an individual family problem. This is an Australian problem.
01:38And it requires a society-wide response.
01:41We require structural change, a rethink in the financial supports for families,
01:48a reconsideration of what work looks like.
01:52For mums like Nicole Tandy, the barriers mean she's happily one and done.
01:56The idea of adding another child to the family just feels impossible.
02:01She's speaking up in the hope that will lead to better support for the families of the future.
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