Yes and no….alot of it depends on socioeconomic circumstances. But assuming we are comparing upper middle class American me, to my upper middle class American parents, I say some things are harder while some things are easier.
Psychological stress of being a “good parent” – Much worse today. With all the new public health and educational achievements over the years, there are more rules and must-dos for parents nowadays. For example, in the early 80s, according to my mom, no one cared if you didn’t or couldn’t breastfeed. If your baby struggled, you just gave a bottle – no big deal. Nowadays, breastfeeding has transformed from a “nice to have” or “try it” to a “must do” according to our pub health guidelines, and parents who fail to achieve breastfeeding perfection (aka: exclusive, extended >6mo) are often viewed as subpar parents – failures. Same goes for other things like eating organic, avoiding sugar, no screen time, pressure to put kids in the best schools, etc. There are just more things to beat yourself up over because we have more options, more data, more guidelines, etc. If you have a kid with a disability, you have access to much better treatment options and screening, but that comes with the pressure to push yourself and your kid to the max with special schools, tutors, early intervention in order to try to give them the best opportunities (whereas before people used to just accept that some people were going to be pretty limited).
Safety – Better today – Even though we probably have more stress related to our kids’ health and safety today due to all the new guidelines/rules, overall things are a lot safer for kids nowadays. Kids are far, far safer thanks to better carseats and guidelines on their use, child proofing and fall/accident awareness and prevention, widespread availability of first aid/cpr classes, etc. SIDS rates dropped dramatically once we realized that we could prevent the majority of cases by putting kids to sleep on their backs, in their own cribs, and without any bedding or stuffed animals. So, while I may be way more stressed about following those safe sleep rules, my kid is far less likely to die from accidental sleep death than I was as a kid in the early 80s, when parents weren’t scared about sleep safety but routinely put babies in dangerous sleep environments. I’d rather be worried about safe sleep than have a kid at risk for accidental death. We have some unique safety concerns that are on the rise, like mass shootings, but overall your kid is far more likely to make it to adulthood without dying from an accident than ever before.
Health – Better today – Overall, human health has continued to improve in terms of the major killers/problems for children, like vaccine preventable illness, water quality problems, etc. My mom battled chickenpox with all her kids, but most kids don’t get chickenpox today thanks to the vaccine. And while more kids are obese and diabetic today, that epidemic really took off when I was a kid. In the 80s, no one knew how bad soda and sugar were for you. Now we know and we have health guidelines and information so that parents with the knowledge and resources can keep their kids safe from those long term problems as well. Upper middle class parents today who are having their babies know all about the importance of avoiding gestational diabetes, avoiding sugar and too much processed foods in infancy/toddlerhood, etc. My parents didn’t know that. We also have much better environmental regulations today - they are far, far from perfect, but they are a crapload better than what they used to be. The water my daughter drinks is cleaner, the air is cleaner, and her toys and environment far less likely to be polluted by lead or other heavy metals. Apparently the mid 1900s were disgusting in terms of pollution and enviro toxins. So while my peer group panics about organic and gmos (that parenting stress) in reality our kids are much safer from pollutants now than they were 3-4 decades ago.
In short – for us in the privileged lot, as we have done away with the most pressing concerns of parenting that have consumed parents for centuries (accidents/disease/violence/access to enough food/decent education/etc), they have been replaced by more mental health woes like stress and “higher level” concerns like bullying, self esteem, career trajectory, perfecting one’s diet to avoid disease, etc. In many ways, the fact that many of us have moved on to these more abstract issues shows that indeed, parenting overall has gotten easier over time for huge swaths of the population. But that does not mean it is EASY. The challenges are just different for many of us now.