evidence: Mental health conditions can affect any person regardless of gender, age, health status and income, and that includes people who have or want to have children of their own. Parenting is both greatly rewarding and a daunting task for anyone, but it poses some particular challenges for people with a mental health condition. Here, you will find information about parenting and mental illness, where to go to get help for you and your family, and how to support yourself and your children. [...] - Poverty - Occupational or marital difficulties - Poor parent-child communication - Parent's co-occurring substance abuse disorder - Openly aggressive or hostile behavior by a parent - Single-parent families [...] 1. Joanne Nicholson, Elaine Sweeny, and Jeffrey Geller. Mothers With Mental Illness: I. The Competing Demands of Parenting and Living With Mental Illness. Psychiatric Services. May 1998. Vol. 49. No. 5.