At the origin of parental burnout: multiple societal evolutions
At all times, being a parent has been a source of stress. Indeed, many parents experience stress specifically related to their role as parents: keeping their children alive, feeding them, providing them with shelter, educating them and giving them the keys to function in a social environment.
Being a parent in the twenty-first century has nothing to do compared to what previous generations have experienced. Important sociological changes in recent decades have made parenting considerably more complex and have increased the pressure on parents.
First of all, as women entered the labour market, men had to become involved in the care and education of children. This raised the issue of co-parenting within families. Parents now have to share and adapt their respective roles according to the age of the children, evolving gender norms, and expectations within each family.
Furthermore, with the development of contraception and assisted reproductive technologies, the child has become the result of a real choice, and is all the more invested by parents.
Psychology itself is responsible for these increased pressures on parents. Psychologists have taken a great interest in child psychology, especially since Spitz’s work on hospitalism. This has given great impetus to attachment theories. At the same time, parents have been given many injunctions about their educational behaviour, with the aim of making their children healthy, happy, fulfilled beings, … As a result, many books have flourished on how to raise children, and, above all, on the mistakes to avoid.
Moreover, the Convention on the Rights of the Child, ratified on 20 November 1989, gave the child a new status, that of a legal being whose interest is sovereign. Parents, for their part, became the guarantors of their child’s interests and must therefore do their very best to achieve this objective.
Finally, the rise of individualistic values sounded the death knell for parental carelessness. Parents, who had been encouraged to focus on themselves and listen to their own aspirations, now find themselves caught between a rock and a hard place ; they are forced to put their child’s needs first, while at the same time taking into account their own individual needs.
Today, we can see that more and more parents, caught up in contradictory injunctions, are experiencing negative emotions that are incompatible with societal representations of parenthood, tinged with happiness and positive emotions.
Parenting can be a stressful experience
In most cultures, becoming a parent is synonymous with positive emotions. However, it is also a source of stress and concern. Several types of so-called ordinary stressors have thus been identified, relating to:
- The transition to parenthood,
- Expectations that parents may have about their children,
- The immaturity of children, and the need for their parents to look after their needs and safety,
- Projections of what is considered good for children,
- The demands that the parent may have on himself or herself,
- The specific needs of the child (child with chronic illness, disability, learning difficulties or behavioural problems).
All this makes child raising both complex and stressful. Fortunately, for most parents, the stress is more than compensated for by many events that generate positive emotions.
From stress to burnout
The effects of stress have been well documented in the professional world. The modeling of professional burnout has made it possible to understand its mechanisms. It turns out that the problem is not related to the stressors, but rather to the lack of resources to deal with them. For instance, a teacher who is assigned more children, but who has the help of a nursery assistant to help her manage things in the classroom, is unlikely to experience burnout. Here, stress is compensated for by a resource.
In the professional world, the effects of an imbalance between stress and resources have been called “burnout”, referring to being literally “consumed”. The concept first appeared in the 1960s, with the work of Freudenberg. However, Maaslach was the one who devoted a great deal of scientific work to the study of occupational burnout. In particular, she observed caregivers who became detached from their patients and noticed that they were exhausted, no longer did their job well, or even became cynical.
The burnout syndrome has been conceptualised from three dimensions: intense exhaustion, depersonalisation and loss of efficiency.
How does parental burnout differ from occupational burnout? What are its symptoms?
The use of the term burnout is more recent in the field of parenting. Pelsma, in 1989, showed that two symptoms were common to professional burnout and parental burnout: exhaustion and loss of efficiency. A few years later, parental burnout is described by four main symptoms:
- An intense feeling of physical and mental exhaustion: the parent no longer has the energy to take care of their children, they are exhausted by their parental role.
- Emotional distancing: the parent no longer has the strength to become emotionally involved in the lives of his or her children. Parenthood is experienced as a constraint and is not anymore a source of fulfilment.
- Loss of pleasure: the parent no longer feels pleasure in being with his or her children; moments of shared pleasure disappear.
- Contrast: there is a break between the former parent and the current parent.
The antecedents of parental burnout: from stress to burnout
As in the professional context, parental burnout results from a mismatch between parenting-related demands (including parent’s expectations concerning themselves and their responsibilities as parents) and the availability of resources to meet those demands and expectations. Five categories of factors have been identified:
- Socio-demographic factors (e.g. the financial situation, the housing surface, the number of children, etc.).
- Situational factors (e.g. the fact of having a sick or disabled child).
- Personal factors (e.g. the parent’s emotional skills, the tendency to perfectionism).
- Educational factors (e.g. the parent’s educational coherence).
- Family factors (e.g. co-parenting, family routines).
Depending on the balance between the quantity and intensity of stressors and resources, the parent’s scale will tilt in the right direction, or in the wrong direction.
The consequences of parental burnout
Parental burnout shows a range of consequences with various degrees of severity for both parent and child.
On the parent’s side, there is an increase in irritability and somatic complaints, the onset or aggravation of addictive behaviours (e.g. alcohol consumption), sleep disorders and ideas of running away or suicide. Parental burnout can also interfere with the parents’ conjugal relationship (e.g. increased conflicts, adulterous ideas and behaviour).
On the child’s side, research suggests that parents who experience burnout are more likely to engage in child abuse and neglect (educational, emotional, physical) and even violence (verbal, physical, psychological). More seriously, the parents in burnout seem not to be able to perceive the repercussions of burnout on their child. They minimise their child’s suffering and have trouble to establish the link between burnout and its consequences on their child. Finally, the child may experience increased anxiety, somatic disorders, difficulties at school and sleep disturbances.
All these consequences mean that the prevention of parental burnout should be considered a real challenge for society, especially in the current context of the COVID-19 pandemic.
It is therefore important for professionals to train themselves in order to be able to diagnose the parents as early as possible and provide them with the best possible care.
Useful words
- Gender : genre
- To give impetus to : donner de l’élan à
- Shelter : abri
- To be caught between a rock and a hard place : être pris entre le marteau et l’enclume
- To tip in : basculer
by Magali Leger
Bibliography
Allenou, S. (2012). Mère épuisée: témoignage. Marabout.
Brianda, M. E., Roskam, I., & Mikolajczak, M. (2019). Comment traiter le burn out parental?: Manuel d’intervention clinique. De Boeck Supérieur.
Griffith, A. K. (2020). Parental burnout and child maltreatment during the COVID-19 pandemic. Journal of family violence, 1-7. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10896-020-00172-2
Maslach, C., & Leiter, M. P. (2011). Burn-out: le syndrome d’épuisement professionnel. Les arènes.
Roskam, I., & Mikolajczak, M. (2018). Le burn-out parental: Comprendre, diagnostiquer et prendre en charge. De Boeck Superieur. Sánchez-Rodríguez, R., Perier, S., Callahan, S., & Séjourné, N. (2019). Revue de la littérature relative au burnout parental [Review of the change in the literature on parental burnout]. Canadian Psychology/Psychologie canadienne, 60(2), 77–89. https://doi.org/10.1037/cap0000168