Parental Burnout: What to Do If You Feel Overwhelmed as a Parent

Last year, an article in the New York Times described “The Relentlessness of Modern Parenting.” That word struck me at the time and has stuck with me ever since. Speaking as a mom of two, the expectations and pressures weighing on parents can indeed feel relentless.

It’s not enough to keep our children clothed and fed, get them to school, and take the occasional family vacation. Parents today should provide optimal nutrition from birth and ensure that kids have the best educational opportunities. We’re told to enroll them in sports, extracurriculars, and tutoring to give them a competitive edge for college, then we’re obliged to volunteer as assistant coach, snack mom, and classroom parent. By the way, you’re already saving money for college, right?

Don’t forget, we’re also in charge of arranging playdates, monitoring screen time, and searching Pinterest for unique birthday party ideas and fun hijinks for the Elf on the Shelf.

No wonder parents are succumbing to burnout.

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What is Parental Burnout?

For academics, the term parental burnout has a specific meaning. In 2018, Belgian researchers developed the Parental Burnout Assessment, which comprises four factors:https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/2167702619858430‘>²

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Risk Factors for Parental Burnout

Some of the factors that make a parent more vulnerable to burnout are:

• Holding themselves to unrealistic standards
• Difficult family situations due to socioeconomic pressures, strain with co-parents, or children with special health or developmental challenges, for example
• Not wanting to be a parent in the first place
• Lack of social support, not having a “village”
• Personality traits like neuroticism, general lack of coping skills

Is Parental Burnout an Especially Modern Phenomenon?

Since research into parental burnout is fairly new, there’s no longitudinal data that speaks directly to this. Intuitively, though, it feels like parents today must experience more burnout than previous generations.

Parenting is continually evolving. Both mothers and fathers spend considerably more time interacting with their kids than they did 50 years ago.https://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2015/12/17/parenting-in-america/‘>⁴ The financial cost of raising a child continues to rise. Social media presents a host of new challenges—cyberbullying, mommy wars, and FOMO, oh my!

More to the point, parents face social pressure to be constantly “on” like never before. Sociologists refer to this as intensive parenting, so named by Sharon Hays in her 1996 book The Cultural Contradictions of Motherhood. Parents, especially mothers, are expected to invest heavily in their children, devoting nearly unlimited time, emotional energy, and money to parenting. Intensive parenting holds that parents are responsible for managing every aspect of kids’ lives, preventing all manner of potential harm, and ensuring the best possible outcomes for their children.

Clearly, these standards are unattainable for many—perhaps most—parents. In particular, wealth heavily impacts the types of opportunities parents can access for their kids and the amount of time they can devote to parenting. Yet parents across the spectrum endorse intensive parenting ideals.https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10826-019-01607-1‘>⁶ Not surprisingly, intensive parenting beliefs are associated with greater stress, depression, anxiety, and guilt for mothers.https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5298986/‘>⁸ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6019475/‘>¹⁰ That doesn’t take into account extenuating circumstances such as having a child with chronic illness, which is known to increase parental stress.https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1057/9781137304612_2‘>¹² https://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2015/12/17/parenting-in-america/‘>¹⁴ At least one study found that mothers and fathers experience parental burnout at the same rate.https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11199-020-01121-5‘>¹⁶

Are Primal Parents Especially at Risk?

I’ve been going back and forth on this. On the one hand, isolation and lack of social support are huge risk factors for burnout, and parenting outside the norm can feel lonely. Repeatedly explaining—and defending—your choices to family members, pediatricians, teachers, and fellow parents can be exhausting, especially when they challenge you and call your parenting into question.

On the other hand, Primal parents may be more comfortable with the idea of free-range parenting—exempting ourselves from the pressures of intensive parenting and opting instead for a more relaxed, less “helicopter-y” style. For these parents, I’d expect burnout to be considerably lower.

Pandemic Burnout

Not to ignore the elephant in the room, parenting through a pandemic takes the notion of parental burnout to a whole other level. It’s terribly hard to rely on our villages while adhering to social distancing guidelines. The stress of trying to keep everyone safe, working from home, and carving out time for ourselves can become overwhelming.

Ironically, though, the pandemic and lockdowns probably alleviated burnout for some parents. We’ve been forced—or rather, given the opportunity—to slow down and spend more time with our kids. In a survey conducted by the American Psychological Association at the end of May, 82 percent of parents said they were grateful for this extra time.https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2014-35159-001‘>¹⁸ So, how about we all try to stop holding ourselves, and each other, to unrealistic standards that make us miserable, okay?

Stop parenting on social media

Another big one. Don’t spend valuable time and energy curating a parenting facade on social media. More importantly, stop following people who make you feel “less than” in comparison. You don’t need to compete with other parents to see whose kid is having the most magical childhood. Keep your eyes on your own paper.

Get help

You deserve to feel good about yourself as a parent, period. If you don’t, whether it’s because you are overwhelmed or need help developing effective parenting tools, don’t wait until you’re totally underwater. Ask for help now.

Burnout isn’t an inevitable consequence of modern parenting. Many parents shield themselves from the weight of the expectations and find everyday joy in raising their small humans. It’s not easy… but nothing about parenting is, is it?

I usually end by asking for feedback, but today I’d just like to offer a virtual high-five, fist bump, or hug to my fellow parents out there. Parenting is tough, but you’re tougher! You’ve got this.

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