The Lockdown: A Blessing for Some Parents, a Nightmare for Others!

• In Event: Parenting in a Pandemic World: A Spotlight on Parental Burnout

Abstract

Introduction: The lockdown drastically increased the interest for parental burnout in the media and the public alike, suggesting that most parents were exhausted during the lockdown. However, recent findings show that, on average, the prevalence of parental burnout did not drastically increase during the lockdown. In some countries like Belgium, it even remained unchanged. This “group level” stability may however hide intraindividual disparities. Is it possible that the lockdown was a blessing for some parents and a nightmare for others? In the affirmative, what are the factors that predict intraindividual changes (for the best or for the worse)?
Objective: The current research aims at testing the effect of (i) sociodemographic factors (e.g. age of the children, educational level), (ii) factors associated to lockdown (e.g. management of schoolwork during lockdown, financial impact of the health crisis on family incomes, change in the division of parenting tasks between partners), on parental burnout.
Method: Data were collected in Belgium (n = 1044, 90% mothers) and Portugal (n = 573, 81% mothers) during European lockdown, i.e. March to May 2020. Parents answered online questionnaires measuring sociodemographic factors and lockdown factors, and change in parental burnout (i.e. whether parents felt more, less or the same level of parental burnout symptoms during lockdown than before).
Results and Discussion: The health crisis and lockdown did not impact all parents in the same way: it was a blessing for about 25% of parents but a nightmare for about 15% others. Even if their effect was relatively small, some sociodemographic and lockdown factors deserved attention: parents having children who need constant attention, parents who suffer(ed) from physical or mental health problem, those locked down for a higher number of days, those who teleworked especially with higher workload, parents who used childcare services before lockdown, and those having no garden or outdoor places for them and their children to play during lockdown, reported an increase in parental burnout symptoms. Interestingly however, these situational factors explained all together only 12% of intra-individual changes in parental burnout suggesting that other individual or family factors should operate.

Authors

• Maria Filomena Ribeiro da Fonseca Gaspar, Universidade de Coimbra (UC)
  Presenting Author

• Anne-Marie Fontaine, University of Porto
  Non-Presenting Author

• Moïra Mikolajczak, UCLouvain
  Non-Presenting Author

• Isabelle Roskam, UCLouvain
  Non-Presenting Author