Parenting During COVID‐19: A Study of Parents' Experiences Across Gender and Income Levels

• Published date: 01 December 2021
• Author: Margaret L. Kerr,Hannah F. Rasmussen,Kerrie A. Fanning,Sarah M. Braaten
• Date: 01 December 2021
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/fare.12571

M L. KUniversity of Wisconsin–Madison

H F. RUniversity of Southern California

K A. F S M. BUniversity of Wisconsin–Madison

Parenting During COVID-19:A Study of Parents’

Experiences Across Gender and Income Levels

Objective: This study describes parenting expe-

riences at the beginning of the COVID-19 pan-

demic and examines differences across parent

gender and family income level.

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic had

unprecedented impacts on families. Many par-

ents faced employment changes, including job

loss, reduced pay, and working remotely, while

simultaneously experiencing increased child-

care responsibilities due to school and childcare

closures. Research is needed to document the

ongoing impact of these changes on parents and

families.

Method: An online convenience sample of par-

ents (N=1,009) reported on their parent-

ing experiences during the beginning of the

COVID-19 pandemic (April 2020) in an online

survey.

Results: Parents reported high levels of depres-

sion, anxiety, and parental burnout. Further,

many parents reported increased negative emo-

tions, such as anger and worry, while simultane-

ously feeling closer to their children and offering

more comfort and soothing. Differences across

gender and income levels are presented.

Human Development & Family Studies, University of

Wisconsin-Madison, 4109 Nancy Nicholas Hall, 1300 Lin-

den Drive, Madison, WI 53706 (margaret.kerr@wisc.edu).

Key Words: COVID-19, emotion, fathers, mental health,

mothers, parenting.

Conclusion: These results align with other

emerging ndings of increased impacts to

mental health and well-being for parents and

children and document the disproportionate

effects on women and low-income families.

Implications: Implications include needing

additional support (e.g., nancial, caregiving)

for parents and families as we continue to face

the impacts and consequences of COVID-19.

The novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic

upended daily life, placing families in new and

particularly stressful circumstances. Parents that

remained employed were likely to be work-

ing from home while simultaneously juggling

childcare or working at an essential job and

attempting to coordinate childcare when most

childcare centers and schools were closed. Par-

ents of school-age children were likely to be

assisting with schoolwork or providing their

children’s full-time education through distance

learning (Fisher et al., 2020). Moreover, par-

ents faced concerns about the health and safety

of the entire family, their own nancial tness

and job security, and an uncertain future. In

response to these new stressors, the COVID-19

pandemic may be associated with increased risk

of negative outcomes for parents and children.

Scholars and practitioners have expressed con-

cerns about increased domestic violence or child

abuse (Brown et al., 2020), and many families

may be facing immediate and increased risk of

Family Relations 70 (December 2021): 1327–13421327

DOI:10.1111/fare.12571

1328 Family Relations

homelessness (Rogers & Power, 2020). How-

ever,unforeseen positive consequences may also

arise from the pandemic (Harkins, 2020). Dur-

ing safer-at-home orders, families were likely to

be spending more time at home together, slow-

ing the pace of their day-to-day activities, and

engaging in more quality time with one another.

Family system theorists view the family as an

organized collection of relationships whereby

individuals and families are interconnected,

mutually inuenced, and embedded in a contex-

tual system that has implications for behavior,

health, and development of all family members

(Cox & Paley, 1997). Numerous studies have

documented the pervasive impact of stress on

the family system, with parenting stress affect-

ing parent–child interactions, and concurrently

children’s stress impacting parents’ stress, sense

of parenting competence, and overall well-being

(Neece et al., 2012; Nelson, et al., 2009). Given

this inherent interdependence described in

family system theory, the current study uses

this framework to examine the experiences of

parents and their children during the beginning

of the COVID-19 pandemic. We examine par-

ents’ mental health, emotions, behaviors, and

childcare responsibilities, as well as perceptions

of their children’s stress, and compare these

experiences across parent gender and family

income. The focus on parents’ experiences is

a critical rst step in understanding the impact

of COVID-19 on the larger family dynamic,

including potential spillover effects on children.

T P I

 S--H O

A recent review examining the impacts of pre-

vious quarantines and “safer-at-home” orders

associated with infectious disease outbreaks

(e.g., SARS, H1N1 inuenza, Ebola) found

negative psychological effects such as anger,

frustration, and even posttraumatic stress symp-

toms, especially when the quarantine lasted

longer than 10days (Brooks et al., 2020).

Moreover, quarantined parents, and mothers

in particular, were signicantly more likely to

report posttraumatic stress symptoms compared

with those who did not quarantine (Sprang

& Silman, 2013). Emerging research on the

COVID-19 pandemic’s safer-at-home orders

has shown similar impacts (e.g., Gassman-Pines

et al., 2020; Patrick et al., 2020). Adults

reported high levels of pandemic-related distress

(Keeter, 2020), with parents reporting higher

levels than adults without children (American

Psychological Association [APA], 2020). Par-

ents reported experiencing increased stress

since school closures began (Hiraoka &

Tomoda, 2020), identifying managing dis-

tance or online learning and worries about

the impact on their children’s development as

signicant sources of stress (APA, 2020).

P’ M H

It is well-established that parents’ mental

health has an impact on parenting behavior and

child development. Both maternal and paternal

depression have been associated with negative

parenting behaviors (e.g., irritability, hostility,

and disengaged parenting; Lovejoy et al., 2000;

Wilson & Durbin, 2010), and parents’ anxi-

ety has been associated with controlling and

intrusive parenting (Bögels & Brechman-

Toussaint, 2006; Borelli et al., 2018). Mothers

with anxiety and depression are also likely to

experience greater stress in their parenting role

(Cornish et al., 2006; Crugnola et al., 2016).

When parents are distressed for extended

periods of time, they may experience parental

burnout, a syndrome characterized by over-

whelming exhaustion, loss of accomplishment

in one’s parenting role, and emotional distancing

from one’s children (Mikolajczak et al., 2018b;

Roskam et al., 2017, 2018). Depending on the

parents sampled, parental burnout occurs in

8% to 36% of parents (Lindström et al., 2011;

Roskam et al., 2017). Parental burnout has

detrimental consequences for both parents and

children—it is associated with poorer men-

tal and physical health in parents and higher

rates of child abuse and neglect (Mikolajczak

et al., 2018a; Roskam et al., 2018). Given that

COVID-19 pandemic has inuenced parents’

responsibilities, parenting stress, and resources,

it is likely that some parents have had and

continue to experience symptoms of parental

burnout.

P’ E  B

It is important to attend to parents’ emotions

as they are closely linked to parenting behav-

iors and parent–child relationship quality. A

large meta-analysis demonstrated that negative

emotions were associated with harsher disci-

pline and positive emotions were associated with