Parenting in a Pandemic: Work–Family Arrangements, Well‐Being, and Intimate Relationships Among Adoptive Parents

• Published date: 01 February 2021
• Author: Abbie E. Goldberg,Nora McCormick,Haylie Virginia
• Date: 01 February 2021
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/fare.12528

A E. G, N MC,  H VClark University

Parenting in a Pandemic: Work–Family

Arrangements, Well-Being, and Intimate

Relationships Among Adoptive Parents

The COVID-19 pandemic presents unforeseen

challenges to families. This mixed-methods

study aimed to address how 89 adoptive parents

(lesbian, gay, heterosexual) with school-age

children are navigating a major public health

crisis with social, economic, and mental

health consequences. Specically of interest

were adoptive parents’ worries and concerns;

work–family arrangements; and mental, physi-

cal, and relational health, in the context of the

pandemic and associated quarantine. Findings

revealed that 70% of participants had changed

work situations, with most newly working from

home just as their children initiated remote

homeschooling. The division of labor was rarely

a source of stress, although the parent who

was more involved in homeschooling sometimes

experienced resentment. Concerns related to the

pandemic included worries about health and

children’s emotional well-being and global con-

cerns such as the national economy. Almost half

reported declines in mental health (e.g., due to

the stress of working and homeschooling), with

lesbians being signicantly more likely than

others to report declines. Declines in physical

health were rarer (less than 20%), with more

than a quarter reporting improvements(e.g., due

to increased exercise). Few reported declines in

Department of Psychology, Clark University, 950 Main

Street, Worcester MA 01610 (agoldberg@clarku.edu).

KeyWords: COVID-19, families, health, mental health, rela-

tionship quality, work–family.

relationship quality, although almost a quarter

reported declines in intimacy. Findings have

implications for family and health professionals.

The COVID-19 pandemic presents signicant

challenges to adults, children, and families.

This study aimed to address how a group of

heterosexual and same-sex adoptive parents

of school-age children are navigating a public

health crisis with serious social, economic, and

mental health consequences. Of specic inter-

est was how parents perceive the COVID-19

pandemic and associated home connement

and school closures as affecting the division of

labor, their emotional and physical well-being,

and their intimate relationship quality. This

study sheds light onto how a potentially higher

needs population, such as adoptive families, is

managing the COVID-19 health crisis. Find-

ings have implications for family and health

professionals.

P’ S D  P H

C

Stress, in general, has profound implications

for mental and physical health (Toussaint

et al., 2016), as well as relationship quality

(Neff & Karney, 2009). The COVID-19 pan-

demic poses unique risks in terms of adults’

overall stress and, by extension, their mental,

physical, and relationship outcomes. Adults

may experience fear and uncertainty in response

Family Relations 70 (February 2021): 7–257

DOI:10.1111/fare.12528

8Family Relations

to the pandemic itself and also face major dis-

ruptions in their family and work lives—and,

in turn, elevated levels of stress. A study by

Qian et al. (2020), for example, documented

high levels of anxiety among adults in China

during the early part of the COVID-19 outbreak.

Other studies point to the constant caregiving of

children, lack of social support, nancial stress,

job loss, and concerns about one’s health as

key sources of anxiety during the COVID-19

pandemic (Choi et al., 2020; Lei et al., 2020;

Zhang, Wang, et al., 2020), with mental health

outcomes often being worse for those with exist-

ing vulnerabilities, including lower incomes,

less education, and poorer physical health (Lei

et al., 2020; Zhang, Wang, et al., 2020). The

physical health of adults in general also may be

compromised in the context of lockdown con-

ditions associated with COVID-19: A survey

of women in multiple countries found that they

reported an increase in daily sitting time from

5 to 8hours per day, and food consumption

and meal patterns were more unhealthy during

connement (Ammar et al., 2020).

Parents may experience greater risks to their

mental health and overall stress compared with

nonparents. A Harris Poll survey conducted on

behalf of the American Psychological Associ-

ation (APA; 2020) from April to May 2020,

which included 3,013 adults in the United States,

found that Americans were experiencing con-

siderable stress related to the coronavirus and

also reporting higher levels of general stress

than in recent years. American parents were,

on average, feeling signicantly higher levels of

stress than adults without children: Nearly half

of parents (46%) said their stress level was high,

compared with 28% of adults without children.

Notably, education and basic needs were key

pandemic-related stressors for most parents. A

total of 71% of parents said that managing dis-

tance or online learning for their children was

a signicant source of stress. Access to health

care services also was a major stressor and more

likely to be a source of stress for parents than

nonparents (66% vs. 44%).

Parents and Work–Family Stress

Parents in particular may experi-

ence work–family stress (Bianchi &

Milkie, 2010)—stress that is likely to be

elevated amid the COVID-19 pandemic due

to the likelihood of children being home and

needing additional supervision (e.g., in terms

of schoolwork); economic and job-related

stresses (e.g., feared or actual job loss); and,

for parents working at home, the elimination

of the work–home boundary. Work-related

stress, for example, negatively impedes per-

sonal well-being as well as family interactions,

affecting both intimate (Lavner & Clark, 2017)

and parent–child (Danner-Vlaardingerbroek

et al., 2013) relationships, such as via increased

reactivity and unsupportive responses (Shafer

et al., 2018). Similarly, family-related stress

may spill over into the work domain, resulting

in poorer job functioning (Hill et al., 2004).

Research on teleworking indicates how even

in the absence of children at home, working from

home does not necessarily reduce work–family

stress or overall workload. Even amid several

key advantages, such as greater control over

one’s schedule and time, telework has the poten-

tial to negatively impact parents’, especially

mothers’, work–family stress. A study of tele-

working mothers found that women often expe-

rienced tensions between caregiving and domes-

tic work (including managing children’s school

and leisure activities) and work, and often sacri-

ced leisure time to “get it all done” (Hilbrecht

et al., 2008). Teleworking during COVID-19

while parenting and homeschooling seems to

present a largely untenable situation in which

it is difcult to achieve a sense of competence

or satisfaction in any single domain, calling to

mind broader trends for working mothers in par-

ticular in which they feel guilty for not spend-

ing enough time with their children (Bianchi &

Milkie, 2010).

Indeed, mothers often perform more unpaid

work than fathers in heterosexual couples; and,

within both heterosexual and same-sex couples,

fewer work hours and more work exibility

predict greater contribution to unpaid labor

(childcare, housework), although same-sex

couples tend to divide up unpaid work more

equally and are less likely to specialize (Gold-

berg et al., 2012). Mothers also tend to be

more engaged in their children’s schooling,

including homework (Beveridge, 2005) and

teaching children, in homeschooling families

(Vigilant et al., 2014). Dissatisfaction and

perceived unfairness related to the division of

labor are related to poorer relationship quality

(Gillespie et al., 2019), as are differing percep-

tions of the division between partners (Ogolsky

et al., 2014).