Today's parents are weaker than ever
Oh, how we love to pathologise normal life. Grief, heartbreak, misfortune or even boredom: why call these things what they are when there are exciting therapeutic terms out there? Terms that make us feel a hell of a lot better than any version – however kindly meant – of the old-school approach of 'That's life.' Terms that make us feel special.
Well, there's a new term out there, one you'd better get used to, because it's the hot new condition in town: 'parental burnout.' Two professors of psychology from the University of Louvain in Belgium, Moira Mikolajczak and Isabelle Roskam, helped define the phrase, after gathering evidence from 30,000 parents worldwide – and what I'd give to read that evidence.
Was it, for example, presented by people in diary form? If so, I'm guessing snippets might read a little like this: 'Knackered after a day out with the kids.' Yeah, that's just parenting I'm afraid. 'I sometimes fantasise about all the things I'd do if I didn't have kids.' Again, a totally normal symptom of parenting. 'I'm currently finding everything the little one does irritating.' At the risk of repeating myself: parenting.
However it was presented, Mikolajczak and her team used that evidence to break down 'parental burnout' into four stages. The first was, predictably, 'exhaustion'. Although they warn that 'this is not just fatigue that disappears after two or three good nights' sleep', but when the 'thought of what you have to do with or for your children is already exhausting.' The second occurs when you find yourself 'emotionally distancing' yourself from your child, and 'is a defence mechanism, to save the little energy you have yourself.' The third is 'loss of pleasure in parenting', and the fourth 'shame'. 'Suddenly, you've become this horrible parent who's screaming at the kids, who is impatient, who's stressed all the time.'
Not to be flippant, but if these are the criteria, then I'm fairly sure that I and every woman I know has at some point suffered from 'parental burnout'. And while I won't play down how hard parenting is (it's harder than any job I've ever done), I do feel it necessary to point out that it has always been hard, that modern parents don't get to own the parenting struggle – and could it be that we're too soft?
In a million different logistical ways, first world parenting will be far easier than ever before. We are not, by and large, scrubbing nappies, making every meal from scratch, nursing our children through outbreaks of tuberculosis or watching them die of smallpox. Yes, we have terrifying new challenges, like screens, but when people cite 'the struggle to balance increasingly busy professional lives with the pressure to achieve a perfect family life', I get impatient.
Just as we don't get to own the hardship of parenting, we are not the first generation in history to be 'busy'. We are not the first to strive for perfection, and we are certainly not the first to feel disappointed with ourselves for failing to achieve it. When it comes to turning a normal human experience into an ailment, however – a malady, syndrome, condition or affliction – we are true innovators. Trailblazers, no less.
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