Rachel Stern's experience with parental burnout highlights the pressures faced by modern parents. After feeling overwhelmed by her responsibilities, she recognized her mental health strain and the impact on her family. The phenomenon leads to severe exhaustion and poses risks such as thoughts of suicide. Academic research, including a large-scale study from the University of Louvain, aims to assess these feelings through a structured questionnaire, driving awareness of parental burnout as a serious condition deserving attention rather than being seen as a simple consequence of achieving work-life balance.
I cried like someone had died, Rachel Stern says of the day things unravelled at home. I thought: I can't do this any more.
Stern was working condensed, full-time hours in a new job as a brand strategist. The family had moved cities during the pandemic, bought and renovated a house, and her eldest had started school four months earlier.
At its worst, it can give rise to thoughts of suicide more so, say researchers, than in cases of job burnout or depression.
Is parental burnout an inevitable symptom of the impossibility of doing and having it all or a worrying condition we should be taking more seriously?
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