"To Suffer in Paradise": Feelings Mothers Share on Portuguese Facebook Sites

Father Involvement and Maternal Stress: The Mediating Role of Coparenting

In recent years mothers have been finding themselves overwhelmed by the need to balance work and maternal duties. Father involvement in childcare has been related to a decrease in mother's burden in childcare. This association is influenced by multiple aspects, such as the way parents share parenting perspectives and views about child rearing, i.e., coparenting. Nevertheless, the mediating role of coparenting on the association between father involvement and maternal stress has been overlooked. This will be addressed by the current study. A total of 254 Portuguese married/cohabiting mothers of preschool children reported on maternal stress, father involvement in caregiving, and coparenting. Data was collected in public and private schools through questionnaires and online through advertisements in social media. Results show that greater father involvement in direct care was associated with greater maternal stress, but this direction changes when mediated by cooperative coparenting. Moreover, results suggest that when mothers perceived less conflict in coparenting, greater father (in)direct care contributed to decreased maternal stress. The current study supports the notion that fathers involvement and parent's cooperation account to mothers' wellbeing, which will improve family dynamics.

Understudied social influences on work-related and parental burnout: Social media-related emotions, comparisons, and the “do it all discrepancy”

Recent societal changes, including a global pandemic, have exacerbated experiences of and attention to burnout related to work and parenting. In the present study, we investigated how several social forces can act as demands and resources to impact work-related and parental burnout. We tested two primary hypotheses in a sample of women who responded to an online survey (N for analyses ranged from 2376 to 3525). We found that social comparisons, social media use, negative emotions when comparing oneself to others on social media, and a high do it all discrepancy (feeling one should be able to do it all more so than perceptions that one can) were correlated with higher reports of work-related and parental burnout. Alternatively, positive emotions when comparing oneself to others and social support were related to lower reports of work-related and parental burnout. The influence of social media use on burnout was mediated by the emotions experienced when comparing oneself to others on social media. Tests of moderation indicated that social comparisons had stronger relationships with burnout for those with higher expectations that they should be able to do it all verses can do it all. Tests of social support as a moderator of the relationships between social demands and burnout were largely non-significant. Based on these findings, we make practical suggestions for interventions to increase positive emotions experienced from social media use, and to mediate the do it all discrepancy by redefining expectations around “doing it all.”

Infant carrying is associated with reduced maternal repetitive negative thinking and increased maternal mental health

INTRODUCTION

Mental disorders, such as postnatal depression, are common in mothers. Repetitive negative thinking has been identified as a cognitive factor underlying the resulting difficulties in mother-infant interactions.

METHOD

The present online survey investigated associations between infant carrying (baby-wearing) and maternal repetitive negative thinking and positive mental health.

RESULTS

Repetitive negative thinking was significantly lower, and positive mental health was significantly higher while carrying compared to overall levels. There were no relations between maternal mental health and frequency of carrying. Maternal activities during carrying are portrayed.

CONCLUSION

These results are the first indication that carrying could be a low threshold, easily administered intervention method for maternal mental health problems.

A Manifest against the Homogenisation of Childbirth Experiences: Preserving Subjectiveness in a Large Dataset of the «Babies Born Better» Survey

The Babies Born Better international project aimed at surveying women’s experience in childbirth, privileging the qualitative description of this experience. It was translated into several languages and, in each country, there were different strategies for data analysis. However, analysing a qualitative dataset of this dimension, without completely transforming qualitative into quantitative data, poses practical challenges to researchers. Thus, in this article, we aim to explore the potential of using a qualitative data analysis software to avoid homogenising women’s experiences and preserve the subjectivity of responses in the analysis of open-ended questions of the B3 survey. We focused on the Portuguese version of the survey, reporting a thematic, computer assisted qualitative data analysis of 1348 responses. The software acted as a mediator of the researchers’ analysis and interpretation, beyond classical content analysis, without converting qualitative into quantitative data through plain word count. Exploring new possibilities of interpreting not only the meaning, but the relations between categories, may expand the scope of qualitative data analysis. However, we argue that the use of a software should not be overvalued, as such strategy should always remain as subsidiary to the researcher’s subjective interpretation of data.

Parental Burnout and the COVID-19 Pandemic: How Portuguese Parents Experienced Lockdown Measures

OBJECTIVE

This work aimed to analyze parental burnout (PB) and establish a comparison between the times before (Wave 1) and during (Wave 2) the COVID-19 pandemic.

BACKGROUND

The COVID-19 pandemic brought additional stress to families. The pandemic could be particularly difficult for parents experiencing parental burnout, a condition that involves four dimensions: an overwhelming sense of exhaustion, emotional distancing from the child, saturation or a loss of fulfillment with the parental role, and a sharp contrast between how parents used to be and how they see themselves now.

METHOD

A quasi-longitudinal research design was adopted, comparing two cross-sectional studies among Portuguese parents (N = 995), with an interval of 2 years between each wave of data collection. Participants were surveyed voluntarily through an online questionnaire located on the institutional web platform of the universities involved in the study. Multivariate analysis of covariance was used to take into account the associations among variables, alongside controlling the possible confounding effects.

RESULTS

Parents have overall higher parental burnout scores in Wave 2 than Wave 1, with increased exhaustion, emotional distancing, and contrast, but decreased saturation. Although parental burnout levels remain higher for mothers across the two Waves, the growth is greater for fathers than for mothers.

CONCLUSION

Reconciling childcare with paid work is a stressful and new experience for many fathers. However, results suggest that even amid a crisis, some parents had the opportunity to deeply bond with their children.

IMPLICATIONS

We expect this work to encourage stakeholders to consider proper intervention strategies to address potential parental burnout. Also, initiatives that strengthen gender equity within parenting context are needed.

Online data collection strategies used in qualitative research of the health field: a scoping review

ABSTRACT Objective: To identify and map the online data collection strategies used in qualitative researches in the health field. Methods: This is a scoping review guided by the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses extension for Scoping Reviews (PRISMA-ScR) from the Joanna Briggs Institute. We analyzed scientific articles, theses and dissertations from 12 databases. The analysis was made by descriptive statistics. Results: The final sample consisted of 121 researches. It was found that the number of publications increased sharply in the last five years, with predominance of studies from the United Kingdom. The highlight fields were psychology (28.1%), medicine (25.6%) and nursing (12.4%). The publications used 10 online data collection strategies: Online questionnaires, online forums, Facebook, websites, blogs, e-mail, online focus group, Twitter, chats, and YouTube. Conclusions: Online data collection strategies are constantly expanding and increasingly used in the health area.

Feeling Pressure to Be a Perfect Mother Relates to Parental Burnout and Career Ambitions

Background and aims: Intensive mothering norms prescribe women to be perfect mothers. Recent research has shown that women's experiences of pressure toward perfect parenting are related to higher levels of guilt and stress. The current paper follows up on this research with two aims: First, we examine how mothers regulate pressure toward perfect mothering affectively, cognitively, and behaviorally, and how such regulation may relate to parental burnout. Second, we examine how feeling pressure toward perfect mothering may spill over into mothers' work outcomes. Methods: Through Prolific Academic, an online survey was sent to fulltime working mothers in the United Kingdom and United States with at least one child living at home (N = 169). Data were analyzed using bootstrapping mediation models. Results: Feeling pressure to be a perfect mother was positively related to parental burnout, and this relation was mediated by parental stress, by a stronger cognitive prevention focus aimed at avoiding mistakes as a mother, and by higher maternal gatekeeping behaviors taking over family tasks from one's partner. Moreover, pressure toward perfect mothering had a positive direct effect on career ambitions; and a negative indirect effect, such that mothers with higher felt pressure toward perfect mothering experienced lower work-family balance, which in turn related to lower career ambitions. Conclusion: The findings suggest that intensive mothering norms might have severe costs for women's family and work outcomes, and provide insights into where to direct efforts to reduce motherhood hardships and protect women's career ambitions.