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Chapter 4 Parental Stress Viewed Through the Lens of Family Stress Theory
Gary W. Peterson
During the socialization process in many cultures most of us are strongly encouraged through multiple influences to value children and become parents as a fundamental experience in a person’s life. Females, in particular, are traditionally socialized to view motherhood as a primary source of life satisfaction and, more recently, men have been encouraged to identify with fatherhood more than in the past (Bigner, 2010; Holden, 2015; Marsiglio & Roy, 2013). Positive cultural images of parenthood, partly based in pronatalist and religious influences, are key sources of the pervasive idea that raising children is almost always a life-fulfilling experience.
Pronatalism is a complex set of beliefs and actions that promote childbearing and parenthood as highly desirable outcomes. These beliefs and actions are powerfully encouraged by social justifications, beliefs about personal welfare, religious views, biological reasons, and to ensure the existence of the human species (Green, 2017). Pronatalism can be promoted through public policies aimed at creating financial, legal, and social incentives such as tax incentives or government programs that reward having and caring for children. Those who support pronatalist social policies often seek ways to limit the use of birth control through abortion and contraception (Green, 2017).
An example of a conservative religious group that is also pronatalist is the Quiverfull fundamentalist sect located in the United States and to some extent internationally. The Quiverfulls are an evangelical group of Christians who promote procreation and parenthood by believing strongly that children are blessings given by God and reject all forms of contraception, including natural family planning, sterilization, and abortion (Blumberg, 2015). This sect defines any form of birth control by married couples to be wrongful disobedience to the word of God, which is captured in the Biblical phrase “Be fruitful and multiply” (Kaufmann, 2011). Happiness and reduced stress are supposed to result from parenthood, especially for Quiverfull women, when they reject any form of birth control and accept their biblically mandated roles of motherhood. Husbands are ordained by God to be leaders of patriarchal family systems and are strongly encouraged to be involved parents as strong authority figures. Quiverfulls further argue that parental stress is divinely controlled and lessened because God is all-knowing and will not give each parent or adult more children than that which they can reasonably cope (Blumberg, 2015).
Other positive and even romanticized views of parenting have their basis in secular beliefs that children almost always make parents’ lives complete and more meaningful. Raising children is seen as a source of fun, novelty, stimulation and a means of solidifying ties among parents, grandparents, kin, and parental surrogates (Cloud, 2011; Eibach & Mock, 2011). Parenthood provides a socially defined marker of mature status, a sense of permanence, and feelings of personal efficacy (Bigner, 2010; Holden, 2015). Recent evolutionary views also reinforce pronatalist perspectives by proposing that, due to natural selection processes, our genetic heritage provides a significant biological propensity for adults to assume parental roles. Although these natural tendencies to become parents can be changed, considerable effort is needed to consciously alter such predispositions (Buss, 2005). This means that pronatalist and unrealistically positive views of parenting often are dominant, while more objective assessments of the challenges and stresses involved are neglected. The purpose of this chapter is to apply concepts from family stress theory to provide a more realistic and balanced conception of parenting, which includes the pervasive and variable presence of both normative and nonnormative forms of parental stress.
The Reality of Parenthood and Parental Stress
More realistic views of parenthood often explicitly or implicitly reject the idea that motherhood and fatherhood are exclusively negative or positive experiences. Instead, newer more reality-based conceptions recognize that caring for, disciplining, and socializing children often involves a blend of positive, negative, and rather mundane experiences for parents (Basile, 2014; Cloud, 2011, Eibach & Mock, 2011). An array of common parental experiences include powerful bonds and attachments, personal fulfillment, great satisfactions from children’s achievements, and great sadness when they fail. Children and youth often contribute to parents’ daily hassles, tensions, anxiety, distress, depression, and severe trauma. Parenthood can be characterized as a deeply meaningful challenge in life but also one of the most arduous responsibilities that adults will ever face. Romanticized conceptions are increasingly seen as illusory, simplistic and distorted images of a much more complex circumstance (Cloud, 2011; Eibach & Mock, 2011).
A more realistic view of parenthood is that of a complex circumstance of life where stress is a normative experience that changes from moment to moment and over the long term. A growing segment of the U.S. population appears to be more realistic about parenthood and is choosing such alternatives as voluntary childlessness more frequently and feeling more comfortable with this child-free option. Recent evidence indicates that a child-free lifestyle often can have few psychological costs for those who make this life choice (Bures, Koropeckyj-Cox, & Loree, 2009; Kelly, 2009; Koropeckyj-Cox et al., 2007; Umberson et al., 2010).
Feminist thought also questions the “normative imperative” for women to bear children as a primary means for defining meaningful identities for themselves. Although most feminists acknowledge that motherhood can be a rewarding experience, they also argue that we should reject the idealized “cult of motherhood” and recognize that being a mother is not always the most important thing that women can do nor the only way women can be fulfilled. In the end, motherhood is more frequently viewed as a personal choice, just like many other pathways in life that are increasingly available to women (Basile, 2014; Hu, 2015).
Realistic views also are reflected in the work of economists who seek to establish the economic value of children as either assets or liabilities rather than simply viewing