of inevitable happiness (Folbre, 2008). Economic metaphors are used to show how parents’ investments and balance sheet decisions are used to define the great variability that exists in the positive and negative stress experienced by parents from raising the young (Eibach & Mock, 2011).
A key source of parents’ stresses is their social cognitions or mental models of themselves as parents, which can lead them to evaluate the challenges and benefits of parenting in realistic ways (Eibach & Mock, 2011; Finegood, Raver, DeJoseph & Blair 2017; Vernhet et al., 2019). These mental models of parenthood are shaped by their own self-perceptions, how they perceive others (e.g., their children and youth) as well as attitudes, attributions, and expectations they have developed within particular cultural contexts. How parents appraise themselves in terms of such social meanings is important for defining the onset, continuity, intensity, and management of parental stress (Deater-Deckard, Smith, Ivy, & Petrill, 2005; Eibach & Mock, 2011). Stressful experiences occur and require management throughout the life course, often on a daily basis. Such everyday experiences of parental stress can occur when parents are fatigued by an infant’s inconsistent sleep–awake patterns, a toddler who bites a classmate in childcare, a teenage daughter who demands later curfew hours for dating, the difficult behavior of an autistic child, or when a teenage son is arrested for possession of marijuana (Rich, 2017).
Parents become stressed by difficult job circumstances that compel them to spend less positive time, be less supportive, and to use less effective discipline with their children (Kremer-Sadlik & Paugh, 2007). Stress for parents also becomes problematic when work demands are high and when parents lack feelings of self-control in their work environments (Ohu et al., 2018). In fact, parental stress can result from variability in several external circumstances including socioeconomic resources, family structural characteristics, work- and career-related factors, as well as childcare arrangements. Recent findings make clear that the multiple roles of parents often influence the degree of stress they experience within the parent–child relationship (Deater-Deckard, 2004; Rich, 2017; Umberson et al., 2010).
The point of these diverse examples is that some degree of parental stress is likely to be a universal experience for parents and their surrogates, including grandparents, aunts, uncles, stepparents, foster parents, and others who perform parental roles. The ubiquitous nature of these experiences underscores the importance of understanding how stress contributes to the effective or ineffective functioning of parents and other caregivers (Crnic et al., 2005; Crnic & Low, 2002; Hennon et al., 2008; Letiecq et al., 2008). In contrast, despite its universality, the precise manner and degree that parental stress is experienced may vary greatly across parents and depends upon many factors (Deater-Deckard, 2004). Individuals, in certain social circumstances, such as some single parents and lower SES families are more likely to experience parental stress due to limited resources of a financial, social and psychological nature (e.g., limited energy, time, and money). These deficiencies leave parents more vulnerable to typical stressors that are pervasive, vary widely in intensity, and subject to diverse circumstances (Crouter & Booth, 2004).
The primary purpose of this chapter is to interpret the research on parental stress using concepts central to family stress theory, which can provide greater understanding to this aspect of the parent–child relationship (Hennon et al., 2009; Hennon & Peterson, 2007; Hill, 1949; Lavee, 2013; McCubbin & Patterson, 1983; Patterson, 2002). Key concepts from family stress theory used to accomplish this goal are stress and crisis, stressor event (or stressor), resources, definition of the stressor (or perception), coping, and adaptation. A case study will be presented and used periodically to illustrate points in this chapter.
Addressing these issues and concepts will provide greater understanding about (a) why the experience of parental stress is so common, (b) why the degree of stress varies widely within the population of parents, (c) why parents vary in their capacities to cope with and adapt to stress, (d) what linkages exist between parental stress and the adjustment (or maladjustment) of parents and children, and (e) what strategies exist for controlling and reducing adverse parental stress.
Rethinking the research literature on parental stress in terms of family stress theory also provides a more systemic or family systems view of this area of knowledge. Previous research and the conceptualization of parental stress has been largely an application of psychological theory (Crnic & Low, 2002; Deater-Deckard, 2004) by emphasizing stress as experienced through the internal dynamics of individuals (e.g., parents) who experience psychological “distress” (or similar forms of affect such as anxiety, depression, trauma, strain, uneasiness), while limited attention has been devoted to “relationship” or “systemic” conceptions. In contrast, this chapter reinterprets parental stress more extensively as changes in systemic family relationships that encompass parent–child relationships without ignoring the individual psychological experience of stress (Lavee, 2013).
Case Study: Tiffany
Tiffany is a 40-year-old divorced mother of three, Matt (17), Joey (10), and Pamela (3), of whom she has full legal and physical custody. The children see their father only on holidays and sometimes during the summers because he lives and works inconsistently in another state. Tiffany works as a custodian 40-hours per week on the third shift (11 p.m. to 7 a.m.). She prefers the third shift because it allows her to send off the older two children to school in the mornings and be at home in the afternoons when they return. She also has a second, part-time job on weekends, just to afford necessities. Tiffany’s family is currently living in a mobile home that she is purchasing because their previous mobile home was destroyed by a flood during an extended rain storm. At the time of the flood, Tiffany and her family had to flee their home and lost most of their belongings. Tiffany often feels exhausted and overwhelmed by the accumulation of her many responsibilities, including being a single parent who has primary responsibility to provide financially for her family. Fortunately, she is able to rely on her oldest son, Matt, to care for the two younger children on the weekends when she works. Also, her great aunt is a retired special education teacher who loves to spend time with Tiffany’s children and usually comes over during the day to watch Pamela (who was diagnosed with autism recently), while Tiffany sleeps in preparation for her night shift. Tiffany has a very busy and stressful life in which she must have a lot of stamina, patience, and be very resourceful to cope with it all.
The “Systemic” Factor X: Parental Stress and Family Stress Theory
The foundation of family stress theory is provided in Reuben Hill’s (1949) classic work on the ABC-X model. Hill proposed that family crisis or stress (the X factor) results from a complex three-way combination of (1) the stressor event (the A factor), (2) the resources that families have available (the B factor), and (3) the definitions or meanings that families assign to the stressor (the C factor). Stressful or crisis situations do not result directly from the event by itself but are a product of the event, the interpretations of family members and how much family systems have abilities to cope and recover (Boss, 2002; Lavee, 2013; Patterson, 2002). In the most general sense, family stress is defined as a change or disturbance in the steady state of the family system which can have consequences that range along a continuum from very positive to very negative (Allen, 2017; Boss, 2014).
Originally, family stress theory examined only the circumstances of a “crisis” in which sudden, dramatic events had occurred (e.g., the flood that destroyed Tiffany’s previous mobile home or a when a child is suddenly diagnosed with life threatening cancer) that may seriously incapacitate the family. In contrast, more recent conceptualizations of the X factor have dealt with more normative, milder, cumulative, and long-term changes. Another increased focus for understanding family and parental stress is the systemic nature of these changes within parent-child relationships and the larger family system (Boss, 2014; Crnic et al., 2005; Crnic & Low, 2002; Hill, 1949; Lavee, 2013).
Family stress scholars view change in family systems as the stress and tension within families and parent–child relationships that varies widely (Boss, 2002, 2014; Hennon et al., 2008; Patterson, 2002). Various life transitions provide the essential ingredients for normal psychosocial development of individuals, but do so in conjunction with pressures for change in the roles and expectations that shape the larger family system. Because