The COVID-19 pandemic has been a challenge for many people, but especially for parents, a recent study has shown.
Hartwick College political science professor Laurel Elder worked with North Carolina State University political science Professor Steven Green to study how American parents were dealing during the pandemic. Their paper titled, “A Recipe for Madness: Parenthood in the Era of Covid-19,” was published in March in the Social Science Quarterly journal. They also reported their findings online during the Southern Political Science Association Conference in January.
Elder said both she and Green are parents, and they wanted to see how fellow parents were faring during the pandemic. They analyzed national surveys that included parents with children younger than 18 in their homes as well as non-parents, and concluded that parents were under more stress than non-parents, she said.
“The pandemic has been hard on everyone, but particularly hard on parents,” Elder said. “This has been shown in our empirical research.”
Elder said the pandemic brought her the challenge of teaching remotely, while also making sure her daughter was attending school virtually.
“When you have kids that are home all day, there is more housework and more dishes,” Elder said. “I was at home trying to help my daughter figure out assignments from her teacher. I felt like I spent hours helping her, while I was also trying to teach my classes.”
Elder said Hartwick College went to remote learning in March 2020, but she was fortunate to be able to teach in-person wearing masks in September 2020.
“It was challenging, and the data really showed the how and why parents were affected,” she said. “Prior to the pandemic, parents were stressed about their jobs as some jobs asked too much of them. In addition, a lot of parents want to be there for their children and spend more time with them than their parents did. Mothers, in particular, really entered the workforce a generation ago, and now there is a majority of mothers in the workforce. Parents are twisting themselves in knots trying to balance work and home. Add on the pandemic, and it’s almost an impossible situation.”
The research project investigated how American parents were faring during the pandemic and “how being a parent correlates with attitudes on issues relating to the pandemic, including those directly related to children, such as what type of schooling they believe is best, to broader issues such as level of concern about COVID and willingness to take a COVID vaccine,” the report said.
The report analyzed several studies, including an American Enterprise Institute survey of parents in the summer of 2020 and concluded that parents were suffering due to increased demands, they expressed greater worries about COVID-19 than non-parents and that mothers expressed more worries than fathers. Mothers also “reported being more overwhelmed, depressed and frustrated,” the report said.
Elder said, they issued the report to show parents that, “they’re not alone in feeling this way.”
Elder said, she was “surprised fathers and mothers both said they were affected by the pandemic. Even though women are doing more in the house, we saw a bigger change in fathers. Fathers are taking on more responsibilities in the house.”
Another surprise Elder saw in the polls was that more parents reported having COVID-19 than non-parents, however, once she thought about it, it made sense.
“It depends on the situation they’re in,” Elder said. “Some parents had family members who could take care of their children, while others had to rely on someone outside of their household to care for their children. If parents have to keep doing their jobs in order for their family to be able to eat, this exposes them to more people.”
Elder and Green have been working together for 20 years on a variety of studies including how becoming parents changes men and women’s political viewpoints, she said. She said they wanted to get their results out to the public quickly and worked together over email and phone calls to get the study worded and released by January’s conference.
The journal is allowing the study results to be read online without a subscription, Elder said. To view the entire report, visit https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/ssqu.12959
Vicky Klukkert, staff writer, can be reached at vklukkert@thedailystar.com or 607-441-7221. Follow her @DS_VickyK on Twitter.
