You wake each morning already exhausted at the thought of what to do for or with the children.” Parents who are in burnout will also feel they have lost direction, can no longer stand their “mum” or “dad” role and are only able to do the bare minimum for their children.
“Every parent feels exhausted at the end of the day, whether you have a lot of children or your children are young; and every parent feels happy once they’re in their beds at night and you have some time for you.
She had reached her limit: “I didn’t have the mental capacity to be a mum any more.” She now understands that she was suffering from parental burnout, a syndrome defined by academics as “chronic and overwhelming stress which leads parents to feel exhausted and run down by their role”.
In a busy, perfectionist world, in which parents are trying to be the very best at home, at work and within their wider families, the term has gained traction, and is the subject of academic study at the Parental Burnout Research Lab at the University of Louvain in Belgium.
Moira wondered: ‘Is there something similar to burnout, but in parents?’” Academically, the term emerged in the 1980s but had only ever been considered in families with severely ill or disabled children.
