What is ‘parental burnout’?
Understand how it presents and why it needs urgent attention.
Parental burnout is overwhelming chronic exhaustion related to the parenting role, causing loss of fulfilment in parenting and emotional detachment from your children. According to a 2025 study in the Journal of Pediatric Health Care1, it is a growing problem in a fast-paced world and affects up to 65 percent of working parents.
Unlike postnatal depression, which touches all aspects of life (work, social, relationships), and usually appears within the first year of birth, parental burnout centres only on parental demands, and can occur at any stage of parenting (though it is often linked to long-term chronic stress), says Dr Caron Bustin, a Durban child and education psychologist and past teacher and principal.
Whereas with postnatal depression you feel low, sad or helpless in general and unable to bond with your baby, and may have thoughts of self-harm, with parental burnout you feel trapped by parental demands and empty – ‘done’ with parenting. It often brings feelings of shame and failure and can lead to irritability, even aggression, towards your children, or their neglect. This makes it essential to recognise it early and get help.
Spot the signs of parental burnout
• Extreme physical exhaustion, making simple daily chores feel overwhelming; some parents also experience headaches, neckache or dizziness from tension, and insomnia, and become prone to illness.
• Diminished cognitive functioning and reduced creativity.
• Feeling emotionally distant from your children, with numbness, listlessness, apathy, procrastination, forgetfulness, low empathy, and withdrawal – “going through the motions of parenting but not engaging in a meaningful way”, says Dr Bustin.
• Feeling frustrated and irritated, losing patience and snapping at children or your partner over minor things.
• Losing the sense of joy in parenting and seeing it as a burden.
• Neglecting yourself, losing motivation to exercise, eat healthily or pursue pastimes you once enjoyed.
• Becoming increasingly anxious and depressed, which if not addressed can result in serious mental health challenges.
Understand the causes of parentel burnout
“The causes and contributing factors of burnout can be extrinsic (from outside us), such as the daily news and world politics, or intrinsic (a natural part of us), such as our own perfectionistic perceptions of the kind of parent we have created mentally,” says Dr Bustin. Among the most common of causes parental burnout are loss of work-life balance; financial stress; lack of support systems such as grandparents (who today increasingly work themselves, or live far away); and unrealistic expectations, given the perfect, airbrushed and curated pictures of parenting on social media.
At the biological level, parental burnout leads to a dysregulation in the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis (a neuroendocrine system managing stress responses, mood, and energy usage), notes a 2025 study in the journal BMC Public Health2. This is likely linked to sleep difficulties experienced by burnt-out parents and may also be associated with the rise in child-directed aggression.
A 2025 study in the journal Healthcare noted that while someone experiencing workplace burnout can often leave a toxic work environment without irreversible consequences, “parental burnout does not offer such an exit without severe repercussions for the family and children”. It concluded that it is crucial to raise public awareness about parental burnout, so parents “understand that the phenomenon exists and that anyone can fall victim,” and seek help.
Take steps to manage burnout
“Burnout has a few stages,” says Dr Bustin. “Try to recognise it in the honeymoon stage: feeling energised and ignoring stress or fatigue, making increased errors – before the chronic signs emerge. Pause and be silent. Engage with the reality of life’s inherent uncertainty and of how to be a ‘good enough parent’.”
• Set boundaries and practise self-care. Remind yourself that caring for yourself is as important as caring for your children, and you need to ‘put your oxygen mask on’ before you can help them.
• Start by prioritising sleep. Improve your sleep hygiene – establish consistent bedtimes, avoid caffeine and sugar after 2pm and screens 60 minutes before turning in, and keep your room cool, dark and quiet.
• Schedule short breaks, however pressured you are. “Take a break from your phone and computer, have a cup of tea, breathe deeply or meditate for 10 minutes, or go for a brisk walk, run or listen to music or swim,” says Dr Bustin.
• “Try to activate the parasympathetic (‘rest and digest’) nervous system, and not always the sympathetic system which triggers the fight, flight or freeze mode,” she adds. Activating the parasympathetic nervous system involves stimulating the vagus nerve (which carries signals between your brain, heart and digestive system), to counteract stress. Ways include deep diaphragmatic breathing, mindfulness, yoga, cold exposure (such as cold showers), and gentle self-massage. These reduce heart rate and blood pressure, fostering a state of calm.
• Reach out for help, hard as it can be when you fear judgement. Ask a friend to babysit, or speak to a professional counsellor. Your healthcare provider can refer you, or call the South African Depression and Anxiety Group (sadag.org; 0800 567 567; SMS 32312), which can put you in touch with a counsellor.
“Parental burnout is real but reversible,” Dr Bustin says. “The earlier you address it, the better.”
Sources
1. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0891524524001883
2. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10840230/
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