Parental Burnout in LGBTQ plus Parents: Examining the Role of Sexual Minority Stress

Parental burnout (PB) occurs when parents experience chronic parenting stress, leading to emotional exhaustion, emotional distancing, loss of parental accomplishment, and contrast with previous parental self (Roskam et al.). While this can occur for all parents, LGBTQ+ parents face additional stressors relative to heterosexual parents including, internalized homonegativity, perceived stigma, and daily discrimination - which may deplete a parent's resources (emotional, cognitive) needed to handle parenting responsibilities, potentially creating additional stressors (concealing family structures due to concerns about backlash toward the child). Thus, it is important to consider which minority stressors may be risk factors for PB among LGBTQ+ parents. Participants (N = 195) completed a survey reporting sexual minority stress (Puckett et al.), PB (Roskam et al.), emotional social support (Zimet et al.), and community emotional support (Frost & Meyer). Results of regression analyses indicated that internalized homonegativity (but not perceived stigma or daily discrimination) predicted higher levels of PB, controlling for marital status, employment status, having a childcare aged child (<5 years old), and gender. Moderation analyses indicated that internalized homonegativity was only positively associated with PB for parents with less emotional social support. Future research should examine potential barriers to emotional social support.