Parentalidade desigual na pandemia: experiências de mães e pais com Estressores

Abstract

The stressful life events are happenings that can provoke changes and require an adaptative response. This study had as a goal to describe the experiences with life stressful events and the coping strategies of mothers and fathers of children from three to six years of age during the COVID 19 pandemic. Nine mothers and four fathers, distributed in three groups focused online, reported their experiences with life stressful events and the strategies that they used to deal with these events. The thematic analysis grouped respectively into: Major life events: Changes caused by confinement, Changes at work and Changes at school; Stressful life events: Home and children, Concern and health care and Relationship with family members and Coping strategies: Strategies focused on the problem and Strategies focused on emotion. The results indicate that confinement and the distance learning were the main life events with stressful nature that produced a harsh impact on the day to day of mothers and fathers. The female workload resulted of the accumulation of domestic, professional and parental demands, as the impossibility of sharing these demands with their partners or other family members, also turned the care for the house and children into stressful events of high impact to the mothers. The coping strategies were shared, mostly for women who described different measures that could improve family performance. In conclusion, in situations of crisis and disaster, families, especially mothers of small children, should be consistently supported to avoid that common damage of the adverse contexts are not amplified by avoidable conditions.