Parental Burnout, Coparenting, and Internalized Sexual Stigma During COVID-19 in Parents With Minoritized Sexual Identities

The COVID-19 pandemic acted as a model of stressful situations for parents insofar as it led to unprecedented difficulties in childcare and caregiving, resulting in increased levels of parental burnout, worldwide. To date, research on parental burnout has mainly involved heterosexual parents. However, parents with minoritized sexual identities face partially different stressors, including internalized sexual stigma, and they also have partially different resources, including a more egalitarian division of childcare labor. Between April 2020 and February 2021, 32 lesbian mother families by donor insemination (n = 64 lesbian mothers) and 28 gay father families by gestational surrogacy (n = 56 gay fathers), all with a child aged 6-10 years and living in Italy, were recruited. In each family, both parents self-rated their parental burnout, coparenting, and internalized sexual stigma. Multilevel modeling indicated that lesbian mothers reported greater parental burnout than gay fathers. Moreover, lower coparenting quality was associated with greater parental burnout. Finally, internalized sexual stigma had a significant both direct and interactive effect on parental burnout, with higher levels of internalized sexual stigma resulting in greater parental burnout, especially in gay fathers. Considering the sexual minority stress theory and the risks and resources balance theory, the results indicate the importance of preventing and treating parental burnout in lesbian and gay parents by focusing on their internalized sexual stigma and coparenting relationship. Also, incorporating the positive psychology framework in future research would help identify in these parents the resources deriving from their minoritized sexual identities to deal with parental burnout.