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The mental health of parent versus non-parent post-secondary students [1]
['Katie J. Shillington', 'Faculty Of Health Sciences', 'Health', 'Rehabilitation Sciences', 'The University Of Western Ontario', 'London', 'Ontario', 'Department Of Neurobiology', 'University Of California San Diego', 'San Diego']
Date: 2024-08
Student-Parents.
Four themes and four subthemes emerged from the data: (1) factors that challenge mental health (subthemes: worry/anxiety, lack of time); (2) realities of being a student-parent (subthemes: navigating multiple responsibilities, priorities/sacrifices); (3) social connectivity among family and friends; and (4) mental health fluctuations. The definitions of each theme and subtheme can be found in Table 4 and illustrative quotes are in the subsequent paragraphs. Although quotes may be relevant to more than one theme, they are presented in the theme in which the quote best fits.
Factors that challenge mental health. Student-parents described factors that challenged their mental health, including worry/anxiety and lack of time. Participants attributed their worry/anxiety to internal pressures to succeed, as well as external pressures (e.g., being a TA, supervisor relationships, taking courses, their role as a parent). While some of the stressors described were related to school, the majority of participants underscored worry/anxiety specific to their child(ren). One participant (N1) emphasized this saying:
I’d say, psychologically, I’m definitely a lot more anxious than I used to be… I mean you’ve got added worries. Yeah, you’re also worrying about your kids, you’ve got people dependent on you and so it’s not just anxiety about school, it’s anxiety about everyone else in your family.
Student-parents emphasized that their concern for their child(ren) outweighed their academic worries/anxiety, as emphasized by another participant (N8) who said, “Anxiety that I tend to experience from non-child related things tend[s] to be very quickly swept aside as soon as there is any child-related emotion or duty that comes up…”. This participant went on to explain that they are able to compartmentalize their worries/anxieties because their priority will always be their child. Additionally, many participants described being worried about their child(ren) getting sick, meeting developmental benchmarks, and socializing with others, which was underscored by one participant (N1) who said:
You worry about them, you know? What they’re doing that day, you want them to have a lot of fun, you want them to be able to get out and meet people and socialize, and then you worry if they’re not making the benchmarks, they’re not talking fast enough or whatever. There’s just a lot more you don’t think about worrying about until you’re a parent.
Another factor that challenged the mental health of student-parents was lack of time. Many participants described having little time for socialization outside of the family unit. Interestingly, this was not viewed as a deficit by student-parents, rather, the majority preferred to spend the little “downtime” that they had with their partner and child(ren). This was underscored by one participant (N10) who said:
I basically have very little time for social interaction and things like that. But at the same time, too, I also find I desire it a lot less… because I’m so much busier, and I’ve got so much going on… When I do have some downtime, I’d rather spend it… with my spouse or doing something like that, rather than going out with friends or doing other sorts of things.
Another participant (N2) echoed this sentiment saying, “I actually prefer not to meet up with people… the PhD Association, they’ll hold events, and I don’t go to any of them. I don’t go to any of those events just because the time needs to be spent elsewhere…” Other student-parents spoke to having little to no time for anything outside of family and academia as emphasized by one individual (N8) who said, “…any time my daughter is sleeping, I’m working on my research or I’m watching lectures, or whatever… there isn’t an opportunity to do anything else.”
Realities of being a student-parent. In addition to factors that challenged mental health, participants spoke to the realities of being a student-parent, describing how they navigate multiple responsibilities and competing priorities, as well as the sacrifices they sometimes need to make as a result. Notably, student-parents described the ability to compartmentalize and differentiate their role as a parent from their role as a student. One participant (N10) highlighted this saying:
I think [one] of the advantages of being a student and a parent at the same time is that it allows you to compartmentalize… I think it’s easy to get sucked into grad school, where it becomes this all-consuming beast. But… if I get home later and I come in the door… my daughter comes running up and gives me big hug around my legs… so happy to see me, you know? And [that] just allows me to shift [from] school to… home…
Another participant (N6) shared this sentiment saying, “…you’re able to be pulled out of the negative stuff that happens at… school or work, immediately. There’s the no… time to ruminate on negative experiences, or anything negative at work…” This participant went on to use the analogy of “wearing different hats” and spoke to the challenges of not being able to take the parenting hat off, while another participant (N1) discussed the reality of not letting their academics and mental health impact their child(ren) or parenting.
For many student-parents, they prioritized their role as a parent over their role as student. In doing so, one participant saw an improvement in their mental health, while another participant noted that having a child shifted their perspective as to what was important. This was underscored by one individual (N2) who said, “I’m gonna put my family first, no matter what. If it means getting lower grades, whatever. I mean, I’ll do the best I can do.” Additionally, the majority of student-parents spoke to putting their child(ren) at the forefront, while they prioritized themselves last. This was emphasized by a student-parent (N8) who used a stove top analogy saying:
…there was something that a colleague in my previous career told me about trying to handle all the different responsibilities in your life… you can imagine your life as being… a stovetop with four burners on it, and one burner is for yourself, one burner is for your family, one burner for your career, and one burner is for whatever else there is. The thing about the stove top is that only two burners work at a time. You have to choose which one of those two that are actually working. I think that’s always been a really interesting… a very relevant way of looking at it for me. So since I started this program, my self-burner has been turned off and my career burner and my family burners have been… on full blast the entire time…
Another student-parent (N6) described their tendency to put them self at the end due to “many other things that need to be done.” Some participants reflected on how their priorities shifted as a student before having children to after, as emphasized by one student-parent (N8) who said, “…nowadays I’m much less concerned with being the achiever that I want to be, and I’m more concerned about being the parent that I want to be.” For another individual (N7), being the parent they wanted to be meant putting their mental health first:
…back then [pre-child] it felt literally like life-or-death, like I could not put my work down for anything. So… I think that becoming a parent has improved my ability to put my mental health first, because now I don’t have a choice. If I’m not healthy, if I’m not well, I can’t show up [for] my kid in the way that I want to.
Another participant (N6) described parenting as “the fun part” and everything outside of parenting as a challenge.
Social connectivity among family and friends. While many student-parents described having little time for social interaction outside the family unit, participants underscored the benefit of having a social network. Many described their social needs being met through their interactions with other parents, their children and spouse, as well as other student-parents. For example, one individual (N9) spoke to how their social circle primarily consisted of the parents of their children’s friends, while another participant (N2) described their social needs being met by their spouse and child. Some student-parents described their support networks contributing to their child(ren)’s development, as underscored by one participant (N5) who said, “I have different support networks…seeing friends and socializing, that’s hugely helpful in a different way. And I think, based on the development of my child, I rely on different support networks.”
While others underscored the strength in their friendships with parents who are also students saying (N7):
Doing a PhD is uniquely difficult, and being a parent is uniquely difficult, and of the social connections that you might have at this time, many of them might be parents, but they aren’t doing a PhD and they don’t get it, many of them might be doing a PhD, but they’re not parents, they don’t get it. I have a couple of friends who are doing both, they get it in a way that nobody else… So that connection and that solidarity is hugely important…
Mental health fluctuations. Student-parents described how their mental health fluctuated depending on life circumstances. Often times this was a result of academic deadlines, their child(ren)’s temperament, and the ability to juggle multiple responsibilities. One individual (N10) underscored the role that their child’s temperament can have on their own mental health saying:
It’s [mental health] up and down per day… like some days… my daughter’s just an absolute delight, and makes a day so much better. Then some days where she’s in the mood and you know it makes a day more difficult because… she doesn’t want to go to day care, she doesn’t wanna brush her teeth, doesn’t wanna go to bed, you know?
Another individual (N10) shared that while some days they feel on top of their tasks and are doing okay, most days they are “struggling to keep their head above water”. Similarly, another student-parent spoke to being forced to function as a parent, despite having competing priorities saying:
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[1] Url:
https://journals.plos.org/mentalhealth/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmen.0000021
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