Balancing work and personal life is often challenging enough as it is; add a newborn to the equation, and you might be dealing with a situation that is even more difficult to navigate.
That’s exactly the position the redditor u/Varrock-Lobster found himself in. Certain unfortunate circumstances at work together with having just recently become a father resulted in the new dad nearly reaching a breaking point, which is why he took a few days off. And even though he and his wife had discussed the time off, she had other plans for him than getting rest.
Balancing work and personal life is not an easy task, especially after having just become a parent
Image credits: nd3000 / envato (not the actual photo)
This man was on the verge of burnout, so he took some days off, which he then had to spend taking care of the baby
Image credits: josue Verdejo / pexels (not the actual photo)
Image credits: LightFieldStudios / envato (not the actual photo)
Image credits: Varrock-Lobster
Recent surveys found that close to nine-in-ten employees have experienced burnout
Image credits: Thirdman / pexels (not the actual photo)
Avoiding burnout is typically easier said than done, especially when things at work take an unexpected turn for the worse. For this redditor, it was losing a key member of staff that resulted in such a turn. While the reasons the employee was no longer part of the company are unclear, chances are that them leaving made quite a few of their fellow employees think about it, too, as such situations often entail an increased amount of stress and responsibilities for those who stay.
A 2024 survey of more than 1,200 US-based employed individuals found that an alarmingly high number of them—as many as 88%—claimed burnout. That’s likely to be the reason why roughly one-in-five said they think about quitting their job every day and one-in-four admitted having experienced depression about their job.
It’s evident that burnout can lead to numerous detrimental effects, from increased anxiety—which, according to said survey, was the main negative outcome of such a condition—to frequent headaches, chronic muscle pain, and other health-related issues. Consequently, burnout can have a negative effect on one’s personal life, too, as it did for as many as 77% of surveyed respondents.
Unsurprisingly, the OP being driven to the verge of burnout only made his personal life more difficult to manage; especially combined with the parenting duties that awaited him at home.
Having to juggle work and parenting duties has proven to be quite stressful
Image credits: Pavel Danilyuk / pexels (not the actual photo)
Unfortunately, the redditor is far from the only parent who has to juggle work and parenting-related duties and often find themselves stressed out of their minds. A recent survey, commissioned by the child-care provider Bright Horizons, found that nine-in-ten working parents are stressed at their jobs, and three in five of them describe their stress as overwhelming.
Moms and dads being stressed at work to the extent that it affects their personal lives is such a common phenomenon, it even has its own name – work-family spillover, CNBC reports. As much as 66% of working parents in the US reportedly suffer from burnout, which, according to a Stanford University sociologist, Dr. Marianne Cooper, might lead to being less patient with their kids or simply feeling even more tired, neither of which makes anyone’s quality of life any better.
Discussing parental burnout, another expert—the founder of the Postpartum Wellness Center in Boulder, Colorado, Kate Kripke—seconded the idea that it gets incredibly draining. “It’s a state where you have been giving, and giving, and giving and giving—until you’re totally empty,” she told The New York Times. Unsurprisingly, giving his all in both work and parenting left the OP drained, too. Consequently, it made him think over the way parenting duties were divided between him and his wife—a stay-at-home-mom—which some netizens in the comments emphasized, saying that the way the load was shared wasn’t fair.
The new dad provided more details in the comments
Fellow netizens shared their views on the situation, some gave suggestions on how to handle it
