The children’s economic, emotional, and physical requirements fall within the purview of the default parent. You are surely familiar with the situation we’re referring to: when one parent takes over as the primary caregiver and the other parent serves as a backup.  This has been noticed by parenting publications, websites, and the general news media. They draw attention to one negative side effect of the default/backup parenting dynamic, which is that the default parent frequently develops resentment toward the backup parent. We’ll take a moment to make sure we’re all on the same page even if it’s feasible to comprehend this debate just by understanding the definition of the word default and the definition of the phrase back-up.

What is default parent syndrome?

A default parent is often the person who is “the first one in turn” for child care, child-related duties, or home-related chores. The default parent is more likely to shoulder the greater parenting burden when there are two parents present. The syndrome is basically characterized by a set of symptoms that frequently occur together, a condition that has a set of related symptoms, or even a particular confluence of thoughts, feelings, or actions. To learn more about default parent syndrome, seek Online Counselling at TalktoAngel.

When we combine these two ideas, we can see that the Default Parent Syndrome is a systematic and communal experience that involves a bias toward women and mothers in providing main care for parenting and domestic duties. This bias is essentially the result of long periods of patriarchal cultural history, which has changed in numerous ways over time.

The difference between a default parent and the backup parent is that the default parents takes care of everything including the child on a daily basis and a backup parents takes the responsibilities of the child only on days off from work or the weekends we can say. 

Who is more likely to become the default parent syndrome?

Some traits, attributes, and situations may make someone more likely to suffer from the Default Parent Syndrome. These consist of:

• Identifying inside a family system as a woman or mother.
• Having more typical gendered parenting expectations for oneself or one’s partner.
• Growing up and seeing the mother or woman in a family system have single or primary responsibility for parenting and taking care of the home’s needs (regardless of whether she was partnered or not).
• Struggles to focus on parenting or domestic duties without feeling guilty or anxious.
• Having trouble getting others to understand your wants or expectations.
• Difficulties trying to please others, especially in connections with family.
• A never-ending battle with perfectionism.
• Growing up in a family that maintained stronger patriarchal values with relation to parenting and domestic duties.

Consequences of the Default Parent Syndrome

• Chronic drowsiness and exhaustion
• Animosity against one’s partner and children
• Reduced capacity to take care of oneself
• A severe deterioration in mental health

Many people fail to realize that there are also unfavorable effects for family members who are not the designated “default parent.” The “non-default parent,” for example, might go via

• Unrealistic expectations on the parenting skills of the default parent
• Distance and emotional isolation from the favored parent (who is most likely to be their partner)
• Having poorer parenting or caring abilities, which can potentially cause relationships with children to fall apart

Similar to this, children that reside in a setting where the Default Parent Syndrome is present are probably going to go through:

• Unrealistic expectations on the parenting skills of the default parent
• Reduced expectations for the non-default parent, raising the default parent’s level of exhaustion and overwhelm.
• Relationship quality with the default parent suffers as a result of the parent’s weariness and frustration
• Decreased level of care and communication with the non-default parent, which results in a lower quality relationship

Unlearning the default parent syndrome

• Recognize its existence. Only what we accept exists can we dismantle. It will be necessary to have frequent, open, and sincere conversations with your partner about how you feel and how this syndrome has affected your family.
• Determine its symptoms. It’s time to carefully pinpoint how the Default Parent Syndrome emerges or presents itself once you and your partner agree that it does exist in the home. The implications of one parent taking on a heavier workload for the family as a whole must be clearly understood and communicated.
• Make the home the focus of a shared vision. Now is the moment to discuss your goals for your home and family as a couple. Which values coincide? Have values altered at all? What objectives do you and your family share? This makes sure that both of you understand the “larger picture,” which is helpful as you strive toward change.
• Establish objectives for “undoing” the norm. The hard work really starts now! Set some objectives for the things that will change. I advise beginning with one or two goals at a time and starting small. Each partner should have a single objective to work toward.
• Continue to track your progress. Make sure to put up a method for tracking and monitoring your goals. It would be beneficial to schedule meetings for you and your partner to examine the progress and discuss any challenges or adjustments that need to be made. Set new objectives once the previous ones have been achieved.

For more information, feel free to seek consultation from the best Psychologist near me at TalktoAngel.