Direction: Read the following passage and answer the questions that follow by selecting the most appropriate option.
This study is the first to compare burnout across Western and non-Western countries. But sociologist Frank Furedi worries that using terms like “run down” and “enjoyment” in reference to parenting may not make sense to people in non-Western countries, rendering responses from parents in those countries meaningless. More neutral questions, such as asking parents the optimum amount of time they would like to spend with their children, would have provided a better comparison, says Furedi of the University of Kent in Canterbury, England. “This study projects an [Western] imagination onto the rest of the world.”
Researchers can now drill down to see what is going on within countries, counters anthropologist and sociologist Charlotte Faircloth of University College London. “It’s a nice framework for some more granular work.” Roskam is currently doing that granular work closer to home. Her new data show that parental burnout in Belgium stayed flat from 2019 to after the first pandemic shutdown in 2020. But like most averages, that analysis obscures people’s lived experiences: Some parents suffered tremendously in early 2020 while others thrived. What factors, she wonders, protected those parents who fared well? And how are those parents doing now? Not well, Roskam hypothesizes, speaking from first-hand experience. The mother of five children, preschool to university age, Roskam initially came up with creative solutions to keep her children engaged. “But now,” she says, “I’m completely exhausted.”