The Contribution of Household Chaos and Fatigue to Maternal Stress

Abstract Parenting stress can be detrimental to child outcomes and there is evidence that both parental fatigue and household chaos are associated with the stress experienced by parents. There has been little investigation of the relative contributions these variables make to stress and even less consideration of the changes that may occur in the impact of and associations among these variables as children mature. This study explored the contribution of fatigue and household chaos to parental stress in a large sample of Australian mothers of children and adolescents. Participants completed the Parental Stress Scale, the Fatigue Assessment Scale and the Confusion, Hubbub and Order Scale. There was no group difference on the measure of stress. While parents of young children reported slightly higher levels of fatigue and household chaos than those of adolescents, effect sizes were small. Household chaos contributed to maternal stress over and above the impact of fatigue; however, there was a complex interaction between the effect of chaos and fatigue on stress. As the level of chaos increased, the impact of fatigue on maternal stress decreased. This interaction was not moderated by child age. As the data were collected during the COVID-19 pandemic, our considerations of the results of the study include some speculation about the influence of this on our results.