Effects of Maternal Parenting Anxiety and Burnout on Household Chaos: Examining the Moderated Mediation Effect of Co-parenting

The purpose of this study was to examine effects of parenting anxiety and burnout on home chaos among mothers of 5-year-old children and to find out the moderating effect of co-parenting in the mediating effect of mothers' parenting anxiety, burnout, and home chaos. A total of 267 children in 5-year-old classes and their mothers were used for the final analysis. The moderated mediating effect of mothers' parenting anxiety and burnout on home chaos was analyzed using Model 59 of the SPSS macro PROCESS, as proposed by Hayes (2018). Results were as follows. First, mothers' parenting anxiety had a significant effect on home chaos through mothers’ burnout. Second, co-parenting was found to moderate the relationship between mothers' parenting anxiety and burnout. Based on these findings, high levels of anxiety experienced by mothers while parenting might lead to their psychological and physical burnout and cause home chaos. This study also confirmed that co-parenting moderated the relationship between parenting anxiety and burnout. Thus, this study suggests the importance of co-parenting.