When gratitude and social support make the difference: Buffering the impact of parental role restriction on maternal burnout

Parental burnout is a chronic exhaustion resulting from an imbalance between the demands of parenting and available resources. This condition disproportionately affects mothers and is recognized globally as a serious mental health issue, with significant implications for maternal well-being, spousal relationships, parenting quality, and children's mental health. Despite increasing research on parental burnout, most studies have focused on its antecedents and consequences, while investigations into moderating factors remain limited. The present study investigates the moderating roles of religiosity, gratitude, marital satisfaction, and social support in the relationship between parental role restriction and parental burnout. This quantitative cross-sectional study recruited 323 mothers aged 17 to 46 (M = 28.26, SD = 5.10) through online and offline surveys. Data analysis was conducted in RStudio version 4.4.1 using the psych and lm. beta packages. Moderation analyses were performed by incorporating all variables into a single model and separately for each moderator. Preliminary findings suggest that gratitude and social support may buffer the adverse impact of parental role restriction on maternal burnout. These findings suggest that fostering gratitude and strengthening social support networks may be integral to interventions aimed at preventing parental burnout in young mothers.