Parental Time Investment with Young Children during the COVID-19 Pandemic in the UK

Abstract

The early childhood period is widely recognised as a critical phase for catalysing development, health, wellbeing, and learning, with lifelong effects. Extensive evidence emphasises the pivotal role of parenting during this stage, particularly in times of crisis or change. The COVID-19 pandemic instigated significant changes to family dynamics, creating an environment of stress and uncertainty. As the pandemic unfolded, UK education policies, provisions, research, and discourse largely overlooked children below school age and their parents, despite the clear developmental precarity of young children. Consequently, parents of early years children (EYC) bore sole responsibility for their children’s care and education as schools, nurseries, and informal care options closed to curb the spread of the virus. During these lockdowns, parents became the primary source of developmental experiences for their young children. Therefore, illuminating parents’ time with their young children during this period offers vital insight into to the world of child development during the pandemic. Recognising the significance of investigating these dynamics, this thesis explores parenting EYC during the UK lockdowns. In particular, it investigates factors influencing parents’ time with their young children on developmentally focused activities relating to play and learning. Parental Time Investment (PTI) is thus the central focus of its two interconnected studies: the Parent Diary Study (PDS) and the Parenting in Lockdown Study (PILS). The PDS employs qualitative analysis of diaries and interviews with mothers in London during the UK’s third lockdown (January to April 2021), offering nuanced insights into factors affecting quality time. In contrast, the PILS employs quantitative analysis using a subset of a nationally representative British cohort to investigate PTI during the first lockdown (March to June 2020), focusing on the quantity of time parents spent with children on play and learning. Uniquely, these studies undertake investigations across two separate lockdowns, providing insight into parenting young children in the UK during the most intensive periods of the Covid era. Through this distinct multi-method approach spanning two phases of the pandemic, the thesis reveals that parents’ time with children was influenced by both proximal factors like their mental health and wellbeing as well as more distal, structural factors including having school-aged children, parent gender, and employment status. Despite parents’ vulnerability to multiple factors, both studies underscore the enduring commitment of parents – particularly mothers - to their young children's welfare during this period of unquestionable difficulty. The PDS highlights parents' inventive efforts to sustain quality time with their children, despite facing repercussions on their wellbeing such as guilt, fatigue, and stress. Meanwhile, findings from the PILS underscore the consistent time commitment of mothers, even after accounting for various factors, to supporting their children’s development, echoing broader literature on the disproportionate share of childcare shouldered by mothers during the Covid era. These insights deepen our understanding of parenting during crises, highlighting the importance of parent-child interactions in promoting children’s wellbeing and development in challenging circumstances. They also foreground crucial questions about how to better support parents and caregivers of young children going forward, ensuring they are not overlooked in future.