Being a parent implies both a role as an identity and as well as a subjective experience (Bornstein, 2015). In general, parenting is a transforming experience (Nelson et al., 2014; Bornstein, 2015). Usually, it contributes to joys and satisfactions of great meaning for people's lives; it also implies facing a series of challenges and demands that imply less publicly recognised negative emotions such as frustrations, oppression, and fear (Nomaguchi and Milkie, 2003; Nelson et al., 2014; Bornstein, 2015; Kohler and Mencarini, 2016). The term “parenting paradox” has been coined to recognise these opposing trends in the experience of being a parent (Rizzo et al., 2013; Erez and Shenkman, 2016; Louie et al., 2017; Nomaguchi and Milkie, 2020), which usually provides meanings and benefits, but which also implies costs and discomforts (Nomaguchi and Milkie, 2003; Umberson et al., 2010; Musick et al., 2016).

There is growing interest in identifying what factors are associated with higher degrees of well-being in parents or, on the contrary, with more negative experiences and emotions. This study is focused on two specific aspects: the feelings of demand imposed by the role of parent, referred to by the concept of parental stress; and on parental satisfaction, related to the positive feelings that arise in the parents themselves in the exercise of their roles (Oronoz et al., 2007).

The stress and satisfaction that parenting can imply are influenced by various factors. One factor that requires detailed analysis is gender. Various studies show that fathers experience greater satisfaction with life and happiness than mothers, and that they live with more satisfaction and less stress their parental role (Nomaguchi and Milkie, 2003; Aassve et al., 2012; Hansen, 2012; Nelson et al., 2013, 2014; Nelson-Coffey et al., 2019). These findings are not surprising if we consider that it is usually mothers who assume a primary role in the care of children and in the most demanding tasks in relation to parenting, as well as greater domestic responsibilities in general. Mothers tend to experience greater time pressure than fathers as early as in the transition to parenthood (Ruppanner et al., 2019). Nevertheless, recent investigations show a certain trend to a decrease in the in the gender gap regarding the costs and rewards associated to parenting (Nomaguchi and Milkie, 2020). The parental role also implies its particular stressors; in particular, the traditional role of provider is very demanding for the fathers who have difficulties to obtain sufficient economic resources to cover the needs of their family group (Barnett and Gareis, 2009; Boyraz and Sayger, 2009; Vuori and Astedt-Kurki, 2013).

Another factor that can affect parental stress and satisfaction is work-home and home-work conflicts. The home-work and work-home conflict refer to “a sort of conflict of roles in which the pressures from work and from the family are mutually incompatible in some aspect” (Moreno et al., 2009) and which is characterised by its bidirectionality. Though, initially, the attention was focused on the interferences of work demands in family life (work-home conflict), it was later broadened to include the interferences of family life demands in working life (home-work conflict).

Interest in this issue emerged, largely, because of the implications of the growing incorporation of women into the labour market, and it has been focused on how work demands can hinder family life, increase childcare stress, and reduce life satisfaction at various levels (Kulik and Liberman, 2013; Kulik et al., 2015; Caro et al., 2017). However, attention has been drawn to the other possible direction of this relationship: the way in which the demands and conflicts of family life can affect, in turn, working life and, hence, increase stress and affect people's well-being (Moreno et al., 2009). The initial focus on work-home and home-work conflicts in mothers has also expanded to consider how these conflicts can affect fathers (Pereira et al., 2017). This has been stimulated by the changes that have taken place in the ways of understanding and living parenthood, where the figure of the providing and distant father tends to be replaced by that of a father who is more present and involved in parenting (Kulik et al., 2015; Aguayo et al., 2016).

In contemporary societies, people have often seen the broadest social and family networks of belonging (Arriagada, 2004; Perilla and Zapata, 2009). The upbringing of children has become an activity that parents often carry out with little accompaniment of family and community networks (Rochlen et al., 2008; Pollmann-Schult, 2018). Studies suggest that the perception of greater support from others in the development of parenting tasks would be associated with more positive emotions and less stress from parenting (Nelson et al., 2014).

The purpose of this study was to determine the stress and parental satisfaction of parents and also the relationship of these two poles of parental experience with the work-home and home-work conflict, as well as with perceived social support, and with a more unique aspect of each person such as their overall level of satisfaction with life. Various sociodemographic factors that can positively or negatively impact the balance between the costs and rewards of the parental experience were considered, such as socioeconomic status, partnership status, parents' age, and children's age. Since parenting has its own particularities depending on the children's developmental stage (Nelson et al., 2014; Nomaguchi and Milkie, 2020), the scope was narrowed down in this study to an age range: parents with children between 2 and 12 years of age. A specific objective was to determine the possible moderating role of the parent's gender in the relationships considered.

The aim of this research was to analyse the stress and parental satisfaction of parents in order to establish the relationship of these two poles of parental experience with the work-home and home-work conflict, perceived social support, satisfaction with life. As covariates, and with the fundamental purpose of avoiding their possible confusing role, the effect of socioeconomic status, partnership status, parents' age, and number of children were considered. In all the analyses, not only was the parent's gender included, but it was also examined whether there were gender moderating effects for each variable considered.

To measure parental stress and satisfaction, the Parental Stress Scale- PSS (Berry and Jones, 1995), in its Spanish version (Oronoz et al., 2007) was used. The confirmatory factor analysis showed adequate adjustment indexes for this 12-item and two-factor version (baby rewards, called parental satisfaction in this study; and parental stress). Almost no relationship between stressors and parental satisfaction was observed. Although a relative autonomy of both factors can be expected, the lack of correlation is striking. Other studies have observed the existence of a moderate negative relationship between parental satisfaction and stress, showing that parents who are more satisfied with their parental role tend to present lower levels of parental stress (Pérez et al., 2010; Ribeiro et al., 2013). The results observed show a clear separation between the evaluative processes of perceived stress associated with the parental role (a content more focused on the immediate present experience) and parental satisfaction, which refers to the more global significance of the experience of being a parent, regardless of the effort involved.

In the total sample, the stress level was moderate, but the level of satisfaction was very high. The very high scores, with little dispersion, of parental satisfaction suggest that social desirability plays an important role in the assessment of this aspect.

Another indicator of the independence of parental stress from parental satisfaction is the gender differences observed. Mothers presented higher levels of parental stress and satisfaction than fathers. In general, studies show higher levels of parental stress in mothers than in fathers; on the other hand, gender differences with respect to parental satisfaction do not show a consistent pattern (Salonen et al., 2010; Lozano et al., 2016; Pérez and Santelices, 2016; Pereira et al., 2017). In the multivariate analyses, gender was only related to the greatest stress in mothers and did not show to be a predictor of greater satisfaction.

Four variables were statistically significant to predict parental stress: being female, having two children, home-work conflict, and parent's age. Except for parent's age, the relationship with parental stress was positive.

The relevance of the predictive capacity of gender regarding parental stress, specifically being female, is probably accounted for by the persistence of the gender division of labour that assigns women a leading role in raising children despite transformations in current family arrangements, which implies more time devoted to tasks associated to the care of children and domestic chores (Bidegain and Calderón, 2018; Nomaguchi and Milkie, 2020). Various studies confirm that mothers are more exhausted, more stressed, and have lower levels of subjective well-being than fathers (Connelly and Kimmel, 2015; Musick et al., 2016; Nomaguchi and Milkie, 2020).

Male chauvinism is one of the dominant traits of masculinity in Latin America up to the present (Fuller, 2018). In Chile, the predominant role of the mother in upbringing, from colonial times to the present day, has been highlighted by various authors (Montecino, 2018). With industrial capitalism, a very strong patriarchal normative family model is installed where women take over the care of the children and the house chores, and men are the providers and authority (Olavarría, 2014). Nowadays, in spite of the crisis in the order of traditional gender because of cultural changes, there still would be a masculine social contract founded on the sexual division of labour (Valdés, 2020), with greater social demands towards mothers regarding the care of their children as well as the practical and affective spheres (Araujo and Martuccelli, 2012).

The increase in parental stress in parents with more than one child can be expected due to the number of demands, especially considering that the sample was limited to families with children under 12 years of age. The effect was only statistically significant in families with two children and not with three or more, which is probably attributable to the low number of families in the latter condition (only 7%). Research tends to show greater stress in parents with more children. It must be considered that the traditional support role in raising older siblings has been decreasing (Flouri, 2005; Pérez et al., 2010).

The relationship observed between parental stress and work-home conflict is consistent with the perception of various researchers that this is becoming one of the main stressors of current parenting. Current social practises make parenting more demanding as they imply: more limited support networks for upbringing, fewer possibilities for autonomous life and displacement of children in current cities, more expectations regarding parental roles, greater demands of parents presence in upbringing, all of which comes into conflict with characteristics proper of the present working world (Pérez et al., 2010; Lozano et al., 2016). This conflict is exacerbated by the growing participation of women in labour and social life, and the lag in the adjustment of the forms of social relationship to this process (Avolio and Di Laura, 2017). Contrary to the traditional approach to the work-home conflict, the direction presented in this study is of interest, highlighting that only the subscale of home-work conflict was significant. This suggests that the perceived stress derives from the parents' dedication to the multiple activities and responsibilities that family life and caring for their children imply, which interfere with working life (Jain and Nair, 2013).

An unexpected finding regarding parental stress was the non-linear effect, specifically the quadratic effect (U-effect) of the parent's age. Young parents are the ones who show the highest levels of parental stress, which then decreases as the age of the parents increases, presenting a turning point at 36.6 years of age, where stress begins to increase again as the parent's age rises but which does not reach the levels of stress in young parents.

A higher level of parental stress in young parents is a consistent finding of research (Pérez and Santelices, 2016; Tacca et al., 2020). Probably, in the current sociocultural context, having children at an early age implies additional stress derived from the fewer resources available for their care and the conflict with other demands of this vital stage, in addition to the lower experience in assuming responsibilities of that nature (Oronoz et al., 2007; Bornstein, 2015; Pérez and Santelices, 2016; Nelson-Coffey et al., 2019). In older parents, it is less clear which factors could account for the greater stress observed. As a hypothesis, it would be possible to posit that it could derive from the conjunction of parental demands with others proper of that later stage in the life cycle. Given that, in the sample studied, it is more frequent for older parents to have children reaching adolescence, it is tempting to hypothesise that this would be accounted for by the greater demands of this vital moment of their children; however, the effect of age on the children has been controlled in the analysis, so it could not be a plausible explanation, at least not directly.

Although the dominance analysis regarding parental stress indicated that the home-work conflict is the predictor with the highest average contribution regarding parental stress (general dominance), its conditional dominance decreased as the other predictors were incorporated. Gender and the sociodemographic factors block are the predictors that conditionally dominate the others in the models that include all the predictors, showing that they have an independent predictive capacity with respect to the other variables of the model.

Regarding parental satisfaction, only the partnership status was a significant predictor, with a negative relationship between the category “no partner” and parental satisfaction being recognised. In this regard, a moderation effect was observed between gender and partnership status, indicating that mothers with no partner showed greater satisfaction than fathers with no partner. Although in the final model this interaction did not show statistical significance, it did in the various previous models. Likewise, in both the general and conditional dominance analysis, this moderation was the most relevant predictor. These results show that parental satisfaction in men with no partner is decreased. It would be interesting to explore whether it is the partnership status or the possibility of daily contact with the children derived from coexistence that can account for this result.

Despite its relevance, this study did not show an effect of satisfaction with life or perceived social support neither on parental stress nor parental satisfaction. It was hypothesised that satisfaction with life could capture an individual dimension of life perception that could influence the perception of stress and parental satisfaction, but no greater contribution of this factor was observed. It is interesting to note that this have occurred even in relation to parental satisfaction, indicating that both valuations have different roots. Probably, the not very central role of perceived social support is related to the fact that a very general measurement of it was used and not of social support that is more directly related to the exercise of parenting. In addition, not using the survey in its entirety might have limited its measurement.

The results obtained are of interest to understand the effects of the accelerated transformations in social and family life over the past decades and their impact on the experience of parenting. In particular, it highlights the need to explore in a differentiated way the aspects related to experiences of stress and oppression that parenting may be implying in the context of current social life for certain subgroups of parents, particularly for mothers, on the one hand; and, on the other hand, the satisfaction with which the maternal or paternal condition is experienced, despite the above. Various authors have been highlighting how excessively idealised views of the maternal or paternal condition make it impossible to understand this dimension of human life in all its complexity, identifying both its rewarding aspects and its costs (Nomaguchi and Milkie, 2003; Umberson et al., 2010). This is of particular interest in a social context where social mandates regarding what being a parent implies have increased, placing increasingly demanding expectations of attention and care for children while, on many occasions, the social supports for the exercise of the parental role decrease (Murray, 2015; Vergara Del Solar et al., 2018).

A challenge for further research is the study of parental satisfaction. This construct has been little explored in itself, being subsumed in the sphere of the perception of parental competence or the overall well-being and satisfaction of those who are parents (Menéndez et al., 2011; Gilmore and Cuskelly, 2012). However, its study poses relevant challenges. The results obtained suggest that the scale shows ceiling effects that limit its discriminatory capacity. It is not clear whether a factor of social desirability could be contributing to this.

This study focused on parents with children between the ages of 2 and 12. The exercise of parenting with younger children implies specificities, so they were not considered in the sample. Neither were parents of adolescents or those with adult children included. One of the challenges for future research is a broad life-span look at parenting. So far, most of the studies have focused on the transition to parenting and the experience with minor children (Nomaguchi and Milkie, 2020). However, focusing on this age range of the children makes these findings less generalisable, and they are considered a limitation of the study.

The findings obtained are of interest for the study of parenting from the experience of being a father or a mother. It is relevant to delve into the positive aspects of this experience such as the attributions of meaning or the feelings of joy, pride, gratitude, and satisfaction; as well as the demands and conflicts associated with this very central dimension of many people's lives.

The raw data supporting the conclusions of this article will be made available by the authors, without undue reservation.

The studies involving human participants were reviewed and approved by Comité de Etica de Universidad de Concepción. The participants provided their written informed consent to participate in this study.

MO is first authorship. FC and CB have contributed equally to this work and share second authorship. All authors contributed to the article and approved the submitted version.

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.