Trying to stay calm when everything pulls at you
It is early morning. Your child is crying, your phone is buzzing, and your to-do list is already running through your head. You take a breath and remind yourself to stay calm, patient, present — the kind of parent you want to be. Moments like these are deeply familiar to many parents. They are also moments where pressure quietly builds.

In today’s society, expectations around parenting are high. Parents are expected to be endlessly attentive, emotionally available, and responsive — while also managing work, relationships, and their own well-being. At the same time, traditional support systems have shifted, and parenting can feel increasingly individual. The result is a growing pressure to live up to an ideal of the “perfect parent”.

Capturing parenting as it really happens
In the Perfect Parents project, we study what this pressure does — not only in how parents feel, but also to how their brains function. To capture parenting as it actually unfolds, we use Experience Sampling Methods (ESM), where parents report on their emotions and experiences multiple times a day in real life. This allows us to move beyond retrospective reports and observe parental stress and experiences in the moment.

We combine this with MRI to examine brain systems involved in social cognition and emotion regulation — the very systems that help parents respond to their child’s needs. By linking daily experiences to brain function, we aim to understand how moment-to-moment stress relates to underlying neural processes. Data collection is currently ongoing and expected to finish by the end of May 2026. We are excited to dive into the data, as this approach offers a unique window into parenting as both a lived and biological experience.

The parental brain under pressure
This project grew at the intersection of science and personal experience. As a neuroscientist, I have long been fascinated by how the brain adapts during major life transitions, such as pregnancy and early parenthood. These periods involve profound changes in brain systems related to emotion, motivation, and social behavior.

At the same time, as a parent, I became increasingly aware of the pressure to “do it right”. The idea of the perfect parent is hard to ignore — it is present in media, in conversations, and often in our own expectations. Experiencing this tension firsthand raised a fundamental question: how is this pressure reflected in individual differences in how parents feel, regulate, and function — both in daily life and in the brain? Despite growing attention to parental stress and burnout, surprisingly little is known about the brain mechanisms involved. This gap became the starting point for the Perfect Parents project.

A society of high expectations and little support
Parental stress is not just a personal challenge — it reflects broader societal changes. Rising expectations, increasing individualism, and constant exposure to idealized parenting through social media all contribute to a context in which many parents feel they are falling short.

At the same time, rates of parental burnout are increasing, with real consequences for both parents and children. Yet much of the conversation still focuses on individual responsibility: parents should cope better, balance better, do better.

By studying the brain mechanisms of parental stress, we can shift this perspective. Understanding how stress affects brain systems involved in emotion regulation and social cognition helps us move beyond blame and toward explanation. It opens the door to identifying when parents are at risk, and how support can be better tailored — not just to reduce stress, but to strengthen the processes that help parents connect, regulate, and respond.

Rest assured: the perfect parent does not exist
There is no such thing as a perfect parent — but the pressure to be one is real, and it affects each parent differently, both in daily life and in the brain. Understanding these differences is essential if we want to better support parents in a world that often asks a lot of them.

The Perfect Parents project is a team effort, carried out by an enthusiastic group of researchers and student assistants. The project is led by Dr. Michelle Achterberg and Prof. Dr. Maartje Luijk and is supported by funding from NWO.