“We Decided We Don’t Want Children. We Will Let Them Know Tonight”: Parental Humor on Social Media in a Time of Coronavirus Pandemic

Abstract

A thematic analysis of humor circulating on Israeli social networks during the COVID-19 lockdown reveals challenges that parents faced. Parents (mostly mothers) expressed the hardships of surviving quarantine while taking care of their children. Their humor presents them as helpless, depressed, and even suicidal when they discover that none of their coping mechanisms help them. Grandmothers escaped from caring for their grandchildren, and the relationships with remote schooling are contradictory, at best. Overall, this article highlights the unique role that humor plays as an outlet for parents’ anxieties and distress during the pandemic.