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Being Dr. Mom and/or Mom, Ph.D.: Autoethnographies of MotherScholaring during COVID-19

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Title: Being Dr. Mom and/or Mom, Ph.D.: Autoethnographies of MotherScholaring during COVID-19
Language: English
Authors: LeBlanc, Sarah Symonds (ORCID 0000-0003-2654-2126), Spradley, Elizabeth, Beal, Heather Olson, Burrow, Lauren, Cross, Chrissy
Source: New Horizons in Adult Education & Human Resource Development. Sum 2022 34(3):28-39.
Availability: Wiley. Available from: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030. Tel: 800-835-6770; e-mail: cs-journals@wiley.com; Web site: https://www.wiley.com/en-us
Peer Reviewed: Y
Page Count: 12
Publication Date: 2022
Document Type: Journal Articles
Reports - Evaluative
Education Level: Higher Education
Postsecondary Education
Descriptors: COVID-19, Pandemics, Mothers, Role, Higher Education, Scholarship, Coping
DOI: 10.1002/nha3.20360
ISSN: 1939-4225
Abstract: This article examines how the COVID-19 pandemic impacts five MotherScholars, mothers and scholars blending their maternal and academic identities, through the use of interactive interviewing, autoethnography, and narrative. The narratives are presented from four distinct times during the first 10-months of the COVID-19 pandemic: beginning (March through May of 2020), the middle (summer of 2020), the perpetuated middle (fall semester 2020), and present day (December 2020). The narratives capture how we, as five MotherScholars, negotiated between maternal and academic roles under pandemic conditions, ultimately unveiling our MotherScholar identity. The article concludes by drawing attention to the value of women colleagues and friendships for social support, the role of narratives to reshape family stories, and the impetus for institutions of higher education to assist MotherScholars.
Abstractor: As Provided
Entry Date: 2022
Accession Number: EJ1355260
Database: ERIC
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  Value: <anid>AN0160232202;[1cyh]01jul.22;2022Nov17.03:33;v2.2.500</anid> <title id="AN0160232202-1">Being Dr. Mom and/or Mom, Ph.D.: Autoethnographies of MotherScholaring during COVID‐19 </title> <p>This article examines how the COVID‐19 pandemic impacts five MotherScholars, mothers and scholars blending their maternal and academic identities, through the use of interactive interviewing, autoethnography, and narrative. The narratives are presented from four distinct times during the first 10‐months of the COVID‐19 pandemic: beginning (March through May of 2020), the middle (summer of 2020), the perpetuated middle (fall semester 2020), and present day (December 2020). The narratives capture how we, as five MotherScholars, negotiated between maternal and academic roles under pandemic conditions, ultimately unveiling our MotherScholar identity. The article concludes by drawing attention to the value of women colleagues and friendships for social support, the role of narratives to reshape family stories, and the impetus for institutions of higher education to assist MotherScholars.</p> <p>Keywords: Autoethnography; COVID‐19; Higher Ed; MotherScholar</p> <p>The onslaught of changes the COVID‐19 pandemic has on the lives of academics continues to unfold and its impact on work and family circumstances continues to be explored (Collins et al., 2020; Stephens et al., 2020). Research (Clemons & Robinson, 2021; Stephens et al., 2020) emerged during the first 10 months of the pandemic to examine the longevity of the global pandemic and the subsequent uncertainty that academics faced; yet, the pandemic continues to impact academics within our homes and our relationships with our universities. As academics, we struggle with making decisions regarding our teaching and managing our students' needs; as moms, we struggle to find the balance between our children, our maternal responsibilities, and self‐care. We are among the academics who faced doubt regarding what to do at the beginning of the pandemic; and now, we are among the academics who ponder what we currently should be doing as we navigate each new semester, each new hurdle, and each new increase of cases.</p> <p>The pandemic highlights the plight of academics, who are also mothers (Guy & Arthur, 2020; O'Reilly & Green, 2021/2022; Stephens et al., 2020). Of the mothers in her qualitative study of academic parent's COVID‐19 experiences, Hicks‐Roof (2020) concludes, "COVID‐19 exacerbated mothers' roles and responsibilities, leaving them feeling overwhelmed and strained mentally, physically, and emotionally" (p. 275). The inequities in gender in academia that existed prior to COVID‐19 (Baker, 2012) were amplified by the work from home conditions brought on by the pandemic (Flaherty, 2020). The increase of childcare and physical confinement impacts mental health (Davenport et al., 2020) and reduces the time previously set aside for academic work (Malisch et al., 2020). Working from home leads us to find creative ways to manage being mother and scholar; hence, we use the term MotherScholar to embody the identity management and blurring of the mother and scholar identities. The term MotherScholar derives from research that describes "female academicians who are also mothers [who] seek creative ways" of interjecting mothering identities into their academics and scholarship (Burrow et al., 2020, p. 4246; Lapayee, 2012; Matias, 2011) and vice versa. The pandemic increases the time demanded for mothering, negatively impacting our sense of self (Calacro et al., 2020). As the pandemic wears on, the pressures and stresses of being a MotherScholar become more pronounced (Calacro et al., under review).</p> <p>The literature problematizes the experiences of women faculty, especially mothers, juxtaposed to the expectations associated with both the academy and motherhood (LaPan et al., 2013). Work in this interdisciplinary body of literature uses labels like professor mom (Pease, 1993), academic motherhood (Ward & Wolf‐Wendel, 2004), and Mother‐Scholar (Burrow et al., 2020; Lapayee, 2012; Matias, 2011; Spradley et al., 2020/2021). Our work is concurrently shaped by these studies on the identities and experiences of women faculty in higher education who are both mothers and scholars. In particular, the works interrogating the mutual constitution of mother and scholar in the term Mother‐Scholar or MotherScholar are primary (Abetz, 2019; Burrow et al., 2020; Lapayee, 2012; Matias, 2011; Rust, 2016; Spradley et al., 2020/2021). Many of these works are outgrowths of a hyphenated work‐life balance literature; yet, the hyphenation may evoke the image of a scale, in which women strive to spend equal effort and time on the separated identities of mother and scholar and continually assess their identity management through the balance metaphor. Even within the work‐life literature, there are a growing number of scholars rejecting the balance metaphor in favor of alignment, articulation, or integration because of the unrealistic expectations that a balance metaphor inscribes upon identity management (see Parkes & Langford, 2015). Following suit from Burrow et al. (2020) and Spradley et al. (2020/2021), we reject symbols implying balance, and as such, we present ourselves as unhyphenated MotherScholars with integrated identities. Our maternal identity informs and shapes our scholarly identity and vice versa, subsequently, underscoring the value of linguistic shifts—Mother‐Scholar to MotherScholar—and their relationship to identity.</p> <p>MotherScholars faced contradictory expectations prior to COVID‐19. Lawless (2021) reminds readers that women academics are expected to choose between having a successful career or being a good mother. The pandemic shifted childcare responsibilities and time needed to fulfill them. Yavorsky et al. (2021) reiterates how working moms did about 60% of the childcare prior to the pandemic, but this task grew when the COVID‐19 pandemic involuntarily merged the identities of mother and scholar requiring child care in the home while simultaneously working from home to teach, research, and serve in academia. Instead of being expected to choose between a successful career or being a good mother, MotherScholars' child‐rearing responsibilities increased to 70% due to the closing of schools and daycares (Yavorsky et al., 2021), and their professional responsibilities increased as well to transition classes and student interactions to online delivery, reimagine research agendas in a virtual world, and so much more. An additional responsibility maybe attributed to the MotherScholar identity because students sought maternal care from professors in the form of emotional sounding boards to help them manage their mental health and stressors due to pandemic uncertainties (Malisch et al., 2020)</p> <p>While we certainly experienced the overlap of mother and scholar prior to March 2020, we had not experienced an overlap of this magnitude. The pandemic forced motherhood and academic life to intermingle for a minimum of 19 months (at the time of the writing of this piece). We note the decrease in our personal balance (Morris, 2020) as we work to manage our children while trying to remain professionally productive. We document how challenges to mother and scholar roles led us to worry about our careers and created self‐doubt regarding the quality of our mothering (Calacro et al., under review) and the quality of our scholarship. We chronicled the interruption of school districts shutting down for 2 weeks or more because of the pandemic, of children demanding our time while we interact in virtual meetings, and of having our academic days interrupted with requests for our phones, computers, snacks and attention.</p> <p>For this special issue, we examine the impact the COVID‐19 pandemic has on us as MotherScholars. Specifically, we explore how we negotiated between our work and family to narrate and provide examples of the highs and lows of MotherScholar. Using interactive interviewing techniques, autoethnography, and narrative, this article details the lives of five MotherScholars during COVID‐19.</p> <p>As scholars, we acknowledge the work that has been done on exploring the pressures, issues, and circumstances academics who are mothers face in the academy (Huopalainen & Satama, 2018; Isgro & Castaneda, 2015; Toffoletti & Starr, 2016; Yngvesson et al., 2020). We acknowledge that some of the increased time with our children leads to increased stress, anxiety, and frustration (Calacro et al., under review). Yet, we use our voices to explore how MotherScholars negotiate between work and family during a pandemic; we use our voices to give meaning to the stress, anxiety, and frustration. We use two research questions to guide our story:</p> <p></p> <ulist> <item> RQ 1: How does the intermingling of work and family impact our MotherScholar identity?</item> <p></p> <item> RQ 2: How does the negotiation between academic and mother identities transpire as the pandemic continues?</item> </ulist> <hd id="AN0160232202-2">THE TEAM OF MOTHERSCHOLARS</hd> <p>Before discussing the method, we pause to provide background on how the team came together, discuss the commonalities between us, and introduce us as individuals. In other words, we remain committed to the reflexive practice of exploring our positionalities in our research process and outcomes (see Guy & Arthur, 2020). You will note that four of the authors are from the same institution in Texas, but three authors (Heather, Lauren, and Chrissy) are in education and the other (Elizabeth) is in communication. Elizabeth approached Heather, as Elizabeth wanted to explore MotherScholars during COVID‐19. Heather agreed and included two of her MotherScholar cohorts, Lauren and Chrissy. Elizabeth reached out via email to graduate school colleagues for recommendations of other communication academics who are also mothers. It is through a mutual colleague that Elizabeth found Sarah, the lone academic from Indiana, and we became five MotherScholars researching and writing our way through the pandemic.</p> <p>Before we provide specifics of each member of the team, we mention the commonalities between us. We are all White mothers and academics. We acknowledge that this provides us certain status and benefits. We are all employed full‐time and in tenure‐track positions at major universities in our respective areas. We are all married and represent dual‐income families. We know we have privileges that other MotherScholars may not, especially single mothers, women of color, and those employed part‐time or on yearly contracts. The two authors with young children have grandparents nearby to help while we know other MotherScholars with young children may not. The authors with older children have less mundane tasks to worry about (e.g., bathroom tasks, meals, bedtime routines) but grapple with weighty concerns such as college applications, children leaving for college, and after‐school activities. Still, we brought our individual personalities, fears, and experiences together.</p> <p>Of note, we want to point out that our children have aged from our initial meeting in May 2020 to present time, hence why ages may appear differently in the narratives than from our individual descriptions.</p> <p> <emph>Sarah</emph>: Sarah LeBlanc is an assistant professor of communication. She has two girls, ages 7 and 5, and has been married for 9 years. She is not tenured but is on the tenure track. She resides in Indiana.</p> <p> <emph>Elizabeth Spradley</emph>: Elizabeth Spradley is an associate professor of communication. She has four boys, ranging in age from 5 to 15. She resides in Texas.</p> <p> <emph>Lauren Burrow</emph>: Lauren Burrow is a tenured associate professor of education. She has 3 children ranging in age from 10 to 13. She resides in Texas.</p> <p> <emph>Heather</emph>: Heather Olson Beal is a tenured full professor of education. She has three children, two daughters and one son, ranging in age from 18 to 24. She is the senior member of the team who has spent her academic career being both a mother and a scholar. She resides in Texas.</p> <p> <emph>Chrissy</emph>: Chrissy Cross is a tenured associate professor of education. She has four children ranging in ages from 10 to 15. She resides in Texas.</p> <hd id="AN0160232202-3">CONNECTING OUR PANDEMIC NARRATIVES TO METHOD</hd> <p>To explore how we negotiated between our work and family, we take a page from the Ellis et al. (2018) playbook by using descriptive personal narratives to explore cultural implications of being MotherScholars in COVID‐19 (Wilkinson, 2020). Our research is an autoethnography supported with artifacts including interactive interviews (Ellis et al., 1997) and written narrative follow ups, as well as member checks through the writing and editing processes. We selected this qualitative research method because of our dual roles as researchers and participants. The narratives represent four distinct times during the first 10‐months of the COVID‐19 pandemic: beginning (March through May of 2020), the middle (summer of 2020), the perpetuated middle (fall semester 2020), and end of the first 8 months (December 2020). First, we met to share our stories during four Zoom sessions between May and October 2020 in the format of interactive interviewing according to the recommendations of Bochner and Ellis (1996) and Ellis et al. (1997). For each interview, Elizabeth circulated an interview guide with questions and topics that would shape conversations during these sessions. As we analyzed the data from our transcripts of our interactive interviews, we expanded our autoethnographic data to include narratives that we individually authored as participants reflecting on our ongoing MotherScholar experiences as the pandemic persisted into summer and fall of 2020. We consciously use thick description (Lincoln & Guba, 1985) to provide readers with insights into our lived experiences and strive to authentically communicate those lived experiences to both ourselves and others (Ellis et al., 1997). In December of 2020, we sought narrative follow ups and member checks from one another. This stage of data collection focused on each participant writing narratives from the spring, summer, and fall of 2020. We shared our narratives with one another, categorized the narratives based on chronology, noted how things may change or remain stagnant during the pandemic, and reviewed one another's narratives to check perceptions. Narratives and other artifacts were woven together in a bricolage (Ellis et al., 2018) to tell our stories of the work and family crisis brought on by the COVID 19 pandemic. This work is a reflection of and consistent with autoethnographic research in the social sciences and humanities that seeks to show or demonstrate through storytelling within the narrative paradigm (see Ellis, 1999). Due to length, only parts of our narratives are reflected in this article.</p> <hd id="AN0160232202-4">OUR PANDEMIC JOURNEY</hd> <p></p> <hd id="AN0160232202-5">The beginning</hd> <p> <emph>Two months into the biggest health crisis that has engulfed our homes, our universities, our states, our county, and our world, our lives are in upheaval. Our academic work is impacted as our universities shuttered, moving classes and meetings online. Our children's schools close down to prevent school staff and children from getting COVID. We explore the onslaught of COVID‐19 as MotherScholars mothering, working, and living in the same space simultaneously</emph>.</p> <p> <emph>Sarah</emph>: The changes the pandemic brings starts at the kitchen table on Tuesday March 10, 2020. My partner asks if we had enough groceries for two weeks and I said "yes, why?" He indicates that COVID‐19 could be bad. We could be stuck at home for 2 weeks. I remember reading about it in the paper, well not really reading but skimming past the headlines thinking this will go the way of the swine flu. I file his comments into the back of my head as he heads out the front door to his job and I stare back at my computer screen, letting my fingers fly across the keyboard as I hack away at the never‐ending to‐do list.</p> <hd id="AN0160232202-6">Ding</hd> <p>I look to the right‐hand corner of the screen as an email arrives from Central States (CSCA). I quickly click on it; while I see the words, the only part I remember and absorb is "the 2020 CSCA Communication conference is canceled." <emph>Well crap</emph>. I reread the email. <emph>Wait this means I won't see my friends. This is like the one time of the year I can see my colleagues from around the Midwest</emph>, and I think as I reach over to pick up my phone and send a text to my partner:</p> <p>"Not going to Chicago next month. Conference canceled." I hit send.</p> <p>I sigh in relief, the tension easing from the weight of planning my departure for upcoming conferences has on my shoulders, my stress level. I faced questions of my motherly duties since I announced this conference to my family. "<emph>Damn‐it, I'm not tenured and I won't get tenure if I don't fulfill my academic obligations"</emph> I want to scream at them. But, I don't. With the cancelation, I don't have to worry about daycare, grandparents, or interrupting my partner's work schedule. While I faced negotiating between my mother and academic identities pre‐March 10, the cancelation of this conference demonstrates how much my family sees me more as mother and less as academic.</p> <p>As I continue to work, I receive an email from International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry (ICQI). Canceled.</p> <p>May conference is also canceled. My sister won't need to come up.</p> <p>I text my partner a few minutes later. His trip to Maine with his father is still on the agenda. My conference overlapped with his trip so we were going to need my sister to come up. Now that no longer has to happen. I won't be going to my first qualitative conference.</p> <p>My academic heart begins to break when I realize this. The sense of feeling isolated begins to develop.</p> <p> <emph>Chrissy</emph>: In the beginning it was novel, like the virus, a terrible but interesting place to be to a MotherScholar with a PhD in curriculum and instruction. My kids and I relax during Spring break, and towards the end of the week as I watch the news and see the nation's schools shut down, I realize this break would be longer than I was expecting. As the days turned into weeks, our world changes, and I slowly realize my children would not be going back to school. Suddenly the novelty and objectivity of the COVID pandemic are gone. The impossible demands of working full‐time, homeschooling my four kids full time, making sure we all were fed and taken care of, all on rural internet barely over dial up hit me. My employer sent an email and I gasp at how they expect us to "work forty hours a week" regardless of the pandemic; <emph>how can they expect me to teach my classes and be available eight to five, with no extra resources from them, and spotty internet reliability</emph>. I sit crying over my computer, thinking about my kids' schoolwork, my work, the housework. <emph>I simply don't have enough hours in the day to take care of us, work, and make sure they had any type of education</emph>. My partner, a healthcare worker, works long hours doing COVID testing. I am on my own. The pandemic has all but taken away the scholar in my MotherScholar identity. The day I make my kids quit doing their schoolwork is one of the best days of the pandemic because now I could spend more hours in my day digging out of the deep hole of grading, assignments, research, teaching, and never‐ending Zoom meetings. The scholar in me begins to return. <emph>Animal Crossing</emph>, <emph>Among Us</emph>, and <emph>Netflix</emph> become my children's teachers, as I finally begin to catch up a little on my doubled workload.</p> <p> <emph>Elizabeth</emph>: My maternal and professional identities enmesh in MotherScholar research after months of sheltering‐in‐place, which allows me to merge aspects of these identities exploring how one could complement the other in unique ways during the pandemic. I am looking forward to our first MotherScholar planning session for an autoethnographic research project. Staking out my claim to one of the only private places in the house, I set up a TV tray with the laptop in my 5‐by‐6 foot closet. While it starts with its share of technological hiccups, we are laughing, strategizing, storytelling, and enjoying one another. Then, I hear, "Momma, momma, where are you?" The three‐year‐old bursts into the closet before his dad can reign him in and distract him. Admittedly, I'm tempted to give into the emotional frustration of having my plans unravel on Zoom for my research team to see, but I do not give in—this time. <emph>These women know what it was like. These women know how hard I am working to be both mom and scholar. These women understand the pressures of being the "good" mom that circulate in our society and the pressures of being the "productive" scholar that circulate in institutions of higher education. These women know!</emph> Rather than muting myself, going off camera, and warning my three‐year old not to interrupt again, I laugh with these women and trust that "daddy" had all things at hand. For now, I could focus on being ScholarMother.</p> <p> <emph>Heather</emph>: The pandemic seems fun for the first few days. My girls are home from college, which never would have happened otherwise. Stuart (my senior in high school) is out of school as well. We have family dinners. We watch movies at night. It seems like an adventure, a respite from our normal daily grind. We are naïve and think it is going to short‐lived. It is fairly easy for me, as a mom of older kids, to hole up in my home office (even though it doubles as my daughter's bedroom when she comes home from college) behind a closed door and do my Zoom classes and meetings and work. Both the physical space and the ages and consequent independence of my children enable me to keep <emph>some</emph> boundaries between work and home, between mother and scholar. Oh sure, my son starts Zoom piano lessons RIGHT during my Wednesday night classes. Sometimes when he was really hammering out an angry Bartok piece, it gets loud and I have to mute myself if someone else is talking and occasionally apologize. Often one of my kids comes into my office‐bedroom to get something or ask me for something, but they can immediately see if I am on Zoom and would speak in hushed tones or give up entirely and decide to talk to me later. For ME, the family/mom part is mostly fun. The kids are distressed about what was happening with their own high school and college classes, but they are also happy to be home. What is really difficult is work and supervisors who lack empathy and understanding.</p> <p> <emph>Lauren</emph>: As lockdown first starts, I actually find the schedule and pacing of COVID‐19 more conducive to achieving the mythical "work‐life balance." When your "work place" is your living room and signing off from work means you can be back in your kitchen in just seven steps, balancing "mothering" and "scholaring" actually seems possible. For the first time, since entering academia, I find myself actually taking the breaks that I had never taken before; after working all week IN my home, I find myself actually taking the weekend to LIVE in my home. The movie nights, family walks, and board game fun that had always occurred while I was at work are still occurring, but now I am getting to be part of the watching, walking, and winning!</p> <hd id="AN0160232202-7">Reflection on the beginning</hd> <p>The first few months of the pandemic spanning from March to May of 2020 mark the beginning of pandemic MotherScholar identity conflicts featuring a wide array of experiences and emotions as maternal and scholarly identities manifest differently across our narratives. Like others academic mothers, we acknowledge challenges to our maternal and scholarly identities when the collision of work, family, and home was involuntary thrust upon us. Additionally, we acknowledge the unique challenges of enacting MotherScholar identity as our identities mingled, conflicted, and vied for prominence in our daily lives (Rust, 2016). At times, we privileged one identity over the other, but ultimately, our narratives demonstrate how we managed our identities differently based on differences in our families, children's ages, and expectations related to work, family, and home. From Sarah's disillusionment that her scholarly identity was being cancelled to Lauren's awakening to newfound "work‐life balance," the ups and downs of MotherScholar identity management initially disrupted our lives. As we sought to manage these ups and downs, some of us privileged one identity over the other, and all of us, whether directly or indirectly, voiced our concerns related to the lack of institutional support that we desperately wanted in our pandemic MotherScholar lives. In sum, the beginning narratives highlight identity management and privileging (Morris, 2020), identity intermingling, and limited institutional understanding or resources (O'Laughlin & Bischoff, 2005) to achieve the ideals of either our maternal or scholarly identities.</p> <hd id="AN0160232202-8">The middle</hd> <p> <emph>We define the middle as the late part of the summer, mainly the months of July and August as the shelter‐in‐place orders began to lift but health precautions remained. We spent five months mostly in our homes, maybe venturing outside for walks, gardening, or hospital visits for non‐COVID reasons. We slowly begin to realize the differences of summers past as we endured the 2020 COVID summer</emph>.</p> <p> <emph>Elizabeth</emph>: The summer passes by in a blur...weekdays and weekends lost all sense of definition. I teach a mini‐term class in May and two classes the first summer session; I present four research presentations—all co‐authored—at three different virtual conferences. I finish another book chapter, complete data analysis on two projects, and finish my part on the submission of two journal articles. I co‐teach a virtual class to high schoolers for recruiting and organize data to promote our program. I make phone calls and compose emails to countless potential majors and advise current ones. I check in with my colleagues giving them access to course shells in the learning management system. I meet with colleagues to develop plans to propose a new graduate program and new undergraduate completer program. Summer is an allusive dream. It is like the Spring semester keeps going until it crashes into the Fall.</p> <p>I bear a weighty burden related to my three‐year old's use of technology and screen time since COVID‐19 transitioned him from face‐to‐face learning to remote learning. At first, toys at home occupied his attention or technology could be excused away as a temporary, but a necessary, evil to occupy him. After several months into the pandemic, those toys are not as attractive, and my excuses are hollow promises to myself – temporary is becoming permanent. How can I keep him occupied so I could advise students, catch up on email, grade, write, and attend meetings? In the midst of my silent frustrations, my husband purchases a subscription to <emph>ABC Mouse</emph>. It is not a perfect solution, but it is a lesser of the evils, which I learn to accept as the pandemic outlasts my original coping mechanisms.</p> <p> <emph>Carol</emph>: Due to drastic budget concerns at my university and talk of a reorganization, I worry about losing my job. I know that when universities reorganize, face budget cuts, and have decreased enrollments, often there is a reduction in force. There are not enough hours in the day to do what I need to do. I teach three summer classes, write curriculum for two new classes, do graduate marketing, recruiting, and advising for the 3 graduate programs that I am the program coordinator for, submit 2 NSF grants, and two publications. With my job in jeopardy, my husband and I choose to get our home ready to sell. Every day, I wake up and try to balance full time mothering, working along with painting the kitchen cabinets, packing up mementos to declutter the house, and clean. My husband has a routine surgery and suffers from complications leading to him becoming septic and requiring hospitalization. I remain strong and continue to somehow get everything done for work and my family. My children are a constant reminder of the passion for my career, and their hugs and smiles keep me going.</p> <p>I'm drained. I dread the fall semester because I haven't had a break. Staring at the computer screen drains what little energy and creativity I have left to give to my job. I think through the decisions I will make with my kids in the fall, face to face or at home learning. Each choice is complicated, and each child is so different. My PhD in education didn't prepare me for this.</p> <p> <emph>Lauren</emph>: As the months drag on and working from home becomes the norm, I find the old habits of working around the clock creeping back in and taking back over my family time. To have to "stay at work" IN your home is a new kind of awful, because it requires your family to witness your stress, tip toe around during your Zoom meetings, watch their movies with headphones while you teach class remotely...It becomes harder to convince myself and my family that they are the most important thing in my life as I daily pull the "this‐is‐supposed‐to‐be‐a‐temporary‐fix" shower curtain closed to separate my work life from my home life in my own home.</p> <p> <emph>Sarah</emph>: It's interesting because the others who have played a role in this journey are the ones who define me in my mom and academic roles.</p> <p>My relationship with my 3‐year‐old impacts my mother role. I realize I spoil her, not with materialistic things but because I give in to her every demand so I don't have to listen to her tantrums. As I am working on my computer in my nook, she walks in and physically tries to push me out of the chair so she can have my computer. It is like she knows that by pushing me away from my computer she can watch You‐tube and I can't do my job. In these moments and in my solo‐parent times, I am limited in being a scholar; I cannot do or be both quite frequently during the middle of the pandemic. My mind swims with how much scholarly work I have to get done. <emph>I can't do it. I can't get my work done. I shouldn't have volunteered to do freshman and transfer advising. I want to give in and sob; but I can't because the older child beckons</emph>. By 9 pm when I go to bed, I may have accomplished 2 or 3 hours.</p> <p></p> <ulist> <item> I am failing as a mother. Failing at academia. Failing myself.</item> </ulist> <hd id="AN0160232202-9">Reflection of the middle</hd> <p>Like others before us (Couch et al., 2020), we fluctuate between work and family as the summer of 2020 progresses. As Elizabeth's and Chrissy's narratives allude, we started a chasm of what was once not allowed to what is now allowed, especially in terms of screen time (Couch et al., 2020). This chasm is a result of many of us seeking ways to reclaim our scholar time; having our children at home meant caring for their needs in addition to addressing the expectations of our employers (McDermott, 2020/2021); the screens allow us some time to do both. These narratives showcase how we begin to note the threat COVID‐19 had on our research production and work time (Myles‐Baltzly et al., 2021) as well as our abilities to be the mothers that we aimed to be. What we once took for granted becomes a sought‐after commodity. Being MotherScholars in our homes during the first summer of COVID‐19 was emotionally driven as we internally fought against the splintering of our mother and scholar identities (Couch et al., 2020). Sarah illustrates this emotional upheaval with the use of negative self‐talk and alluding to the sense of failing. Despite the persistence of pandemic conditions that entice us into thinking we would have developed productive, satisfying routines, we are wrought with less than satisfying maternal and scholarly enactments, and we are voicing our frustrations at the lived experiences of giving up one for another—primarily giving up our maternal ideals for our scholarly needs.</p> <hd id="AN0160232202-10">The fall semester</hd> <p> <emph>The Fall semester begins in August, on different dates that reflect our universities calendars. For some, this means a change in "home"; for others, this means changes in work. What we notice doesn't change is how much we continue to negotiate between mom and scholar. We make decisions for one identity from the perspective of the other identity. We keep going</emph>.</p> <p> <emph>Heather</emph>: It's late September. The girls went back to Houston and Baton Rouge to start their college lives back up again. It's as it should be. March – August was a lot of fun, but of course, not best for them as their lives were put on hold. I feel worried and stressed for them because, they assure me, "Zoom school" is so hard...so so so hard. And I worry about COVID...they are around lots of other college kids whose daily choices they can't control. <emph>Will they contract COVID‐19?</emph></p> <p>Home life returns to just me, Brent (husband), and Stuart, who is a senior in high school. Stuart choses to do online school, which is terrible (no instruction, no interaction), but he is a good independent learner and he seems mostly okay. He wakes for swim practice every morning at 5:30. He opts OUT of marching band because it is—of course—not available to students choosing online instruction. I cry as I realize a family tradition is disappearing. <emph>No more last football season. No more last marching season. No more last football game. No more senior night. No more</emph>.</p> <p>Mostly everything feels pretty gray. I am happy because the summer hot weather seems to have finally broken; I can go outside again and not just about die of heat. I realize I don't have anything to look forward to as I flip through my calendar. <emph>No conferences scheduled. No weekend trips. No swim meets. No football games to go to watch Stuart in band</emph>. Everything feels cancelled. And every day feels the same.</p> <p> <emph>Elizabeth</emph>: "Kids have to quarantine for two weeks," my husband announces as I change the youngest for bedtime and direct the other three to brush teeth, clean up rooms, and join us for goodnight prayer. "What did you just say?" I half‐heartedly ask thinking he is joking with me, or maybe I'm wishing I misheard him. He repeats himself and proceeds to read the text message from the school indicating that a teacher tested positive for COVID‐19. My mind immediately meanders through our work schedules of Zoom classes, meetings, grading, and writing deadlines that are on our calendars for the next two weeks. Adding to my mounting concerns, my oldest pops in after overhearing the announcement to remind me to keep his brothers out of his room so his online classes are not interrupted during the upcoming two weeks. I could tell he is quite displeased, but he has us to run interference. <emph>Who did we have?</emph> After our bedtime routine, I pull out my phone to start contacting people to rearrange my schedule, get a head start on the next day, and distract myself from the sick feeling churning in my stomach.</p> <p>Fall 2020 is turning out to be full of false promises toward a return to normalcy. Instead of developing a "new normal" with a predictable schedule, every 3–4 weeks my kids' school quarantines a class or reports an exposure. It is finals week for my university classes; and on the heels of starting remote and three different quarantine periods during the Fall with the last one expiring, we decide not to send our kids back until January 2021. Should I believe in the promise of a more predictable 2021?</p> <hd id="AN0160232202-11">Reflection on the fall</hd> <p>While we only share two narratives, both narratives bring to light issues families faced during the fall of the pandemic impacting MotherScholar identity management. First, many parents faced the decision of brick‐n‐mortar school or virtual school—a decision that we grappled through, ending with a mix of facilitating online education, fully online education, brick‐n‐mortar education, and brick‐n‐mortar interspersed with remote education. Then, the parents dealt with the fall out of their decisions: the end of family traditions/rituals, the unpredictability and upheaval of having the children home every 2 weeks because of possible COVID exposure, and the rearranging of schedules or dropping tasks to accommodate children's educational needs at home. While these findings support claims of COVID‐19 impacting one's productivity (Myles‐Baltzly et al., 2021), we found how COVID‐19 impacted our family culture, disrupting "life plans, such as birthdays, weddings, religious holidays, recreational activities, and funerals" (Frænkel & Cho, 2020). The fall of 2020 perpetuated a loss of certainty, predictability, and normality that we had anticipated returning, which further underscored our need for support for our maternal identities.</p> <hd id="AN0160232202-12">Months in</hd> <p> <emph>Present day is the early part of the Spring 2021 semester. We now have 2</emph> <emph>.5 semesters of working from home, handling maternal duties and professional responsibilities simultaneously, and sharing our work and family spaces with our loved ones. Some of us endured school closings. Others of us endured young children underfoot rather than sending them to daycare. We are 10 months into the biggest pandemic in our lifetimes. Have things gotten easier?</emph> </p> <p> <emph>Sarah</emph>: It is just so damn hard trying to be everything to everyone. I close my eyes and rub my forehead with my right hand as I roll through my virtual to do‐list, my two girls making noise in the background. <emph>Revisions, research framing theory, annual review, email health department, begin February presentation, are my classes set up in the LMS?</emph> I realize I want to plop my head on my desk and close my eyes as the girls come running into my room yelling "mom" and then "baby." I lift my head stare at my computer screen as I hear them turn around and run out<emph>. I see the words but I don't comprehend the words. What are we trying to say here? I dread beginning work on these revisions</emph>. <emph>Is there something else on my to‐do list I can tackle instead?</emph> I sit at my desk as a scholar, my fingers hovering over the keyboard. I hear my husband through the shared wall between our room and his office, the door closed, the girls not interrupting. I run my fingers through my hair and realize than even after 10 months my girls still only see me as a mom. And in those few seconds, between staring at the screen not knowing what to write and hearing the girls call for mom, I am torn between where I should devote my focus: mom or scholar; scholar or mom. I don't know who I am supposed to be. I don't know who to enact.</p> <p>All my classes are online this semester. This shaves about 2 hours of commuting and prep time off my life. I asked for this accommodation during late Fall semester, was granted it, and then promptly received an email advertising "extra PPE equipment available". <emph>That's not the point. I need to not waste time commuting. I need to be home to care for my children. I can't risk getting COVID as there is nowhere in my house to quarantine. If my employer is not going to look out for me, I need to look out for myself and do what is best for my family</emph>.</p> <p>The conversations my partner and I have around my work schedule change. "Hey don't you have class in 40 minutes? Sit down and eat; I will take care of the girls," my husband says as we dish out dinner. "Oh, I got this," I reply back. "My commute is just 30 seconds." Our laughter fills the kitchen as we scoop, plate, and cool down the girls' meals.</p> <p>About 7 minutes before 6pm, I head back to my alcove in our room, log into my class, and listen for the doorbell sound as the students enter. I begin my first night spiel, although 80% of the class already knows me. "And I want to give you a heads up. I apologize if my...". I stop myself from finishing the sentence. I take a deep breath and start again. "No, I won't apologize. It is inevitable that my daughters will interrupt us. It's a part of my life. I'm a MotherScholar and I'm not going to apologize for when my two worlds collide." This garners some smiles from the graduate students on my computer screen and we move forward into their introductions.</p> <p>While I may still be negotiating between mom and scholar offline, I show that I'm a MotherScholar online.</p> <p> <emph>Lauren</emph>: As I enter yet another season under COVID‐19 quarantine, I am reminding myself to push back against the guilt‐inducing quest to strive for a mother‐scholar balance and, instead, embrace the fluid duality of MotherScholarhood — most days I can embrace that this is OUR house so my kids are going to play along with the art lessons I teach during Zoom class, that receiving handwritten love notes stuck to my computer screen is just the serotonin‐boost I need to make it to the end of work conference calls, and that my mothering is going to show up in my scholarship just as much as my scholarship is going to show up in my mothering.</p> <p> <emph>Heather</emph>: As the days pass, I focus less on daily caretaking; I'm less focused on that and have been for a while. Stuart doesn't need me to get him out of bed in the morning or remind him to brush his teeth or shower. He doesn't need my help with things like making a grilled cheese sandwich. He does his own laundry. So, the <emph>caretaking</emph> tasks that are a big part of parenting are much diminished.</p> <p>I spent a lot of the fall working on college applications with him. Strategizing about who to get to write letters of recommendations and for which schools. Working and re‐working all the essays he had to write. And he applied to 10–12 schools, so it was a LOT.</p> <p>And, I feel like right <emph>now</emph>, that stuff feels more like "mothering" to me than the other stuff I mentioned ("caretaking")... but it's ironic because it's like I'm mothering him right on out of my home. I think I have taken some of the time and energy I used to devote to mothering / caretaking of my kids and transferred it to my women friends and colleagues who are younger and less experienced than I am.</p> <p> <emph>Elizabeth</emph>: It is getting harder and harder to stir the wooden spoon in the copper pot ‐ my fingers are cramping and arm is dropping. <emph>Surely, this means I am done</emph>. I open up my phone to the mothering blog to confirm that my homemade playdough is done and ready for the food coloring. My fifth grader is bouncing up and down beside me asking to help, which I oblige because, after all, the playdough is for his layers of the earth assignment. While he works the dye into each of the lumps of playdough, I answer a few emails to return to a full‐blown dyed mess of a fifth grader. Issuing out an imperative to stand completely still, I snap a picture for posterity. How would we have made this project work if he was at school 7:45‐3 or if my work schedule was more rigid and tied to campus facilities? He smiles at me with that self‐satisfied toothy grin and the mischievous curl of one side of his lips. I snap another pic before he changes his expression—now I have no excuse but to remember this moment. Fall 2020 and the start of Spring 2021 may be unpredictable with last minute imperatives to quarantine for weeks at a time making school, work, and family challenging, but let's face it, unpredictable moments like my fifth grader's dyed mess of a self and grin pull me back from the feelings of overwhelming stress and return feelings of gratitude that the pandemic has tried its best to steal from me.</p> <hd id="AN0160232202-13">FINDING MEANING IN OUR STORIES</hd> <p>The pandemic influences our MotherScholar identities—the privileging of one over another, the feeling of loss related to one or both, the intermingling of them, the identity management challenges, and the adamant projection of both simultaneously. Our stories highlight how unpredictable life is, how quickly our "expectations" are thrown to the waste‐side, and even how we, as mothers and as scholars, make it work. In reading and tying together our narratives, three themes arise.</p> <p>First, we learned to edit our families' stories much like we edit our academic writing. In reading our narratives, especially Elizabeth's and Heather's, you may have been drawn to the word "no" (e.g., no more football games, no more vacations). We did not fully appreciate the mundane activities that we took for granted until they were no longer there. However, the situations during the pandemic led us to edit our family stories, finding new ways to come together and work, instead of withdrawing our attention from our family. Elizabeth and her family worked together in the garden, creatively approached school projects, and discovered constructive uses of media. Chrissy and her family prepared their house for the Texas real estate market. Sarah and her children started doing tea parties, completing puzzles, and learning to play Candy Land and Chutes & Ladders. Heather did Yoga with her children, and Lauren learned to take advantage of movie night. By editing our families' stories, we disassembled the pandemic "no's" and constructed pandemic "yes's".</p> <p>Second, our narratives highlight the value of friendship among mothers, especially when it comes to negative self‐talk and self‐care. Our interactive interviews revealed that we, to varying degrees, struggle to manage imposter syndrome. Imposter syndrome is the self‐perception that one does not belong, that one's success is the product of work rather than merit, and/or that one is not qualified to perform the role and, therefore, an imposter (Clance & Imes, 1978). Imposter syndrome was individually narrated, but resistance to imposter syndrome was collectively narrated. As a collective, we resisted imposter syndrome through friendship. Sarah's narrative highlights how she saw herself failing as a mother, as an academic questioning her self‐worth in both the cultures of motherhood and academia. Identifying with Sarah, we all faced times of self‐doubt as we struggled to manage being MotherScholar in COVID‐19 conditions.</p> <p>Instead of the imposter syndrome dividing us, though, our interactive interviews demonstrated how we supported each other. We related to these feelings of self‐doubt, diminished sense of importance, and lack of sense‐of‐belonging. Given that imposter syndrome is attributed, in part, to social comparisons, our friendship functioned as a counterweight to the draw of social comparison. We had windows into each MotherScholar's COVID‐19 lives, and care, empathy, and encouragement arose in the place of social comparison. Spradley et al. (2020/2021) drew attention to the role of higher education institutions in cultivating opportunities for social interaction and support, which may curb imposter syndrome or, at least, open spaces for imposter syndrome to be discussed. Additionally, LaPan et al. (2013) concludes that women academics trend toward a politic of hope, in that their negative perceptions are counteracted with the hope that they can a force for positive change in higher education. This politic of hope resonates with our COVID‐19 experiences as we combat negativity (imposter syndrome) with our friendship and our collective work toward voicing and including MotherScholars in the academy.</p> <p>Finally, our narratives highlight the importance of academic institutions paying more attention to their rhetoric and employees in real time as they shift over the course of a crisis. Heather commented how work supervisors lacked empathy and understanding. Chrissy shared the email she received saying they (professors and staff) were still expected to work 40 hours a week. Sarah received an email about extra PPE equipment being available. These forms of communication focused on what we as academics should, or could, do to support our institutions, not what our institutions of higher education could do to support us. While we support some of the measures that have taken place, we argue (Spradley et al., 2020/2021) that higher institutions need to think differently about supporting MotherScholars as a result of the COVID‐19 pandemic. Yes, some higher institutions provided a year of tenure clock extension; but this extension comes at the expense of assistant professors, as it provides one more year of job instability and one year more of less pay. Furthermore, higher education needs to attend to the shifts in their faculty and staffs' needs over the course of a crisis to consider such things as how pausing a tenure clock may be a short‐term fix but fails to meet the long‐term needs of an ongoing crisis or how work time is organized flexibly to accommodate complex responsibilities.</p> <hd id="AN0160232202-14">Implications</hd> <p>We provide practical implications for both higher education scholars and administration. First, scholars and researchers need to look outside of the box in examining the lives of MotherScholars and the impact a crisis has on lives. In digging through the literature and popular press articles on mothering during COVID‐19, attention focused on how COVID‐19 impacted their work, in terms of production and hours dedicated. Our study highlights the importance of looking at the impact a crisis has on a family. This notation came to light as we analyzed our stories and saw how much of "family life" was deleted because of COVID‐19.</p> <p>Second, acknowledgment of what it means to be a MotherScholar is warranted; by that, we mean that one cannot just focus on one aspect of their employees: scholar. The mother, and to an extent father and/or parental role, side needs a space to share the family narrative, as our family culture impacts us as much, if not more, than our organizational culture. Bochner and Ellis (2006) wrote "expressions or representations of the meeting place of self and culture, of what is inside us and can be made visible to outsiders, and what originates outside us yet eventually circulates within us" (p. 113). We see this quotation as a call to look at the multiple identities of an individual and not just the one that we perform for them. By silencing or failing to acknowledge MotherScholars, researchers and higher education administration communicate that the familial side of their employee or colleague is not important. This narrative then influences how MotherScholars might perceive their campus/university and their expectations of multiple, competing identities. To prevent this cycle, we must work collaboratively to rewrite the narrative from either/or to both/and MotherScholar.</p> <p>Next, institutions of higher education need to readjust their communication strategies in disseminating messages, especially positive messages, about their faculty and staff. As we pointed out above in our themes, imposter syndrome played a role in our MotherScholar identities during the pandemic. Most notably, the effects of imposter syndrome may negatively impact diversity and inclusion efforts in higher education, not only among MotherScholars, but especially in STEM, where women, especially women of color, experience perceptions aligned with imposter syndrome (Chrousos & Mentis, 2020). With that said, Bothello and Roberts (2019) argue that imposter syndrome is common among junior faculty, who experience high levels of anxiety and stress, specifically related to their roles and responsibilities discerning if what they are doing is important and asking if they belong in the academy. Communication and marketing offices should pursue a concrete effort to highlight accomplishments from a diverse range of faculty and staff during crises by communicating messages like "thank‐you" and "good job" and communicating messages that normalize struggles.</p> <p>Finally, we urge institutions of higher education to accommodate MotherScholars in terms of last‐minute emails with deadlines, last‐minute meetings, and representation on university decision‐making committees, such as in determining the academic year schedule and additions to or changes of future COVID‐19 decisions. We acknowledge that some institutions made extra resources available during the height of COVID‐19 and even as new variants emerged. However, these come at a cost of work hours or hours with the family. To be able to assist all employees, one must understand the various standpoints in which their employees come from or share.</p> <p>The decisions we made during the pandemic continue to guide us throughout negotiation of our MotherScholar selves. Of the all things the COVID‐19 pandemic has brought to light, we never expected that we would have to decide between Dr. Mom or Mom, Ph.D. Looking ahead, we anticipate a dearth of research regarding the pandemic, its longevity, and gender and work, and we encourage other MotherScholars to engage in autoethnographic work like we (Spradley et al., 2020/2021) and a number of other have (Guy & Arthur, 2020) to advance the diversity of voices, advocate for representation and support, and enhance understanding of long‐term crisis conditions on MotherScholarhood.</p> <hd id="AN0160232202-15">CONFLICT OF INTEREST</hd> <p>The authors declare no conflict of interest.</p> <ref id="AN0160232202-16"> <title> REFERENCES </title> <blist> <bibl id="bib1" type="bt">1</bibl> <bibtext> Abetz, J. S. (2019). "I want to be both, but is that possible?": Communicating mother‐scholar uncertainty during doctoral candidacy. 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  Data: Being Dr. Mom and/or Mom, Ph.D.: Autoethnographies of MotherScholaring during COVID-19
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  Label: Language
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  Data: English
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  Group: Au
  Data: <searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22LeBlanc%2C+Sarah+Symonds%22">LeBlanc, Sarah Symonds</searchLink> (ORCID <externalLink term="https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2654-2126">0000-0003-2654-2126</externalLink>)<br /><searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22Spradley%2C+Elizabeth%22">Spradley, Elizabeth</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22Beal%2C+Heather+Olson%22">Beal, Heather Olson</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22Burrow%2C+Lauren%22">Burrow, Lauren</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22Cross%2C+Chrissy%22">Cross, Chrissy</searchLink>
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  Data: <searchLink fieldCode="SO" term="%22New+Horizons+in+Adult+Education+%26+Human+Resource+Development%22"><i>New Horizons in Adult Education & Human Resource Development</i></searchLink>. Sum 2022 34(3):28-39.
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  Data: Wiley. Available from: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030. Tel: 800-835-6770; e-mail: cs-journals@wiley.com; Web site: https://www.wiley.com/en-us
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– Name: Pages
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  Data: 12
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  Label: Publication Date
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  Data: 2022
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  Data: Journal Articles<br />Reports - Evaluative
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  Data: <searchLink fieldCode="EL" term="%22Higher+Education%22">Higher Education</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="EL" term="%22Postsecondary+Education%22">Postsecondary Education</searchLink>
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  Data: <searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22COVID-19%22">COVID-19</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Pandemics%22">Pandemics</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Mothers%22">Mothers</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Role%22">Role</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Higher+Education%22">Higher Education</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Scholarship%22">Scholarship</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Coping%22">Coping</searchLink>
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  Data: 10.1002/nha3.20360
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  Label: ISSN
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  Data: 1939-4225
– Name: Abstract
  Label: Abstract
  Group: Ab
  Data: This article examines how the COVID-19 pandemic impacts five MotherScholars, mothers and scholars blending their maternal and academic identities, through the use of interactive interviewing, autoethnography, and narrative. The narratives are presented from four distinct times during the first 10-months of the COVID-19 pandemic: beginning (March through May of 2020), the middle (summer of 2020), the perpetuated middle (fall semester 2020), and present day (December 2020). The narratives capture how we, as five MotherScholars, negotiated between maternal and academic roles under pandemic conditions, ultimately unveiling our MotherScholar identity. The article concludes by drawing attention to the value of women colleagues and friendships for social support, the role of narratives to reshape family stories, and the impetus for institutions of higher education to assist MotherScholars.
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      – SubjectFull: Mothers
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      – SubjectFull: Coping
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      – TitleFull: Being Dr. Mom and/or Mom, Ph.D.: Autoethnographies of MotherScholaring during COVID-19
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