Interim Dean Evelyn Bilias Lolis, PhD, in collaboration with two co-authors from the Egan School of Nursing, has just published a book, Re-imagining Mothering and Career: Insights from a Time of Crisis (Demeter Press).

“The inspiration came out of the reflection of our roles as professional career women and mothers and the sharp interface of these roles during the COVID-19 pandemic,” says Dr. Lolis, referring to co-authors Jenna LoGiudice, PhD, CNM, and Kathryn Phillips, PhD, RN. “As mothers of young children, our lives were impacted in a very specific way.” The book is a compilation of reflections written by 33 women across the country, all hailing from different backgrounds and professions, and representing diverse family structures.

There has been considerable data showing that women – particularly mothers – bore a disproportionate share of the burden during the height of the pandemic when schools and daycares were closed. An October 2020 Pew Research Center survey found that, among employed parents, thirty-six percent of mothers said they had “a lot” of childcare responsibilities, versus sixteen percent of fathers. 

 The U.S. Department of Labor asserts that mothers of young children (under age 13) had the steepest reductions in employment during 2020, resulting in 1.2 million fewer mothers in the workforce.

As an educational psychologist, Dr. Lolis was particularly interested in investigating the variables that organically contributed to women’s resiliency when the world was out of balance. “Self-compassion, mindfulness as a practice, and gratitude were evidenced to be very important,” she says. “So was having a sense of personal agency; that is, the ability to feel empowered to make their own decisions and play an active role in how their lives were unfolding.” Mothers with more supportive environments and skills fared better than those with fewer supports and skills.

One common thread in many of the reflections was the feeling of living in two different worlds depending on the time of day. Helping children with online schooling, entertaining toddlers, navigating new technologies, and trying simultaneously to manage the expectations of one’s career portfolio forced women to compartmentalize the different parts of each day. “Many felt they were expected to be fully immersed in two spaces and two headspaces (home and work) at once, yet pretend that the other was nonexistent depending on the expectation of the moment. All of this brings forth interesting insights about equity,” says Dr. Lolis. 

The difficulties arising for working mothers of young children are obvious, but the reflections make clear that there were moments of unexpected joy as well.  Several women noted that the pandemic forced a slowing down of sorts. Others pulled on their faith or their pandemic pod for comfort. Families cooked together, took more walks and more camping trips, and reveled in the unexpected joys of togetherness.  Each chapter concludes with prompts for self-reflection so the reader can ponder the insights gained.

“My pandemic pregnancy was unique among my pregnancies,” says author Kathryn Phillips, a mother of four. “The hardest part was feeling isolated and alone. As our book highlights, mothering is a community affair. It is the elixir of social connection that makes us healthy and happy.”

Asking the women to reflect on their lived experiences at the end of 2021 – when the first wave of the pandemic began to slide into the second – was key. “Their insights were fresh, in the moment,” notes Dr. LoGiudice. “When I look back at my own reflection, I realize that now, a couple of years later, I wouldn’t have remembered that much detail once our lives got back to being more fast-paced. And this capturing of what we learned as career mothers in the midst of the pandemic, are rich, quality insights of life re-imagined that could propel women forward in all of their roles. The strength, gratitude, agency, and self-compassion gained are worthy of documenting as we have in this book, and of continually remembering as the world recalibrates in an endemic state.” 

The authors leave the reader to ponder the ultimate questions: How can we grow as a result of this experience?  What pieces of this experience can we pull together to reimagine a better, more human approach to the twin challenges of career and motherhood? And what can be done from the point of view of policy or expectations to better support mothers in the workforce? 

“The pandemic pulled off the façade of perfectionism that we often feel we need to present. Letting go of this quest for perfectionism was sometimes humbling,” says Dr. Lolis, adding that we need to learn to show ourselves the same compassion that we often reserve for others.