WINDSOR, ONT. -- Two academics at the University of Windsor wrote a paper about the struggles of being a mom and a teacher during COVID-19.
Kimberley Hillier and Salsabel Almanssori are both mothers, elementary school teachers and graduates of the University of Windsor.
They have published an article in the Journal of Motherhood Initiative, a “feminist scholarly and activist organization” based out of York University in Toronto.
Hillier says it’s about “the invisible labour mothers so often do and we hope to make it visible.”
“We want to bring to the surface the challenges of motherhood,” says Almanssori.
The article is written from the women’s perspective, and their particular struggles, especially with academics working from home.
“Although the shift to working from home may have created more opportunities to meet professional responsibilities with greater ease, academic mothers soon began to voice their concerns about the limitations this new lifestyle imposed on their productive,” the article reads.
Hillier and Almanssori say it was hard enough just juggling remote teaching and taking care of their young children, let alone publishing academic articles.
The women acknowledge fathers too are sharing a significant burden in shifting to parenting in a pandemic, but they believe women suffer from a “mismatch of expectations” placed on mothers, who are expected to care for their children, keep their households running and work from home.