By Lisa Bromberg, Springfield College; Jennifer Gorman, College of Southern Nevada; Erin McNicholas, Williamette University; Jessica O’Shaughnessy, Shenandoah University; and Lesley Wiglesworth, Centre College

We wanted to write a blog post about our experiences being a faculty member and parent during the pandemic, but, frankly, we’re exhausted. We came to the conclusion that none of us had the time or energy to write it on our own, so we decided to join forces, share our stories, and format this post as an interview. Here are our stories.

What is one thing you’ve done that has worked well?

Lisa: My general organizational skills have been a huge asset since March. Keeping a color-coordinated calendar for family, my work, and my spouse’s work has allowed me to generally accommodate everyone’s needs. 

Lesley: I have given my children more responsibilities and learned to not sweat the little things (as much). After the Spring 2020 term, I realized that I could not do it all, and even though my children are young, there are more responsibilities that they can have in the house. I did a quick google search of “appropriate chores by age” and assigned tasks accordingly. I have now freed up more time for myself, and my family feels like more of a “team” that is working together.  

Jen: I learned to choose what I do with intention. In the past I would volunteer for a lot of committees, but I have become more careful with what I decide to volunteer to work on. I used to just say yes without thinking, and now I actually focus on whether I truly have the time to do that or not.  

Erin: I’m having one of those weeks where it feels like nothing is working well. Getting far less sleep than any human needs to function, not distinguishing optional course prep elements from critical tasks, stressing about things beyond my control — these things are not working. There is so much good advice in the responses of my coauthors, it’s hard to feel I have anything to add. So maybe I will be the person to say it’s ok if you are in one of those moments where you know you are not doing things right, you are not handling things well. You are not alone. It will get better, and then worse, and then better again. You will listen to loud music, or be the recipient of some unexpected kindness, or give up your impossible expectations of yourself and get a good night’s sleep, and it will be better. And you will be inspired by the advice of others and google “appropriate chores by age,” and generally accept that whatever your best is today is good enough.

What have others done that have helped you? What has your institution done that has worked well? Not worked?

Lesley: My institution asked for volunteers to serve on a task force to meet during the summer and early fall to identify ways to support those with child-care and other dependent-care needs. There were several positive outcomes, one being that caregivers were allowed to apply for a student assistant to help with some tasks for two or three hours per week. (I used my assistant to help write solutions to worksheets.) Members of our faculty also volunteered to deliver one meal per week to those who were struggling with balancing caregiving responsibilities and work.

Jen: A group of women I went to graduate school with and I reconnected with a standing Zoom meeting every other week. We bounce ideas off each other, we draw on our collective experiences, and we try to save each other from reinventing the wheel. 

Lisa: My in-laws have been on video chat with my children nearly every day. They read books and play with the filters on Facebook Messenger. (Grandpa dragon is a favorite!) It’s been a huge lifesaver to have someone else supervise while I get dinner ready or respond to some emails, and my young children have developed a stronger relationship with their grandparents during a time when we can’t even see them in person.

What was your lowest point so far during Covid?

Lesley: My lowest point in the fall was receiving the following comment on a course evaluation: I wish I could've taken this course in person. It's hard to focus in class when the professor's kids interrupt it every ten minutes. All of the energy that I put in, as both a professor and a mother, apparently was not enough. Yes, this student was exaggerating — my kids didn’t really interrupt every ten minutes, but there were interruptions. I felt my efforts to create empathy in the classroom, not just for each other but for the faculty and staff at my college, were wasted. 

Erin: My moment was similar to Lesley’s. I felt criticized in my course evaluations as both an academic and a parent, and so powerless to do anything about the situation. Before the pandemic I rarely thought about my status as a single mother, but now it seems branded across my forehead or woven into the grey streaks in my hair. I feel judged, as if I should have planned my life better, somehow accounted for the possibility that most of my support systems would fall away and I’d be left to balance work and parenting largely on my own.  

Jessica: I think the lowest point was at the end of the fall semester. I had worked so hard on my courses, but the students were tired of the pandemic and being online. I had several academic integrity cases. At that point I wondered what I was doing it for. Why am I working so hard? I actually decided to make some changes to do less in the spring semester. I had prioritized my students and my classes above all else, but I needed to create more of a balance.

Jen: My lowest point was in the fall semester. I was still out on partial leave from the birth of my daughter. I’m the chair of a committee that manages a large multi-section, highly-coordinated course, and I was still performing these duties as part of my reduced load. The course seemed to gain problems every day: with very short notice we had to create shortened versions of the course, we had software issues, we had instructors who weren’t replying to students, and I was receiving so many complaints from students about instructors not following the policies of the course. I was so angry that this course, which, when taught face-to-face, required much less managing, was suddenly eating up much of the time I should have been spending with my seven-month-old.  

What effects has this had on your research productivity?

Lisa: Research has pretty much halted, and I’m only now getting back into having the time and emotional capacity to get excited for scholarship again. I am hopeful that tenure and promotion committees will have empathy in the years to come for the nearly two years of lost time for research and scholarship this pandemic has caused, so I guess the effects on my career are To Be Determined.

Erin: My research has taken a hit both because of my reduced capacity and because I've had to cancel research trips and meetings with collaborators. Thankfully, many of my coauthors are in a similar position, and we have all slowed down together. By checking in with each other a few times each semester, I'm optimistic that we will be able to pick things back up when we regain some of our lost time. I've made progress by prioritizing research projects which are better suited to short bursts of effort rather than continued periods of deep concentration. 

What has the effect been on interactions with students and colleagues? Are there things the institution can do to help with this?

Jen: I miss seeing my student’s faces. I don’t require students to have their cameras on during class for equity reasons, so I really struggle teaching without normal in-person feedback. I also miss the hallway interactions with colleagues where I could get immediate feedback on something that just happened in class.  

Working from home sometimes blurs the distinction between work time and family time. With both my husband and I working from home, we often have a delicate schedule of passing off our daughter, so changes to meeting times because “we’re all home and available” just isn’t quite so easy. Those last-minute changes when we have spent the previous night planning out our eleven-month-old’s schedule are really hard to deal with. 

Lisa: To echo Jen’s point about respecting time, I’ve seen this in my interactions with students. Some students are starting to have unreasonable expectations of faculty availability. Just because we’re home all the time and may be able to “jump on Zoom really quickly” doesn’t mean that’s a healthy thing to be expected to do moving forward. One of my students from the fall commented in their evaluation that I “was barely available on the weekend” to help them complete homework. This comment shows that I was, in fact, available on the weekend, just not as much as the student expected, and the student saw this as a negative aspect of my teaching. This isn’t healthy or sustainable, and I think institutions should be intentional to reset these boundaries of access to faculty in the next academic year. 

Erin: Normally I feel like I am a very supportive teacher and am happy to provide both emotional and academic support for students. But the pandemic has caused a huge increase in the amount of support my students and kids need. Sometimes it feels like I am drawing from the same well as a parent and teacher, and that my reserves are running low.

What is one thing you wish people understood about your experience since the beginning of the pandemic?

Jessica: Living, working, and mothering during a pandemic takes a huge emotional toll. My students' needs are much higher and my children are dealing with a lot. My daughter moved from elementary school to middle school this year and was unable to make friends in a virtual learning environment. My four-year-old had severe separation anxiety when we returned to face-to-face instruction and asked us questions like “will you come home” and “remember not to die.” It is challenging to manage so many emotional needs.

Lesley: It can be very hard to find time to focus. Instead of having a chunk of uninterrupted time in my office, it is more likely that I am preparing lessons in ten-minute chunks between interruptions, kids’ lunches, and school questions.  

Jen: It is very hard to have to do my job from home while hearing my daughter cry in the other room, even when I know she is well cared for. 

Erin: Creating uninterrupted time (for teaching, meetings, work) comes at a high cost and involves heavy use of screen-time, coercion, bribery, and creativity. The rest of the time my life is a story of constant interruptions. Productivity has to occur in random intervals that can range from five minutes to one hour, but whose duration is only known after the fact. The days feel relentless.

Lisa: The simultaneous demand for my attention from all aspects of my life is daunting; sometimes I feel like I have a good rhythm to it all and those moments are good; other times, it overwhelms me. I also miss having physical separation from my work and home life, and I miss having time to listen to podcasts in the car to decompress from the day.

What are positive effects of the pandemic? Do you see any of them carrying forward?

Lisa: If I wasn’t teaching from home last spring, I would have missed my younger daughter’s first steps. More broadly, lots of outdoor family time has been really nice. 

Lesley: Working from home has helped me achieve a better work-life balance. The pandemic has given me very different priorities than I had pre-2020, and I hope to remember these as we move beyond the pandemic. I think the challenges of caregivers in academics have recently been brought to the attention of many administrators, and I hope we can continue to make baby steps in moving our institutions forward in supporting a broader and more diverse group of faculty.

Erin: I’ve become much more comfortable with uncertainty and instability. I’ve also grown closer to my kids and am better at being in the moment with them — playing laser tag, eating dessert before dinner, binge watching Carmen Sandiego — than I was before. Being the “comprehensive distance learning coach” for my children has given me greater empathy for my students, and I am hopeful that I will be a better teacher for it. I understand first-hand how difficult it can be for students to balance their workload, tackle large open-ended projects, ask for help, and demonstrate their investment and engagement when they are feeling overwhelmed. I am checking in more regularly with my students, trying to pare down my assignments, and generally making it easier for students to organize their responsibilities.

Jessica: My youngest child turned five in January, and he will be going to kindergarten. It has been great to have him bouncing around all day. I am glad to have this time with him before he starts school. I’ve also had the opportunity to teach my children some independence. We had to set up a structure where they could work independently and bring me work to check. Additionally, my parents have been coming to help once a week. It’s been fun to see their relationship with my children grow and to spend more time with them.

Jen: Both my husband and I have gotten to be home with our daughter since the day we brought her home. We have been lucky enough to be able to make our schedules opposite each other (he’s also an academic), which is something that we probably could not have done had we been driving to school and teaching. It’s also been nice that if I am working but not teaching and she starts doing something cute or funny in the other room, my husband can call out to me, and I don’t have to miss any of her “firsts.”

We encourage all faculty members, whether they are caregivers or not, to reflect on ways we can better support each other during this unprecedented time — from the little things (like sticking to meeting times) to the larger things (like changing institutional culture and policies). It’s time to think: How can we better support the diverse makeup of our faculty during 2021 and moving forward?