We do music and movement, storytime, phonics lessons, science and math. In the afternoons after my morning “work shift”, I switch gears to immerse myself in homeschooling activities with my son. Now, my work time mostly consists of carrying on the business of the College and my department - advising students, teaching classes, grading, Zoom committee meetings, etc. “Work,” no longer means writing for me though. That way we each get a few hours each day to focus on our work. My husband takes responsibility for our son in the mornings until about 1pm and then I take over until about 6pm. Since sheltering-in-place began,, we have gone back to a strategy that we used when our son was an infant - split shifts. I have a partner who is also working from home and who is committed to an equitable division of labor in our household. We live on a tree-lined street in Atlanta with a wooded trail at the end of our street and in close proximity to grocery stores. I occupy a privileged position as a tenured Associate Professor and department chair who lives in a house my partner and I own. But that is exactly what is in short supply as work-from-home + homeschooling academic mamas during this pandemic: the imagined “work/life balance” of the academy is dissipating for black mothers during this crisis. The impact of the pandemic on my academic work life has caused me to reflect on Cite Black Women Guiding Principle #5 - “Give Black Women the Space and Time to Breathe.” We need uninterrupted time to sit, think, read, and write, especially when we are in the generative and creative phase of writing new work. We also hope to illuminate the connective tissue that connects our shared kinwork as mothers. It is our hope that by being transparent about these struggles, and sharing our concerns and points of clarity, we can build community and remind readers who are sheltering in place that they aren’t alone in their struggles. As scholars and mothers, we were inspired to write this blog to more fully share our stories. Recently, Caroline Kitchener interviewed two of us for an article in The Lilly about women academics submitting fewer journal articles during the pandemic. This blog post was written by three black women academics and mothers - two anthropologists and one sociologist, two junior faculty and one tenured department chair, two married moms and one single mom. “The Creative Spirit: Children’s Literature” by June Jordan in Revolutionary Mothering: Love on the Front Lines Īs we prepare for Mother’s Day on May 10, 2020, we should take a moment to celebrate the mothering labors we have received and given, to acknowledge our ancestors (biological, chosen, spiritual, and intellectual), and to reflect on the networks of care in which we are enmeshed. And I want these things for children, because I want these things for myself, and for all of us, because unless we embody these attitudes and precepts as the governing rules of our love, and of our political commitment to survive, we will love in vain, and we will certainly not survive.” ![]() “And I want to say to children, tell me what you think and what you see and what you dream so that I may hope to honor you. “Mothering, radically defined, is the glad gifting of one’s talents, ideas, intellect, and creativity to the universe without recompense” - Preface by Loretta Ross in Revolutionary Mothering: Love on the Front Lines
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