“I Had to Jump through a Lot of Hoops”: How Working Mothers in Student Affairs Navigate Institutional Policies and Student Affairs Norms

Abstract

In this instrumental case study, we explored the experiences of working mothers in student affairs and how their situated realities are shaped by institutional and professional norms, including commonly understood written and unwritten practices. We conducted interviews and focus groups with 21 mothers working full-time at a research-intensive university in the South. We crafted themes to illustrate how ideal worker norms, inequality regimes, and the maternal wall were persistent concerns for the mothers in our study. Mothers had to make decisions based on inadequate institutional policies while the institution simultaneously benefited from skills they imported from motherhood to student affairs work. Given the condition of federal and state policies, we offer implications for institutional and unit changes to better meet mothers where they are, accommodate their unique needs, and provide pathways for them to continue contributing meaningfully to the field.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Versions of this piece have been presented at NASPA, ACPA, and the University of Texas at Austin’s Gender Symposium. We thank attendees there for their help in shaping our arguments and especially Sonja Ardoin for her feedback. We also thank Melissa Jones-Wommack, Danielle Thoma, and Brandi Welch for their contributions. We further thank the JWG editors and reviewers for their help in revising this piece.

DISCLOSURE STATEMENT

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

¹ By mothers we mean women who are parents and by working we mean working full-time as a student affairs professional.

² We present data in aggregate form to preserve participant privacy.

³ Four members of the research team collected interview data, while two members joined later and participated in focus group data collection, which took place after interviews. All team members participated in data analysis.

⁴ All participant names are randomly generated pseudonyms.

⁵ While the data were collected and analyzed before the COVID-19 pandemic, we completed revisions of the manuscript during the pandemic.