“Why Do We Have to Go Away?”: A Beginning Exploration into the Lived Experience of Three MotherScholars Imagining Possibilities in the Time of COVID-19

ABSTRACT

In this time of COVID-19, our public and private spaces have come together in unprecedented ways, giving rise to unique challenges and new opportunities to synergize maternal and academic spaces. We use narrative inquiry to explore our lived experiences as LDS MotherScholars by conducting three story cycles, using prompts about the past, present, and imagined possibilities for the future. Specifically, we looked for ways the emerging COVID-19 pandemic provided opportunities for us to reimagine harmonizing our lives across home and workspaces. Stories revealed the logistical and emotional tensions inherent in MotherScholarship, pointing to an urgent high-stakes sense of potential failure in both arenas. Our analyses identified patterns of hiding/compartmentalizing parts of self, as well as similarities between motherhood and scholarship. Using Standpoint theory, we rejected the notion of ”balance” as not useful (or real) as we re-envisioned our future lives as MotherScholars being ”braided” across spaces that include both motherhood and scholarship. During COVID-19, moments of grace have emerged that illuminate new possibilities and opportunities to enter a third space in order to confront and challenge oppressive androcentric assumptions and re-envision our work as MotherScholars.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

¹ Despite different conventions, we use the term MotherScholar to describe women who are both mothers and scholars. We eliminated the hyphen that Lapayese (2012) used to denote the hybridization of these two identities into one and move away from a separation of these identities.

² The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has also been commonly known as the Mormon Church, while members have often been called Mormons. However, we will use the convention LDS Church throughout this paper, and church members as LDS.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Erika Feinauer

Erika Feinauer is an Associate Professor of Teacher Education at Brigham Young University, where she teaches courses on literacy education and research methods. Her research focuses on the language and literacy development of young bilingual students and the role of identity and agency in these processes. She has investigated these issues in the context of dual language education programs. Ongoing research has been focused on examining the social networks of students in dual language classrooms, looking at how these networks are leveraged for language learning, social interactions, and identity processes. Dr Feinauer also researches the preparation of in-service teachers to work with language-minority students in their classrooms. She is raising four amazing children (ages 2 months – 14 years) with her husband Eric.

Erin Feinauer Whiting

Erin Feinauer Whiting is a rural sociologist and Associate Professor of Teacher Education at Brigham Young University. She is responsible for teaching multicultural education for secondary education majors as well as graduate courses related to sociocultural aspects of knowledge and schooling. Her research focuses on understanding and alleviating social inequalities including a focus on school community and organization for the inclusion of all students. Her work has examined many aspects of equity and belonging in schools including an emphasis on cultural and emotional geographies and the sociopolitical forces implicated in teaching and learning. She has also studied the complexities of teaching a critical multicultural teacher education and what leads to changes in perspectives and dispositional development of social justice practices through emotional work. She and her husband Scott are currently parenting four fun and fascinating adolescent children together, Naomi, Luc, Samuel, and Eliza (ages 12–18).

Sarah K. Clark

Sarah K. Clark is a Professor of Literacy Education and Teacher Education at Brigham Young University. She is responsible for teaching literacy courses to undergraduate elementary education majors and graduate courses related to crafting literature reviews and writing a thesis or dissertation. Her research is centred on identifying ways to improve and enhance the instruction and opportunities that all individuals receive and seeks to help individuals find their voice through reading, writing, listening, and speaking. Her research examines the intersection between the individual, classroom instruction, and the teacher. Furthermore, she explores and examines ways to support and mentor teacher educators, preservice teachers, and inservice teachers (especially females) within the teaching profession to encourage high teacher self-efficacy, reduce attrition, strengthen content and pedagogical knowledge, and encourage meaningful professional growth and development. She has been a mother now for 29 years and considers that to be one of her most important roles. She and her husband Mike are the parents of two amazing and beautiful daughters and are the ridiculously proud grandparents of little Jack.