Moms, Memes, and Mitigating Pandemic Stress: Exploring Themes and Implications in an Academic Mamas’ Facebook Group

Abstract

This article pairs autoethnography with a thematic analysis of memes in a private Facebook group made up of academic mothers during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. The analysis illustrates the challenges members faced during the pandemic related to their roles as mothers, academics, caregivers, and partners and how they used memes as a mechanism for virtual support in 2020 and 2021. Group members used memes to communicate about four primary themes: the stress and humor that arose from pandemic conditions, mothering during the pandemic, work–life tensions, and pressures for research productivity. Throughout the themes, humor offered a foundation for support and connection. The analysis provides insights into the potential for professional support networks online and how humor, shared via social media, can create space for vulnerability and connection among colleagues. The authors also consider the ambivalent dynamics that online social support offers. While it may reduce tension and provide emotional comfort, it also has the potential to uphold gendered expectations at home and at work.

Keywords:

• Academic mothers
• memes
• pandemic
• social media
• social support
• work–life

Acknowledgments

We are grateful for those who supported our journey with this project, especially our group of mama profs. In particular, we thank Sarah Blithe and Margaret Murray for their insightful reviews and feedback through the revision process.

Notes

1 The originator of the group selected the group title. Her daughter calls her “Mama,” and her e-mail introducing the idea of a collaborative journal began “Hey, my fav mama profs!” There is a sense of community and connection with the term that contrasts with academic formality and consciously blurs the lines between the scholarly and the personal. There is also a private Facebook group titled “Academic Mamas” with more than 11,000 members, so the term is common for how we recognize this intersection between these facets of our identities. Some members feel that “Mama” expresses more intimacy and a more social element than the more formal “Mother” or the more childish “Mommy.”

2 The photo in the meme features Pakistani cricket fan Muhammad Sarim Akhtar appearing annoyed and dismayed during a cricket match during the summer of 2019.