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- Motherhood, it's not easy in the best of circumstances, but in a pandemic, it's a whole new world.

We talk with working mothers about the last couple of years, as they've tackled working from home, educating from home, trying to keep the family together and happy at home, and we consider the impacts that these social shifts have had, coming up next.

(upbeat music) Welcome to Up Close.

I'm Cathy Unruh.

It was March 2020 and many parents were enjoying spring break with their children, but then the pandemic hit and that spring break turned into months, and in some cases, into a permanent change from in-school education.

Parents started working from home, children were being taught from home and the work-home dynamic was conflated.

This shift affected both women and men, but perhaps it was most keenly felt by working mothers.

On this episode of Up Close, we explore how balancing work and home life has challenged moms during the pandemic, and where things stand as we emerge from it.

We are joined by Dr. Elizabeth Hordge-Freeman, a sociologist at USF and a mom.

Also with us is Natalie Preston.

She's Director of Communications and Engagement in the College of Public Health at USF, and is also a mom.

Thank you both for joining us today.

- Thank you for having us.

- Thank you.

- Dr. Hordge-Freeman, you were not just studying this pandemic as a sociologist, but you were experiencing it up close as a mom.

- Absolutely.

Much like many of us.

I mean, it was really challenging to balance what it meant to be teaching and also educating kids at the same time.

We have two children, my husband and I, and so the struggles and the challenges were real, especially as it related to moving to virtual education, figuring out how to balance, being attentive at my own job while also managing the childcare responsibilities.

- And your job is, what do you do when it's a non-pandemic time?

- (chuckles) So I'm a sociologist.

I'm a faculty member at USF.

I'm also the Interim Vice President for Institutional Equity and Senior Advisor to the President and Provost for diversity and inclusion.

So there are a lot of roles that I have at USF, which I think amplified or magnified the impact of the pandemic, I think for our family in particular.

- And Natalie, what does your work involve?

- So I'm the Director of the Office of Engagement Constituent Relations, and I'm over communications, marketing, alumni relations, media relations in the college, so prior to the pandemic, the smallest part of my job was media relations.

During the pandemic, it became about 75%.

- And you are a single mom of an 11-year-old?

- I am.

- [Cathy] So how did your work life schedule changed?

- Well, thankfully I was able to work from home and I'm still working remotely for the most part, but managing his academic work, staying on top of all of that, in addition to meals, increasing cleaning and laundry, because we're home all the time was a very heavy lift.

And for me, when I noticed it most was just in my mental health, so as much as I loathed my commute to work, I recognized when I didn't have it that that was my me time, when I could take phone calls, I could listen to, you know, the news I don't want him to hear, or, you know, just nothing, or listen to a audio book, and I missed that me time, so I had to find other avenues to kind of carve it out during the day.

So when he would be at lunch, I might do, you know, a quick loop around the block just to myself just to have that disconnect and space.

- And we were talking before the show with our producer, who's also a mom, that working moms have it challenging in the best of circumstances, and today, for example, your son is in the control room because he's having a little allergy issue and so you had to bring him with you?

- Yes.

- And my producer was in the car coming to work and her child threw up.

So it's just layer on top of layer on top of layer.

- Exactly, you find a way to make it work, and, you know, I'm very fortunate, and in the College of Public Health, they're very family friendly, so on occasions, you know, I may have to take him to work with me, or even prior to the pandemic, if life happens as my boss likes to say, you know, then I could work remotely for a period of time.

- But I think that question of being flexible is really important.

You know, one of the things that happened at USF is I have a three-year-old, who I was breastfeeding at the time, and she happened to get out of her crib while I was in an important meeting, so I had to grab her, pause the meeting, bring her up, nurse her while I was on the virtual call and I think that that's just another example of how moms just have to be able to adapt, shift, and get back into our roles.

- And I wanna talk about what mom's roles are as specifically compared to dads.

Let's look at a couple of stats.

So in March, 2020, that's when we were told it's two weeks to flatten the curve.

This is gonna take 15 days or so, and we all thought, okay, fine.

And that, of course, is still going on.

It's still with us today, not to that extent, but we still have the repercussions of that.

And then between March of 2020 when that happened and April just one month later, three and a half million mothers living with school-aged children left active work.

So 45% of mothers with school-aged children left work, and more have gone since then.

Does this say to us that the female is still expected to be the primary caregiver?

- I think that culturally, we know that that is still very much the case.

Not only does broader society have these expectations, women ourselves have also internalized those expectations that we need to be the primary caregiver.

So that's also shaped how we've approached the responsibilities during the pandemic.

Absolutely, that expectation is still there.

I think it's shifting a bit because what we also see is that men are also contributing more.

So as we talk about working moms, the working fathers that are in the picture do a bit more than they have in the past, but that expectation for women to still be the responsible for childcare is absolutely still there.

- And some of its it just displayed in your conversation about, I was on the virtual call and my baby needs breastfeeding and, you know, whose job is that?

- Yeah.

- Right?

- That's exactly right.

And I think that what's interesting is that, there's some real reasons why there might be different expectations, but as children age out, and as they get older, those differences are no longer there, so that doesn't necessarily justify some of the differences.

- Yes, I know.

but that's an illustration of where it's rooted.

- Sure.

- And I don't wanna get into this too deeply on a personal level, Natalie, unless you want to, but in January of this year, the New York Times was among other publications who wrote about mothers actually beginning to feel despair, that it had reached that point, especially for mothers of children who were under the age of five, because there were so many variables affecting them that didn't affect older kids, which I want you to speak to in just a moment, but how is your emotional state?

- My emotional state today is much improved.

I would say a month ago, I was suffering significantly.

So all the different roles, the cooking, the cleaning, the staying on top of academic work, when we were in e-learning for a year, kids are in front of a computer, they aren't used to that, of course, they're going to go places they shouldn't go, plus you're still trying to do your job.

So trying to do everything at once was overwhelming for me.

And at some point, you know, my brain just said, you know, you just need to stop, you can't go any further.

- What happened in the past month that made you feel a little better?

- Just increased responsibilities at work and really over scheduling, and my brain just did not respond favorably, and, you know, I'm an advocate for therapy and I had to reconnect with my therapist and just remind myself of different tools that I can use to pace myself, you know, and that you can't be all things to all people.

You can't do everything.

- And Dr. Hordge-Freeman, why children under five more of a stressor on parents?

- Oh my goodness.

Well, anybody who has kids under five knows the answer to that without me even answering it, but they just have many more needs.

So older kids are a bit more independent, they can communicate their needs a bit better.

Kids under five just have a lot more that anticipation that parents have to do.

The diaper changing, the nap time, the scheduling is a bit more difficult for those under five.

- And you throw in things like vaccines for parents who want their children vaccinated and they're not available, and children who have to have their kids in daycare, and the daycare closes because another kid is sick.

- No, absolutely.

- There's so many variables that they have to face.

Apart from the children and the career, you've both told us a little bit, you know, about how your career changed, but let's say today versus March of 2020, are we on a good path?

Is this a good thing?

- Well, I'll answer that first.

Things have changed, yes.

Are we on a good path?

I think that the availability of vaccines makes it better.

The fact that we're starting to open up a bit more, leave the house a bit more in terms of my family certainly makes the social aspect a bit better.

So in that sense, yes, but I think that it would be important for us to monitor what happens from now and the future.

You know, a lot of the things that we've seen, the mental health implication that working mothers have faced have potential long term consequences.

So we really have to stay on top of making sure that we follow up with working moms about their mental health because that doesn't just go away because we have this shift happening right now.

- [Cathy] How do we follow up?

Where do moms get help?

- Yeah, so I think that being open to therapy, and you mentioned this, I think that that's really important, having networks, community members, churches, where folks are open and having communication and conversations about the value of mental health, I think is really critical.

So the silence that's sometimes built around mental health struggles really have to be broken, and I think that that's particularly important for women who are low income.

We know that black and Hispanic women tend to be less likely to be in communities that are as open to talking about mental health.

So that's something that I think that as a broader community, we can build more visibility around.

- Natalie, one thing that a lot of moms and parents had to get more familiar with was technology during this time.

So let's broaden that out to when you had your child learning from home, did you learn new things in that process?

- I did.

I learned that I should have installed parental controls from the very beginning and I did not, and my son learned how to become administrator on his laptop and was able to change things and download things and all different types of things that, you know, young boys would do.

So now I've become a little bit more tech savvy, the different devices that he's on, I install controls, but I would encourage any parent regardless of the age of the child.

If they are on a device that's not a LeapPad, to put parental controls on there.

Just so even by accident, they don't go someplace that they shouldn't go.

It will include time limits as well as sites they should not be on.

- Is your son back in physical school when he can be now?

- He is, thank God.

He went back last fall.

So he was in e-learning for a full year.

So fifth grade year was online, and then this year's his first year in middle school.

He is on campus and he's thriving.

- So as you both know, there's a talk through every workplace, it would seem of, do we go back to the office?

Do we stay home?

Do we do a hybrid?

What would you say is the future going forward of what our workplaces are going to look like?

- Well, I like that question.

I think that USF does a pretty good job at outlining what we call the future of work, and that future of work has to be flexible.

It has to be a context where we are leveraging the skills and the potential that people have and being flexible with them working at home and coming in as needed.

And so I think that it would be a mistake to return to what we had before, but rather let's learn about what's worked really well.

Let's learn about the benefits and the advantages of having a more hybrid model and continue that into the future.

- And Natalie, I want you to speak to how much harder it is for a single parent than someone who has a partner, assuming that the partner is involved in the child rearing.

- Yes, well, we can just take last night for example.

So when I came home from work, yesterday was my on campus day.

It was 85 degrees inside of our house.

So I'm dealing with the air conditioner unit is not working.

My son has asthma and he has responded very negatively to the increased pollen count.

He didn't have an asthma attack, but he had some issues that I had to deal with.

So not having anyone to kind of lean on for that, I'm incredibly sleep deprived today, but, you know, you find a way to keep it moving.

I worked today to the extent that I could before I came here, took him to the doctor and just, you know, you do what you can.

It is important that in extreme circumstances and emergencies, that you have someone that you can rely on.

My mother is nearby, so I rely on her as needed as well.

- And let's hear from another mom sharing some of her experience.

(soft upbeat music) - Well, I'm a mom of three kids, I have three children.

Mese is 12, almost 13, and my two boys are very close in age, they're six and seven.

So right before the pandemic hit, I was working at a local gym.

I was working at Shapes, and I was really mostly focused on teaching in yoga there.

Everything changed really quickly.

When the two weeks hit, it was hard to really believe it was hitting.

You know, it was a really tough pill to swallow, you know, that we really were stationed.

But then I just slowly started to outfit my gym for myself here at the house, 'cause I knew I needed a place to work out.

And then that evolved to getting my personal training cert and that evolved to beginning to see clients here.

So it all just kind of had this natural progression that I didn't really expect.

I just kept kind of following the next step and then the next step, you know.

It slowly unfolded again in its own way.

I think that's one of the things the pandemic really showed me is I don't have to have an exact plan.

I can kind of just let the ball start, and I kept seeing steps shown to me and take the step.

Another moment get come, another, you know, and then I started building group classes that I was seeing people, private clients.

And again, the business just slowly evolved itself based on what people were seeking and my availability, which really is run by the kids' schedules, and I just fit in pockets where they're not needing me.

(indistinct) your final lunge press.

So working as a mom during COVID while having kids, I think the hardest part for me was never knowing if a kid even had the littlest sniffle or the scratchiest little throat or any little symptom that could have been COVID, it kind of really stopped me in my tracks, especially being in the industry that I'm in, working closely with clients.

So it felt like a really tough industry to be in while teetering a line that felt like I was looking out for my family and for my clients.

Since the pandemic has lightened and things have gotten better, it has totally shifted the way I'm able to function in my role in my business, and the way I'm able to schedule people and feel a lot more confident, but it was a really tough time to be starting a business, but I'm glad that I stayed with it, even if only a client or two at a time, but it was definitely really challenging.

I think that being a working mom, especially today.

I think in this day, especially with what we're surrounded by with social media and everything else, there's big fuel or push to do more, to be more, to get more done, to put yourself out there more, to grow your business more.

And even during the pandemic, oddly enough, when you think that that's when we would be saying, okay, this is just time to let things go for a little bit.

It was like, now we can really get stuff done.

I'm gonna do all these certifications and I'm gonna get all this stuff done online.

Being a mother during the pandemic, there was so much stress to feel like we were making the right decision for our families and for our children, and then to layer the complexity of having to work or start a business, or make decisions about where we are gonna work and where we don't wanna work.

It was is a really trying time, and I feel like in a lot of ways, we're still, I know for myself, I'm still downshifting, I'm still coming out of it.

I feel like the situation really revved us up as mothers.

We're caregivers, we're the protectors of our children.

Dads do too, but I think mothers are that, you know, mama bear.

So it really revved up that instinct for me, and again, I'm still downshifting out of it, and I feel that as time and time goes, I'm feeling a little bit more grounded, but it feels like it's gonna be an unraveling.

It's a process to come out.

- Can you sum up just in a couple of sentence, how the pandemic has affected you in your life outside your role as a mother?

Who wants to go first?

Natalie.

- Hmm.

I have become reacquainted with nature.

Whether I'm sitting outside in the garage or on the patio, it could be in the middle of the day or in the evening, I find it peaceful to be outside.

So if I feel like I'm getting stressed or what have you, or just need to disconnect for a little bit, you know, even just five minutes outside, just sitting, listening to the birds, watching the wind move.

I find it to be therapeutic.

- I think the way that I would answer that is I think what the pandemic has done is reminded me of how precious life is.

I had family members who passed because of the pandemic, and I think that moments like these remind us of our connectivity to people around the world, and it reminds us to be mindful, to follow the things that are important to us and to stay grounded in who we are.

- And what you both say alludes to there actually were positives that came out of this experience.

Some people found new careers, some people rediscovered themselves.

What is this going to mean for society as a whole as we move forward?

- Well, what I hope it means is for us to continue to be more mindful and thinking about each other.

One of the things that the pandemic has done is it's reminded us to act in ways that keep the wellbeing of others in mind.

So the idea that we have mask mandates, the way that we have to think about each other's wellbeing, I think that that really came to a head here during the pandemic.

So I hope that we continue to keep that sense of community in mind as we go forward.

- And Natalie, speak to the sense of isolation there was when you were just home with your son and you couldn't go anywhere, and how did that impact you?

- I got to know my neighbors better.

You know, at one point when restaurants were closed, you really couldn't go anywhere for like a couple of weeks, so you were outside.

So even though I lived in my neighborhood for five years, I didn't know a lot of my neighbors.

So that was an opportunity for me to connect with them and just to slow down and enjoy things with my son since it was just the two of us.

So if he wanted to go out and shoot hoops or throw a basketball or play a video game, or do, you know, just dance or what have you.

You know, we had time that normally, because there's such a fast pace, you get off work, you have dinner, you do homework, you go to bed because we were home all the time.

The commute time, we could use as play time and we could go outside for 30 minutes before we had to, you know, come in and start cooking or what have you.

- And we are hearing a lot now about the great reset where so many people left work and so many people haven't gone back, and so many people have changed their careers.

Would you like to give us a sociological perspective on that?

- Well, I mean, they have, and I think that what we know is that humans are incredibly resilient.

People have left jobs, they have started new jobs.

I think that the way that people are even thinking about careers has completely shifted.

What we know is that people are really looking for jobs that are fulfilling.

They're not willing to stay in positions that make them feel unsafe or unfulfilling to them.

And so I think that one of the challenges that corporations will have is to foster environments that will allow their employees to stay, given that folks are really interested in prioritizing what makes them happy.

I think the pandemic reminds people that life is short.

So if you're gonna spend eight hours a day at a position, you wanna be able to enjoy that.

- And, of course, it's affected wages also because persons of low income, persons of color, they were the most heavily affected during the pandemic.

And so employers have had to take note of that also.

- No, that that's exactly right.

And I really appreciate you talking about kind of some of the subgroups.

So when we talk about working moms, if we're looking at folks who are low income, racial and ethnic minorities, folks with disabilities, they've had a slew of other, kind of another layer of challenges added onto that.

So when you talk about who's leaving the workforce, we know that lower income mothers were more likely to leave the workforce, but it doesn't mean that they were outside of the workforce altogether, some of them had to leave their jobs, but then take on other jobs as essential workers that require them to still put their health on the line to be able to feed their families.

And so we do have to keep that in mind.

I think employers will also have to think about some of the gaps that might appear in women's resumes because they were required to stop working.

So making sure that employers keep that in mind and not penalize women for having to provide for their families will be really important.

- Natalie, I don't know if this is addressed in what you do it with public health at all, but do you see any evidence that we are now in sort of the bounce back phase from the pandemic, that burnout is lessening and things are looking a little brighter?

- Yes, I think people are getting more accustomed to living in this new normal.

There's not as much of a dark cloud and people are excited.

- Excited to be thinking that we're emerging from that?

- Yes.

I mean, my son and I haven't been on a plane since January 2020.

I mentioned that he has asthma, so I've been very cautious about where we go when we're planning summer trip.

We're making summer plans.

- I think that that's part of it because so much of this was driven by fear.

Mothers being afraid of having their kids out, parents, families, and so now that folks are vaccinated and there's less fear, we see different numbers change in terms of mortality rate.

There is a level of comfort that then allows us to be able to explore a bit more than we were doing before.

- What advice would you give to working moms based on everything you've experienced both personally and professionally during this time?

- Hmm.

- To put your health first.

A lot of times we put ourselves last, we put our families first, maybe your work first, your significant other, but if you don't have your physical, mental, and spiritual health, then you can't be there for anyone else.

You can't earn a living wage.

You can't be there to take care of your family or anything.

So to not put yourself on the back burner.

- That advice speaks to a lot of women because we're accustomed to being looked at as the caregiver and the person who cares about everybody else.

- That's right.

I don't think I could have said it even better than that.

You know, I think we sometimes think about wellbeing as just being physical health, but I think Natalie really identified that mental health is an important piece.

What the data tells us is that 50% of women talked about having significant psychological distress as a result of the pandemic, but only about 16% of them actually received help or went to a therapist.

That's troubling because that's going to have long term consequences.

So that advice from me would be, yes, let's prioritize health and think about it much more holistically than we typically do to make sure we can be our best selves and be able to be there for our families.

- And as a society, we have to be able to provide mental health to persons who can't afford to.

- That's correct.

- I think I'll ring up a therapist and do a telehealth session.

- I love that point because it speaks to this, what we call the structural aspects.

So it's one thing to say, individuals should do this.

What are the structures that we have in place as a society to make that possible?

And we know that we haven't been investing as much as we can in mental health.

We can also even think about paid leave and conversations about providing daycare at low cost for families.

These are all structural conversations that have to happen so that we make the connection between the individual's challenges and what we as a society can do to address them.

- We could continue this conversation for much longer.

I'm sorry to say, it's time to go, but the conversation will continue as we go through our lives.

Thank you both for joining us today.

- [Natalie And Dr. Elizabeth] Thank you.

- And if you or a loved one is experiencing feelings of burnout or despair, there are resources available for you.

You can visit namiflorida.org for a list of resources related to mental health in Florida.

That's the National Alliance for Mental Health, N-A-M-I.

Thanks for watching.

I'm Cathy Unruh, and I'll see you next time on Up Close.

(upbeat music)