Even before COVID-19, women around the world performed more unpaid domestic labor, specifically unpaid care labor, than men. COVID-19 has only exacerbated the gender gap in this domestic labor. For Western women, especially mothers in the United States of America, the normative discourse of intensive motherhood and the gendered pressure inherent in the unrealistic standards set by the discourse have only increased the amount of unpaid domestic and care labor required of mothers. Using qualitative, in-depth interviews with 18 mothers during May-June 2020, this study examines privileged mothers' perceptions of what they did well in parenting both before and during the early part of the COVID-19 pandemic. The mothers' pragmatic adaptations during the pandemic posed challenges to the norms of intensive motherhood, as did emergent ideas about integrative mothering articulated before the pandemic's onset. We find that while COVID-19 has increased expectations on mothers, it has also provided a turning point wherein expectations can be changed, as the participants suggested. Implications for intensive motherhood scholars, mothers, and communication researchers are discussed, along with future research. Keywords Intensive motherhood • COVID-19 • Gendered pressures • Qualitative methodologyThe Organisation for Economic Co-ooperation and Development (OECD) explains unpaid care and domestic work as "non-market, unpaid work carried out in households (by women primarily, but also to varying degrees by girls, men and boys) which includes both direct care (of persons) and indirect care (such as cooking, cleaning, fetching water and fuel, etc.)" [47, para. 2]. As the OECD noted, most

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Researcher reflexivity is not a new concept in qualitative research. However, how/if researchers engage in that reflexivity varies. In this essay, the authors engage in reflexivity about a research project they conducted together. The previous project consisted of semi-structured interviews with U.S.-based mothers regarding their perceptions about motherhood. We then used intensive motherhood as a theoretical lens through which we analyzed the interviews. The project also encompassed mothers’ perceptions during the COVID-19 global pandemic. Through duoethnography, the researchers reflexively consider major dead angles of their project, challenges they faced, and what reflexivity brings to the forefront. They further reflect on their own communication processes throughout the research project and discuss implications for future researchers. As a result, the authors call for researchers to consider their own positionalities and the effects on research more deeply through collaboration and continual reevaluation.

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