Conflicting roles of mother and academic? Exploring the use of arts-based self-care activities to encourage wellbeing

Abstract

Mothers in academia ("motherscholars"), whether faculty or doctoral students, are confronted by structures and policies often impeding promotion and movement through the Conflicting Roles of Mother and Academic? 611 Art/Research International: A Transdisciplinary Journal Volume 4 Issue 2, 2019academic pipeline. While research has examined these struggles, such as our own research over the last few years, this study addresses these issues from a new perspectivewellbeing. Using an arts-based participatory study, this article discusses how six motherscholars (including the authors) living in the US, Kazakhstan, and New Zealand sought to alleviate their conflicting roles of mother and academic through sharing online practices and struggles through self-care activities. Findings demonstrated how collaborative encouragement, and even pressure, to focus on self-care appeared to support participants' daily lives in and out of academia as participants became aware of themselves as individuals, beyond being a mother or an academic. Implications suggest the importance of informal support networks (especially when formal structures do not exist) for motherscholars to reduce role conflict by encouraging wellbeing through self-care.

Leading Change in Gender and Diversity in Higher Education from Margins to Mainstream

“…During the pandemic, some people became concerned about the ability to stay living and working in Kazakhstan or if they would be required to move back to their previous country. As I have spent my career studying mothers in academia (see CohenMiller , 2015CohenMiller , 2020bCohenMiller & Demers, 2019;, I was highly attuned to networks of women sharing about what they were facing, the pressures and stresses, and how the universities were responding (or not) to COVID-19 (see CohenMiller, 2020a, c). From my own experiences of moving into lockdown, which in Kazakhstan involved a complete restriction of all movement outside of the house, and hearing from other motherscholars and leadership, it became evident there was a misunderstanding of what was happening "on the ground" for motherscholars.…”

Never the right time: maternity planning alongside a science career in academia

“…There has been a growing interest in the topic of motherhood, maternity, and parental leave in academia (Armenti, 2004;Castaneda & Isgro, 2013;CohenMiller, 2014;CohenMiller et al, 2019;Grenier et al 2008;Lynch, 2008;Ward & Wolf-Wendel, 2012). The vast majority of these studies have focused on the experiences of mothers in academia.…”

“…In general, the literature suggests that the most common challenges faced by academic mothers are the demanding nature of academic work, the ambiguity, and inconsistency, of parental-leave policies, lack of funding for graduate students and tension between family and professional goals (Conley & Carey, 2013;De Casanova & Brown, 2013). CohenMiller et al (2019) described mothers in academia as 'motherscholars' who are in a complicated position, 'being neither fully at home nor fully at work' (p. 638). Sutherland (2008Sutherland ( , 2010 spoke of the social construction of the good mother ideology and its impact on the lives of mothers.…”