Document Type

Book Chapter

Abstract

Successes are often noticed in reflection after an event; struggles are felt in the moment. When COVID-19 was recognized as a public health emergency in the United States (US), many mothers felt their struggles more acutely. Much of 2020 feels like a pressure cooker for mothers, where the steam valve does not fully relieve the mounting pressure they felt because of COVID-19. Most families are experiencing additional stress due to COVID-19, but in heterosexual couples, that work disproportionately falls to women, as they are spending, on average, fifteen hours more per week on education and household tasks (Cohen and Hsu). This additional work reflects the normative discourse of intensive motherhood, which society uses to judge mothers as good or bad. Coined by Sharon Hays, intensive motherhood is “child-centered, expert-guided, emotionally absorbing, labor-intensive, and financially expensive”(8). Jean-Anne Sutherland notes that intensive motherhood requires mothers always give of themselves ?, emotionally, psychologically and intellectually”(313). In this chapter, we argue the COVID-19 pandemic has amplified the demands of intensive motherhood on mothers. From suddenly becoming at-home educators to the difficulties of managing a family in quarantine, mothers during the pandemic are experiencing added stressors, affecting every aspect of their li

Disciplines

Communication | Social and Behavioral Sciences

Publication Date

1-1-2021

Language

English

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Communication Commons

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