Re-imagining Mothering and Career:

Insights from a Time of Crisis

Evelyn Bilias Lolis, Kathryn Phillips, Jenna LoGiudice

• Publisher: Demeter Press
• Year: 2023
• Topic: Social Sciences
• eBook ISBN:
  9781772584714
• Subtopic: Gender Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted the global world but impacted women with children and careers disproportionately. The social, familial, and professional strains of this crisis birthed with it the opportunity to reflect on the values, expectations, lifestyle, and priorities that have defined motherhood. This book uplifts the shared consciousness of motherhood; the common veil that transcends time, region, and boundary. Part contemporary anthology, part historical narrative, and fully nestled in the tenets of psychological science, this book spotlights the awakenings of 33 mothers of varied ages, ethnicities, family compositions, and professional backgrounds in the United States as they renegotiated motherhood and career. Each reflection offers a window into the heart of a career mother, capturing the kaleidoscope of her struggles, vulnerabilities, and hopes, while empowering her insights. The reflections are bound together by themes that cut across lived maternal experiences, bringing to light a powerful creed for a life re-imagined– one that propels mothers forward in all of their roles.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Acknowledgements
• About the Authors
• Contents
• The world woke me one morning
• Preface
• Introduction
• Chapter 2
• Chapter 3
• Contributor Essays
• When Failure Is Not an Option
• When Fear Becomes Reality
• Trust Yourself to Make Hard Decisions
• Trust Children to Do Things
• No Way of Knowing
• Discussion
• Chapter 4
• Contributor Essays
• Too Blessed to Be Stressed
• The Unexpected Joys of the Pandemic
• Wow! That Was One Frightening Experience
• Discussion
• Chapter 5
• Contributor Essays
• No Longer Running
• Maintaining an Emotionally Healthy Child during the Pandemic
• Making Memories
• Discussion
• Chapter 6
• Contributor Essays
• New Office
• It Takes a Village
• The “Unprecedented” Present
• Mothering as Ecological Restoration
• Chapter 7
• Contributor Essays
• You Can’t Truly Have It All, at the Same Time
• How the Pandemic Affected the Tiger Mom
• Post-COVID Self
• Pandemic Hardship
• Stressed Out
• Discussion
• Chapter 8
• Contributor Essays
• The World We Create
• Where She Is Supposed to Be…
• An Escape to Iceland, A Cross-Country Epic, and Other Misadventures in Pandemic Parenting
• COVID-19 through the Eyes of a Single, Working Mom
• Pandemic Enlightenment
• Riptides of Self
• Discussion
• Conclusion
• It is endemic now.
• Resources
• Special Thanks
• Dedications with Love
• Deepest appreciation to Demeter’s monthly Donors