key: cord-1043123-cxgvm2co
authors: Griffith, Lauren Miller
title: Mothers on Mute: A Silent Pandemic
date: 2021-06-15
journal: Anthropology and humanism
DOI: 10.1111/anhu.12334
sha: 6dba654d88e586f22e6542dae8cf2f68d5bdeb2b
doc_id: 1043123
cord_uid: cxgvm2co

My experience of the COVID‐19 pandemic, and trying to write through it, has been profoundly shaped by my identity as a mother. Like me, many women—mothers in particular—have had their voices muted by the demands of domestic labor. Trying to find a way to continue telling the stories that matter to me during these times has made me see how important it is for mothers to unmute and claim a space for our voices, even if our voices must change in order to be heard.

With whole days free for writing, and my children in school and daycare, I would finally get the "air and light and time and space" I craved (Sword 2017) . Of course, as I write this, the spring term is in full swing. Instead of luxuriating in the emptiness that I desired, letting my thoughts expand, I'm pecking at my iPad keyboard. At the same time, we rattle down the highway in an RV, the only way we feel safe traveling to see our newly vaccinated family members.

Time hasn't waited for this pandemic to end. My manuscript deadline grows ever closer. The local school district isn't supporting remote learning, so we've cobbled together our own plans. As a white, middle-class mother, I am insulated by many layers of privilege, but I am the primary earner in my household, and I must work. At the beginning of the pandemic, I was still collecting interviews. Most of these people I had never met before, at least not in person. They were friends of friends, contacts on Facebook, or people I simply cold-called. Yet we built rapport quickly, whether because of our shared frame of reference (capoeira) or the new ubiquity of Zoom calls that instantly transport us into each other's private spaces. Establishing connection took on a whole new meaning: But it's not cool. I feel like I have been muted. Not in the literal way that the stress from carrying her interlocutors' trauma ulcerated Billie Jean Isbell's (2010) tongue and rendered her mute, but sidelined from important conversations all the same. My mind continues racing with ideas. The inequities that are becoming visible to all but those who choose to stay blind make my writing feel ever more urgent, yet where can I find the time to get those thoughts down? Early mornings are now a necessity, not a mere preference, and even those are often interrupted by a baby who isn't sleeping through the night. Estes (1992) described the oppressive compulsion many a writer feels to have her domestic chores done before she sits to write as one of the most effective ways to steal her voice. Over the past year, I've been brought to my knees by just how many dishes we use, how much laundry my family produces, and the clutter. So much clutter. I want to treasure the toys on the floor as a reminder that we are healthy and my children are finding joy in bleak times, but the disorder of my home and the disorder of my thoughts are inextricably linked. Like sticking pins in a doll, I clean in an attempt at taming my cluttered mind. I snatch time wherever, whenever I can find it. There are no large blocks in which to binge write. Boice's (2000) brief daily sessions take on new meaning.

Writing about Paulo Freire's theories, bell hooks (1994, 50) proclaimed that "to have work that promotes one's liberation is such a powerful gift that it does not matter so much if the gift is flawed. Think of the work as water that contains some dirt. Because you are thirsty, you are not too proud to extract the dirt and be nourished by the water." Writing, being heard, is a font of liberation, and this pandemic has left me so parched that I will guzzle any water I can find. No scrap of "time confetti" is too small to be useful (Schulte 2015) . But it changes things.

Day in and day out, I feel unheard. Am I on mute? Instead of articulating my ideas of performative resistance and affective habitus, I'm barking orders or pleading with my family members to get things done. When I hear my own voice, I startle in surprise in much the same way I'm sure I will do when my boys turn into young men. My tone is short. I'm nicest when I've come back from a run, my "self-care," but it can't completely erase the frustration of feeling like my hard-earned fellowship is being whittled away by domestic responsibilities (some of which I used to be privileged enough to outsource). My authorial voice is changing too. I have no choice but to embrace Lamott's (1995) "shitty first draft." If I waited until I had the time to produce something beautiful, I would have nothing. Maybe it is the topic I'm currently working on (social justice) or the times we're living in, but my writing has an edge to it that I haven't seen before. A friend told me the other day that a message I sent him was "sharp." Another friend who is editing a volume on career paths in academia asked me if I really wanted to commit to what I had written because it might burn bridges. Without intending to, I've moved away from addressing some impersonal reader (e.g., "One might wonder why…" or "the reader might consider…") in favor of talking to "you," whoever you may be. Will it get published? I don't know, but it feels bolder, and right now, I don't have time to be mousy.

The rate at which working mothers have left the workforce during this pandemic reveals fissures in the foundation of our society that we have papered over with rhetoric. We're leaning in and falling through those cracks. In "the before times," I would have the occasional student ask me if it was possible to have a family and a career in anthropology. "Of course," I would say a bit smugly, gesturing to the photo of our family friends in Belize comparing the weight of my four-month-old baby to a giant cassava root they just harvested. Or I would fall back on the anthropological standard: a childless woman is an enigma, so having a kid makes you more relatable and opens up more opportunities to collect data. But what would I say now? Should I tell them about the anxiety that creeps up from the pit of my stomach when I hear colleagues, especially childless men or those whose children are grown, wonder in amazement at how much they've written during this unexpected sabbatical? Do I dare admit that sometimes I go entire days unable to find a word that dances just beyond my grasp while nursery rhymes play on an endless loop in my brain? What if I confessed that I just don't know? Would they see that I am an imposter?

I've tried to overcome my imposter syndrome, but this virus triggered a relapse. My mentor in undergrad called me to task for signing my name in lower case. You're not e.e. cummings, he said, and you're not a little girl. I believe I was subconsciously shying away from taking up space. Every achievement and accolade was accompanied by the worry I'd soon be found out. Each rejection a confirmation of my unworthiness. Motherhood has compounded this. I don't have the same freedom and flexibility in the field as I once did. Rather than bringing an interview to a natural conclusion, I say, "The baby is crying, so I think I'm going to have to go take care of him." Who knows what might have been said in those few extra minutes I could have had with my interviewee.

Mothers are struggling right now. My particular struggles are shaped by my class position and the great privilege I enjoy as a tenure track professor with the autonomy to shape my day as I see fit. Perhaps that is part of why it feels wrong to complain or ask for extra help. Motherhood isn't like some of the other ascribed identities that thwart success in academia. I chose this, and I'm fortunate not to have struggled with any of the reproductive challenges about which women often feel pressured to remain silent. I'm also fortunate to reflect on my own experiences ethnographically and understand how my experiences as a working mom living through a pandemic relate to the larger social and cultural forces that shape our lives. If I spend too much time mourning the loss of what might have been, how much or how well I could have written under different circumstances, I will lose the opportunity to appreciate what I have. I have my health, I have two energetic children that are teaching me to be more efficient in how I work, and I have people who are counting on me to "unmute" and tell their stories. But I'll have to write them later because, to quote another interviewee who is himself a parent, "I don't hear the kids anymore. I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing."

Advice for New Faculty Members

Women Who Run with the Wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman. London: Ballantine. hooks, bell. 1994. Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom

Finding Cholita

The Sydney Morning Herald website