With schools and universities returning to various forms of in-person, online, and hybrid teaching, students and teachers who are parents have had to navigate new complications with their dual roles.
Mona Caldwell, a senior art history major, is a mother to a two- and six-year-old. She balances her classes with spending time with her kids weekly, and she said the pandemic has created a myriad of struggles for her.
“At first, the pandemic turned our lives upside down. My life was hectic to say the least,” Caldwell said. “Then, I started to get in a new routine and realized how thin I had spread myself prior to the pandemic.”
Having a toddler and a kindergartener, Caldwell said the new aspect to parenting that she struggles with most is balancing his schoolwork with her own.
“Balancing my school work with my son’s schoolwork was probably the biggest challenge. I had to learn to focus on the top priority of the day,” Caldwell said.
Caldwell plans to graduate in November and pursue a master’s degree. She said her biggest motivator is her faith and the knowledge that she gets one step closer to her degree with every passing day.
Caldwell is currently applying to Lindenwood University’s online Master of Arts in Art History program.
The original article, Parenting during a pandemic: how members of the UM community balance their new roles, is from the Daily Mississippian by Kate Kimberlin.