Why It’s Harder To Be A Mother Today Than It Was 30 Years Ago

As the unprecedented challenges from the COVID-19 pandemic continue to unfold, media regularly provide us with examples of the impossible task of simultaneously working and mothering during this health crisis. Current motherhood expectations have become much more visible with this media coverage. This heightened visibility presents us with an opportunity to reconsider current standards of maternal success and create more realistic, healthier expectations for motherhood in this culture.

As a professor of Counseling, I research and teach about historical and contemporary experiences of mothers. Motherhood has never been easy. Yet, even before this pandemic, being a mother in America was