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Season Two/Episode Nine: The Vanishing Village - Is Modern Motherhood In Crisis?
18 Plays11 days ago
In a society that claims "it takes a village to raise a child," why are so many mothers raising children without one? This episode explores the growing crisis of maternal isolation and the absence of traditional support networks that once sustained families.
Dr. Shannon Weaver draws on her extensive research to discuss how the burden of childcare falls heavily on mothers both emotionally and financially.
Whether you're a parent feeling isolated, someone who supports a parent, or simply interested in how social structures impact family life, this conversation with Dr. Weaver offers insights into one of the most pressing yet often invisible challenges facing families today.
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Transcript
Introduction to the Guardians of Hope Podcast
00:00:00
Speaker
Welcome to the Guardians of Hope podcast, where we bring together parents, nonprofits, legal and medical experts dedicated to positively impacting children's lives.
00:00:12
Speaker
I'm your host, Cynthia Ramsaran. The thoughts and opinions of my guests are not necessarily my own. So thank you all for joining and
Challenges Facing Mothers Today
00:00:21
Speaker
sharing. Welcome everyone. Today we are diving into a crisis that has been building for decades, but intensified dramatically during the pandemic, the isolation of mothers and the dissolution of traditional support networks.
00:00:35
Speaker
The saying goes, it takes a village to raise a child. But in today's world, that village seems increasingly hard to find. We're seeing mothers shouldering overwhelming responsibilities without the community support that previous generations relied on.
00:00:53
Speaker
From families moving away from their parents and extended relatives to the intensified pressures of the pandemic, we're witnessing what some experts call a silent crisis of maternal burnout and isolation.
Meet Dr. Shannon Weaver
00:01:08
Speaker
Joining me to discuss this is a family scholar and associate professor of human development and family sciences at the University of Connecticut, Dr. Shannon Weaver.
00:01:18
Speaker
Dr. Weaver, thank you so much for joining me. How are you today? um I'm doing good, busy. And thank you for the opportunity to talk about an issue that is incredibly important and oftentimes um completely overlooked in our society.
00:01:37
Speaker
Absolutely. Why don't you start by talking to us about your background in family sciences? Well, actually, um all three of my degrees are in human development and family sciences. And my area of focus or interest is gender and particularly how gender influences and shapes women's roles and responsibilities within step families. so And for the past few years, ah one of the the main sort of large projects I'm working on is a longitudinal study um looking at the well-being, physical, emotional, um social, relational of parents impact from the pandemic. So we started collecting in April, of april May of 2020, and we've collected, I think, three, four waves now um because we were really sort of interested to see, um you know, how parents were faring during a very stressful time. So that's a large part. And I also do work on
00:02:33
Speaker
the importance of women and perpetuation of family rituals. Excellent. Thank you for sharing that with us. And we have a lot to talk about. i want that I want to start by talking about what we mean when we say the village in the context of raising children and how that concept has changed over recent generations.
What Happened to 'The Village'?
00:02:57
Speaker
Well, that's kind of an interesting question, because when I went kind of looking to see sort of how people had defined it and, you know, it comes from, you know, sort of like an old African sort of proverb. And I think in some ways we've got some ideas about, um you know, looking at it from a couple of different levels, you know, both from ah like like an interpersonal family relational level, and then sort of looking at it sort of broader from an institutional level and sort of that structural supports that are in place or not to assist families and in particularly parents.
00:03:31
Speaker
So, you know, the thing that always find interesting is as a nation, you know, the United States is very pro-birth, but we're not very pro-child. And when you kind of look at the institutional supports that would assist sort of ah families, in particular mothers, um they've been lacking for the most part over the course of history.
00:03:50
Speaker
um Although there's been a couple of times we've seen some things, but we can also sort of look at sort of, you know women um nowadays are spending more time um in sort of childcare and um ah household you know domestic tasks than even mothers were back sort of 20, 30, 40 years ago. So women are spending more time not only sort of engaging in these tasks, but they're also spending sort of greater hours at paid labor. So basically what we're seeing is women have fewer hours to engage and spend time with friends.
00:04:23
Speaker
um And actually, you know I think a recent Pew study ah found that that a majority of working mothers stated that they didn't have time to spend with friends because and after meeting sort of all the demands that we have. So now nowadays people work longer hours, they are spending more time you know in care tasks, um not only with children, but also with older family members.
00:04:46
Speaker
um And what does that mean? It means that we have no very little time for leisure activities or other types of sort of infrastructural supports. um We can also talk about the fact that ah people sort of of living at greater distances um and sort of like the lack of um sort of of ah connection or, sorry, I'm
00:05:12
Speaker
so i'm trying to think would have had this. ah one thing that we've seen is actually, you know, people living further distances apart, which can sort of vary by one thing we've seen in terms of socioeconomic status, um as well as
Impact of Geography and Income on Isolation
00:05:27
Speaker
regionally.
00:05:27
Speaker
And I think that, you know, even when people live close, closer, such as in Northeast, um a lot of the times, even sort of getting to sort of family members can be difficult given the way um like our current, like transportation infrastructures are set up, things along those lines.
00:05:43
Speaker
So,
00:05:46
Speaker
Thank you. So we we talked about distance and somewhat socioeconomic factors. um You talked about research showing that people are living further away from their families, but are there any other types of factors that drive the geographic geographic isolation?
00:06:06
Speaker
Well, I think of the things that we got to look at is like, for example, you know, people tend to live closer to family members in the Northeast and the South than they do in the West um and like mountain states, for example. And a large part of that is because, you know, in these regions,
00:06:22
Speaker
sort of, of ah it's more of a rural setting and people in rural settings live at greater distances, you know, and so it's a lot sort of more difficult to kind of, so we've got this kind of like geographic, almost regional sort of difference in terms of, you know, the amount of of family members that you're near to.
00:06:38
Speaker
um But we also look at, for example, um sort of people who have higher incomes, tend to live further away from family members than those with lower incomes.
00:06:53
Speaker
So a large, I think, part of some of the stress that we're seeing are from women, you know, who are earning a decent amount, but still sort of of lacking sort of affordable access to childcare or other types of supports such as you know time for friends or time to de-stress themselves.
00:07:09
Speaker
um and And even if you have people or family members um nearby in the area, doesn't necessarily mean that they would be sort of sources of support. Because we've we've kind of, when I think of It Takes a Village, I love the idea and the sentiment ah because I think it reflects both the interpersonal resources that are needed to be a good parent and to be a good mother, um but also the structural supports that are necessary as well.
00:07:35
Speaker
um But, you know, when I think about sort of ah a village and and a large part of the research that we've been using in our work um has kind of focused on the idea of people have talked about sort of of perceived support systems or personal safety nets of of basic support for mothers, um you know, such as those that look at not just sort of financial, um but also emotional support, social support, childcare assistance, things along those lines.
00:08:05
Speaker
Because, you know, i mean, when we look at working parents, like less than 30% have any form of backup childcare. So, you know, when the demands hit, you know, um we're sort of sort of at a loss. And we saw that definitely happened during the time of COVID because, know, more than two willing women ended up leaving the workforce at that time due to sort of childcare restraints or being unable to find adequate childcare.
00:08:29
Speaker
Now here's what's interesting though, um more women, um mothers of children over the age of are under the age of 18 and under um are in the workforce now than they were before the pandemic, which I think is kind of interesting.
00:08:43
Speaker
So right now, like i think about like over three fourths of mothers with children under 18 are in the paid labor force, which is sort of up from 64% in 2021.
00:08:55
Speaker
So in some ways we've seen women kind of gain sort of back some of what they've lost. um But you know a large part of that is coming from them making sort of concessions in some ways, you know maybe and be able to work from home, but women find that much more difficult to do than than men working from home.
00:09:12
Speaker
Because a lot of the time you're working,
Economic Benefits of Childcare Support
00:09:15
Speaker
trying to do work and and take care of your kids and like the division between the two has kind of come together. you know um But then we can also talk about the idea of um you know that means sort of of not being able to leave work behind because it's always there, you know kind of looking at our children.
00:09:35
Speaker
and including sort of like the tasks that you need to do around the house. But our society was basically not really set up. you know The hours of the work week um you know were was created basically, um I know Barbara Riesman talks about this,
00:09:51
Speaker
um you know She's from, i think it's the Council on Contemporary Families, which does a lot of sort of research looking at um sort of of experiences of families today to sort of guide policymakers.
00:10:02
Speaker
um And one of the things that they and she talked about is the idea that the work week was basically set up with this idea that you have a single earner um who had sort of a housewife, which we know you know for a certain period of time, in um it was possible for some families um to survive on one income.
00:10:23
Speaker
But you know nowadays, basically we have, you know for the most both fathers and mothers, um sort of working. And even in two-parent families, that doesn't leave you enough time to do all the tasks that need to be done that we have assumptions for. And it's even more difficult if you're a single parent.
00:10:39
Speaker
hey Well, you're you're talking about the pandemic. I know that a lot of women left the workforce during the pandemic because of that. Some are coming back.
00:10:50
Speaker
um It's been five years. What barriers are they facing ah once they try to come back? Well, I think I think part of the challenge, I mean, ah there's some that are immediate and others that are long term.
00:11:02
Speaker
You know, there's like the motherhood penalty when like, I mean, for example, you know, women and when we look at sort of like differences in wages between men and women, you know, um in terms of what women um earning. and you know, less than men do, even when you control for hours worked and, you know, areas of of occupation and things along those lines.
00:11:21
Speaker
But, you know, one of the biggest sort of of differences in pay is like women kind of, who are sort of in their 30s to 40s, you know, biggest discrepancy and that's, and people have talked about because of like this motherhood penalty,
00:11:34
Speaker
you know, you even if you're working, you know, similar hours, but, you know, having to take time off to do certain things or perception, you know, and that you're not sort of as committed to your job, even though like you are, but if you don't have adequate childcare, or you're in and you know that follows through, like, what are you gonna do?
00:11:51
Speaker
um and you know we saw with the pandemic, you know like how the lack of infrastructure you know for childcare really created a huge problem. So for right now, women coming back to work, you know even though we've seen increases, because we saw a significant number of childcare centers and childcare providers um that closed or or stopped working.
00:12:11
Speaker
At the same time, even though we've seen sort of of you know centers reopening or or other people, coming back to provide care for families, but it's not so low that it was before.
00:12:22
Speaker
And, you know, we are one like basically, you know, one of the the few industrialized nations that does not have subsidized childcare. However, here's, what's kind of interesting. There was one period in time when the U S actually did make the argument that childcare was sort of a required infrastructure and they actually funded it.
00:12:41
Speaker
Can you guess when that was?
00:12:45
Speaker
2020? No, no, no, no. Actually, um you know, the one thing that's kind of interesting, I talk about this in class, is, you know, um that, you know, right now we we don't sort of of have it, but actually during World War II.
00:13:00
Speaker
Oh, when women had to help in the war. Yes. So in 1943, you know, Congress allocated $20 million dollars to create the nation's first and only sort of child care program um under like and the infrastructure law. like I think it was the Lanham Act um of along those lines.
00:13:16
Speaker
So sort of like they sort of talked about and and provided for like sort of communities, um cities and companies to set up hundreds. They call them war nurseries. So basically um during the course of the ah war, they enrolled some you know estimates or somewhere around like half a million um or a little bit more children.
00:13:36
Speaker
and And unfortunately this didn't meet all the demand that was there, but here's what's sort of interesting. um It was like the first time, first and only time really that the US government acknowledged childcare as critical infrastructure because they needed women to be working.
00:13:52
Speaker
um And the center was affordable, you know, actually um for those people who pay for childcare, you know, the average cost of parents was 50 to 75 cents per child per day, which kind of like in like, you know, current numbers would be nine to $14 a day, which, you know, yeah. And you look at now, like, for example, and you know, Massachusetts, the average cost of childcare where i live is like $16,789. I think you're in New i think here're in new york um and that's like 12,844.
00:14:20
Speaker
um thousand eight hundred and forty four So- talking per year? Yes, per year. Yeah, okay. So, you know, actually in 29 states and the District of Columbia, you know, one year of infant care is more expensive than year of tuition and fees for college. Childcare expensive and and one of the things that we see is the increasing numbers of women working. Now, some mothers have always worked. like When we talk about sort of of women from sort of working class,
00:14:52
Speaker
or, you know, women of color, um you know, always kind of being in the workforce. There was that period of time, you know, in the 40s and the 50s where, you know, we did see sort of ah women and particularly who are white, um who stayed home with their children because, you know, we had economic policies in place that enabled us to live on a single sort of income.
00:15:11
Speaker
and And, you know, ah corporations paid larger sort of aspects of taxes and things along those lines. But um one thing I do wanna emphasize is that you know um systemic supports, institutional structures put in place to support families can be there.
00:15:29
Speaker
um But you know for example, subsidized childcare would be huge. Some people have talked about, you know um you know, basically if we had subsidized childcare, like most, um you know, industrialized nations do, you know, GDP would sort of increase by $1.6 trillion. dollars so um And that's been the argument that a lot of people have talked about and trying to get women back into the workforce.
00:15:52
Speaker
um But I think also when women leave the workforce, you know, not just during the pandemic and we can talk about their health and their wellbeing, you know, one thing that we found in April, May of 2020, women's stress level increased significantly and stayed high, um you know, for years, whereas like men, um their stress really didn't increase until wave two, which was the next November, December 2020.
00:16:21
Speaker
um But women kind of start like began high kind of continued sort of to be to be high during this time. And that sort of had important implications you know for their their depression, and their anxiety, things along those lines. And one thing that we do know from long periods of stress um you know creates inflammation and not only sort of impacts you kind of socially in your stress level, but also like physically know and health wise, greater risk of ah cardiovascular disease and heart attacks, even cancer.
00:16:52
Speaker
Yeah. so Dr. Weaver, you talked about families and partners and how moms or women stress levels rose and men probably stayed the same.
The Power of Perceived Support
00:17:05
Speaker
um Why don't we talk about how partners and family members can help mothers um or support mothers who are struggling with these feelings of isolation and stress and physical problems?
00:17:19
Speaker
Well, the thing about, like, interesting, I think about support, okay? And we can talk about, like, the need for childcare. I could go on and on and probably gone on too long for that. But perceived support from from um and friends and family is incredibly sort of important.
00:17:35
Speaker
But, you know, the positive impact of ah social support and in particular from friends and family is more the perception of it rather than the actual amount.
00:17:47
Speaker
So, you know, a long sort of standing finding we have is, for example, for new mothers, um you know, sort of the perception that they have an available support network um to them, we've seen linked with lower rates of postpartum depression.
00:18:00
Speaker
You know, um you know, and other studies that have looked at sort of like it's the and the the perceived amount of support rather than actual received amount of support that's had positive impacts on lower rates of depression and anxiety and in sort of um relation to like higher mental sort of health and personal sort of happiness, things along those lines.
00:18:20
Speaker
So the thing interesting is it's sort of like, you know, the perception of support being more related to particular positive outcomes for mothers than actual. So I think it's not only sort of having the support available um and showing it, but that mothers themselves are sort of aware.
00:18:38
Speaker
But here's the thing, I think that's a challenge for those of us who study and we work with families. You know, we really, you know, don't know, um much, you know um because the reality is is that we know moms, you know anecdotally and also in research, report the desire and the need for care that being a mother is very isolating. And you know we've got the numbers to show that they're overwhelmed with, you know we've got very high expectations for mothers, um but sort of low levels of support in a lot of different ways.
00:19:13
Speaker
um But you know we really don't know what types of support mothers want, like what support is that they perceive to be available to them, like how they're using it, who is providing it.
00:19:26
Speaker
Now, from a little bit of the research in terms of what we know, i mean, of friends, huge source of support, particularly for mothers and the need. to sort of have regular time to interact with those, you know, that, you know, so sometimes, you know, your mother friends are important, but also friends that are friends for you as a person.
00:19:46
Speaker
If that makes any sense. It does. Yep. And I think, unfortunately, one of the things that we've seen is like women talk about really a lack of having that time because you're just you're just kind of exhausted. And the limited time that we have, you know, it's emphasized in our society. Okay, you should spend it with your kids and women are spending more time with their kids.
00:20:03
Speaker
um But, or also for those that are partnered with your spouses, but um you know, for, for couples, particularly where the, that for twenty heterosexual six gender couples, for couples where the partner perceives that housework, childcare and care responsibilities are their, you know, their responsibility as well.
00:20:23
Speaker
you know, and that are supportive with their partners, we do see positive impacts, you know, having a partner there that's helping. Unfortunately, you know, women spend, you know, on average twice as much time with their children than their male husbands, their partners do.
00:20:36
Speaker
You know, they're more likely to also be engaged in sort of more of the, like, let's say, less palatable tasks of motherhood, you know, speak, pleasant. um And, you know, we can sort of of, when we look at these sorts of situations, you know, we've also got this leisure gap of like downtime to sort of have. So when are you going to be able to to do these things?
00:21:01
Speaker
um It's, there isn't much time there. Yeah. Yeah. so um So one last question for you, Dr. Weaver, just for our listeners who are recognizing themselves in this discussion, mothers feeling overwhelmed without adequate support or, you know, making time for those friendships that are really important and other types of self-care.
Self-Care Strategies for Mothers
00:21:28
Speaker
What resources or first steps or any advice you would recommend based on what you've been learning in these past, and in your years of studying?
00:21:40
Speaker
Well, I think, you know, the one thing we have to understand is like, you know, I have a friend, a therapist who works with families and she always talks about but you can't pour from an empty cup. And unfortunately, you know, we kind of get this idea, you know, in society, particularly for sort of for mothers is is as selfless and sort of you know, petting your children first. And I think you can't be a good parent and particular, you can't be a good mother if you're not also caring for yourself.
00:22:03
Speaker
And it drives me nuts. um I think we need to also change our language when it comes to self-care because self-care is necessary. But, you know, people sit there and say, I'm going to get enough sleep this weekend, or I'm going to sit down and eat rather than like, you know, eat on the run. And I'm like,
00:22:17
Speaker
that's That's not self-care. Those are things that are needed for living. If you don't get enough sleep, you die. And one of the things that we saw during the pandemic in particular, you know, lack of sleep, um um you know, is very sort of detrimental um to sort of of well-being and, you know, people's stressors.
00:22:32
Speaker
um we ah We did see, however, like getting outside was useful for mothers, but they really didn't have much time to get outside, you know so to speak, to help them. So I think you know the first thing to be a good parent, you have to be you know good to yourself you know um and getting adequate sleep and you know and eating healthy. and But those things take time. But also, I think sort of setting clear boundaries.
00:22:55
Speaker
um you know and not feeling guilty or bad if you're not able to do things. But just even sort of getting outside and walking for 20 minutes a day does huge sort of benefits um for people's sort of health and wellbeing.
00:23:10
Speaker
And you know um you know stopping and taking a moment because you know even sort of doing something creative for like five minutes at the beginning of the day, you you know, and creative can be whatever that you sort of want it to be.
Tips for Managing Stress
00:23:23
Speaker
One of the greatest resources that I really like quite a bit um is book on burnout, because it was talked about completing the stress cycle. Actually, i use it in my classes um to discussion because they talk about like in mother's busy lives, we can't get rid of all of our stressors, you know, that those things that cause stress in our life.
00:23:41
Speaker
um And unfortunately, when you have repeated sort of stress, you know, this causes so long-term inflammation. But you know you need to complete the stress cycle, even if you can't get rid of the stressor.
00:23:53
Speaker
So there are things that you can do that kind of send a message to your body to kind of sort of shut down that you know fight, fight, freeze, or feign sort of experience. You know, and one of them is sort of, you know, doing some sort of of quick, know, walk outside, doing something creative, you know, even having a pleasant conversation with a stranger.
00:24:12
Speaker
Like, you know, so when you're picking your kid up from childcare and someone's walking out, smile and say hi. i mean, there' are things along those lines. The Nagoski sisters, N-A-G-O-S-K-Y. um And their book on burnout, I think is a great resource for parents.
00:24:25
Speaker
But I think, you know, mothers need to sort of understand that, you know, there are lots of high expectations, um but a lot of those we place on ourselves. And, you know, the whole, we haven't even gotten into like the whole mental load issue and things along those lines.
00:24:39
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. It starts with us is what you're saying. It starts. Yeah. Yeah. Yes and no But I think like, like in a lot of ways we have to advocate for ourselves on a personal level, but we also need to advocate for ourselves sort of ons structural and institutional levels. You know, we're the only country that doesn't have paid parental leave.
00:24:58
Speaker
you know, nationwide, um you know, Family Medical Leave Act, which you can take unpaid leave, but the majority of of people really can't afford not to sort of ah take unpaid leave. um And even so that is only covered in certain companies. So, you know, a significant number of people are employed by small companies, which aren't covered by these policies.
00:25:17
Speaker
So, you know, we sort of and need to understand that, you know, we need to care infrastructure. um But also we need to start looking at sort of like the work week and things along those lines and and people kind of need to step up I think the problem is that women we've been told for years that we can have it all, but they really you know, and we should but they really didn't say that meant that we would be doing everything.
00:25:41
Speaker
So, you know, we need sort of greater support and assistance, not only from partners, but also sort of for friends and others. um Now, how to to get that to happen and can be a bit of a challenge.
00:25:54
Speaker
Yeah. Well, Dr. Weaver, thank you so much for your time.