This is part of a roundtable on the COVID-19 pandemic and the work of history.
Perhaps it was an omen that I began my most recent dissertation chapter draft on Friday, March 13. By Monday, we were hunkered down in quarantine. My son’s preschool closed, my university moved online, and my husband set up an office in our bedroom.
Our household haven’t changed much since then. My son misses his friends, but Mom substitutes as an acceptable playmate. As a computer engineer, my spouse’s job was easily exported to Zoom, Slack, and Google Docs. My work, however, has come to a complete standstill. The two major archival trips I planned for this summer are canceled, and none of the material essential for my research is available online.
Moreover, I took on the role of full-time parent. Instead of editing chapters or working with the archival materials I do have, I’m cleaning up Goldfish crackers and asking my four-year-old, “Did you use the potty?,” twenty times a day. My world narrowed from an academically and personally engaging one to a day-to-day domestic grind, bookended by morning coffee and an evening glass of wine.
Like so many other households with young children, the COVID-19 crisis has laid bare the fissures in our social and economic lives. Having access to childcare during the school year smoothed over the reality that my spouse’s work takes precedence over my scholarship. His career pays far more than my student stipend does, so it made economic sense for me to be the primary parent. Yet as the months of quarantine stretch out, I worry about losing my sense of self as a scholar. Will I ever get back to the archives? Will I finish my dissertation?
I recognize that my household is in an extremely privileged position. We still have income. We’re safe. We’re healthy. Yet I suspect that my experience is one with which many, if not most, parents struggle, especially women. What happens if childcare centers don’t reopen for another six months or a year? As the academic job market continues its downward slide, how much further behind our peers will we be? What will our opportunities look like in the post-COVID “new normal”? How can we care for our young children and still fulfill our responsibilities as historians? Or is it even possible?