Founding &Mother in the Age of COVID-19
Alysia, the heart and soul of the #DreamMaternity movement turned nonprofit, &Mother, was about to have a baby. Her third baby. Three kids under six. Alysia kicked off the movement with her viral New York Times op-ed on Mother’s Day of 2019 and we had planned to capture the momentum of the anniversary in May of 2020. We planned to support a handful of mothers at Olympic Trials in June and the Tokyo Games in July, working to build our proof points and frame our mission in the context of professional athletes.
We barreled towards our deadlines and held onto that speeding train with our fingertips.
And then, the train stopped. Or, at least, the train skipped onto a track that we had not seen coming.
You know this part of the story. Coronavirus. Global pandemic. Olympic postponement. Jobs cut. Budgets cut. Attention focused on one topic. Shelter-in-place.
Discussing a contingency plan, was off the table in-person. Hopping on the phone, during feedings, kid meltdowns and homeschool lessons was testing.
There were so many reasons to quit.
But, there were so many reasons to keep going.
&Mother, is dedicated to breaking down the barriers that limit a woman’s choice to pursue and thrive in career and motherhood.
On one of the early dark days during the Pandemic, Helen Lewis’ excellent piece for The Atlantic popped up in my news feed: “How Coronavirus will set us back to the 1950’s”. In the piece Ms. Lewis explains how epidemics widen the gender gap:
“What do pandemic patients need? Looking after. What do self-isolating older people need? Looking after. What do children kept home from school need? Looking after. All this looking after—this unpaid caring labor—will fall more heavily on women, because of the existing structure of the workforce.”
Pre-COVID, the world already provided a discouraging outlook for closing the gender gap: it will take nearly 100 years to achieve global gender parity, 257 years to close the economic gender gap. Again, these are pre-COVID numbers. What will the numbers look like post-COVID?
Interwoven into the gender gap (the ups and the downs), you will find the women working towards achieving career and motherhood. The women &Mother planned to support and showcase alongside up, the women we wanted to change the conversation around and break down barriers with. Their barriers may grow higher in the post-COVID world. Or we might lose them altogether.
We fight on.
