“Parenting at the Intersections in the Academy”

Historically, the academy has not been a welcoming space for parents — particularly for parents who are women, students, and people of color. Collections such as Mothers in Academia and The Chicana M(other)work Anthology, and media outlets such as The Chicana M(other)work Podcast, have worked to make visible the lives of academic parents by documenting the ways in which mothers, particularly marginalized mothers, experience hostility and disempowerment on their campuses and in their fields. While institutions tout their commitment to work/life balance or work/life integration, many parents remain frustrated when institutions fail to implement actual performative policies or create culture-shifting language that empower parents and hold others accountable to supporting this institutional commitment. Hence, parents remain saddled with the burden of encouraging and advocating for others to uphold the commitment. As the contributors in this series express, this burden is compounded by the experiences of being a parent at the intersections of multiple identities — race, ethnicity, class, gender, sex, first generation status, ability, sexuality, etc. — that have already, and continue to, reify their marginalization within the academy. In response, marginalized academic parents have worked to fortify themselves through community-building, creative and non-traditional family arrangements, and activism within their institutions and scholarship.