Being Mothers in the Time of COVID-19 Pandemic. Reflections and Pedagogical Implications

The health emergency and the restrictive measures adopted by
various Countries to deal with the consequences of COVID-19 are risking to
compromise important results achieved so far in the field of gender equality.
However, the pandemic has increased critical issues in other areas such as care
sharing, gender-based violence, entrepreneurship, education and poverty.
The current situation risks exacerbating gender inequalities and making society
less inclusive.
In particular, the closure of schools and distance learning during Spring 2020
have had a strong impact on the educational practices and daily routines of
children and adolescents, requiring the help and supervision of adult figures.
Often mothers found themselves having to work at home but at the same time
having to care their children in online education, or working outside and having
to find a solution for managing their children, or even worse, losing their jobs.
This paper will try to analyse, from a gender perspective (Decataldo, Ruspini,
2014), the results of a research conducted by the Author on the pedagogical
consequences of distance learning both at family and school level, in particular
on the role of mothers. Data collected once again show a disadvantage of the
female gender, in particular of mothers, who suddenly found themselves
changing life and work times with a greater burden of domestic and other work
or having lost their jobs. According to their testimonies, the greatest difficulties
were precisely those related to the reconciliation of their own work time with their children's school time and the management of the consequences of the lockdown in the child-development process.