Mothers as Qualitative Researchers
Hello Qualitative Mind,
When Quali Q was still actively facilitating our Facebook group (archived in June of 2023), we asked people requesting access to the group to answer three questions and one of them really helped us to plan for content for the blog. Today’s blog post topic is the direct result of a new member asking to hear more about mothers as researchers, so here we go.
I think the experiences of mothers as researchers is too broad and diverse for me to attempt covering here. I decided to narrow this post to mothers as qualitative researchers, and to share some ways motherhood has impacted me as a qualitative researcher.
Motherhood coloured my research lens. During my PhD defence, one of my committee members asked if I was pregnant during my data collection (through focus groups) with pregnant and postpartum women. Although I wasn’t pregnant at that point, I had two children during my PhD and the way I “saw” (i.e., interpreted) the data after my first child was born was different than before. My participants’ life adversities seemed deeper to me, and the pregnancy complications they experienced seemed much more tangible.
I don’t think the codes and categories I identified during data analysis changed as a result of motherhood. Yet, how I connected and presented the data in a spider web of factors was influenced by my own experience. When it comes to analyzing and writing up the data, I wouldn’t say I did better or worse, I simply did it differently. I think my lens gained another layer, and I recognized that was possible with the practice of reflexivity. Reflexivity, once again, was key because just like I made new, interesting connections, I also made uncalled-for assumptions because of my experiences as a mother.
Motherhood shifted my schedule and shaped my priorities. I think the most practical and noticeable changed was in how I began to prioritize my research activities and projects. Becoming a mother forced me to become more flexible with my schedule (hello frequent sick days!) while needing to carry the qualitative research activities that were happening in my projects. The most challenging juggle (and one I’ve covered on the blog before) came with balancing urgent and important things. Once I became a mother, it seemed like there was always something urgent for me to do but more often than not they didn’t mean writing or doing the things that would be the most impactful for my career in the long run.
If this sounds familiar to you, know that you’re not alone. I don’t think I can give any advice that would work for everyone reading this but I can share what worked for me. The strategies that made the biggest difference in my routine and productivity were:
becoming an early riser (which meant waking up at 5:30am to exercise and read before anyone else had climbed out of bed)
organizing my work and personal priorities in a paper planner and then Google calendar
limiting the number of meetings and coffee chats I scheduled
and leaving some “blank” spaces for the urgent things when they came up.
If any of these routine hacks/strategies sound appealing and feasible to you, give them a try and let me know how it goes (you can send me an email, I’d love to hear about it).
Qualitative researchers who are mothers commonly have qualities that enhance their research. Yet, they may also face additional challenges. The beauty here is to recognize challenges and opportunities, and to the best of your ability (and with as much support as you need and can get) navigate both with grace and wisdom.
Talk soon,
Maira