Jiawen Shou A04 Week8

After reading all, one article stands out to me the most is the “Mothering Is Liberation”. My understanding about university was very shallow before I actually attended school. However, I realize that university is a small society that includes many different generations. There are many different age groups that attend classes together. I met a girl in my nutrition class last quarter who is also a mother to one child. She always sits at the front row and participates in class conversations actively. She pays very good attentions to each classes and I can see that she earns very good scores in those nutrition classes. It was surprising to me when I found out that she is a mother already because she seems to be spending a lot of time on academic work. She is very good at balancing between school work and child care. When I read the article “Mothering Is Liberation”, my first thought is that it must be very hard to balance between school work and child care. What I get out from the article is that academic works can actually in some ways benefit child care. Mother scholars actually have more advantages by having knowledge in the field of academy. For example, the girl in my nutrition class has very good academic performance and she can use many of the nutrition knowledge learned in class into caring her child at home. Many people discriminate women for not spending full time with their children. However, mothers have the right and capability to balance between children care and other activities. In this online article called , “How Motherhood has made me More Productive as a College Professor: Three Tips”, Dr. Addyson-Zhang shares her experiences and shares three tips about how to balance well as a mother and a scholar. There are many experiences shared online by scholar mothers. Zhang suggest that she always prioritize what’s the most important and say no the rest. She said that after the birth of her first baby, she stopped going to academic conferences as they are not essential to her tenure and promotions. She was able to wisely pick out the important tasks and sort things in order. She says that there are many difficulties that a mother has to face while having an important job to do but all the hard work will worth the efforts. I like the positive attitude that scholar mothers have. My question is: does having child or not influences employment decision for women?

Sources: Addyson-Zhang, A. (2018, June 19). How Motherhood has Made me More Productive as a College Professor: Three Tips.

Mothering Is Liberation: Giving Birth to Alagaan Pedagogy (Pedagogy of Care)