Today’s question:
What have you had to give up to afford childcare? (Click here to answer)
Brief Biography
Scholar. Teacher. Mother. Wife. These lines blur and intersect in my life as a first-generation woman and scholar, who was raised in Chicago on the margin between working and middle class. My mother quit her job as a secretary shortly into her first pregnancy and my father worked two or more jobs as a house painter to pay our bills.
This upbringing narrowed my focus on the culture and politics shape the roles of mothers (and fathers), labor equality, and childcare. I attended Illinois Wesleyan University for my undergraduate degree and University of Illinois at Chicago for my Masters in English Education and Ph.D in English with a gender studies concentration.
After nearly a decade researching intensive mothering, globalization’s impact on childcare, and the ways class and race impact the mother/nanny relationship, I am determined to shift the conversation regarding these topics with an eye toward building political will and ultimately changing US culture and policy.
While currently the executive director of IAMAS (Int’l Assoc. of Maternal Action and Scholarship), I have been fortunate enough to be an educator at the high school level (Downers Grove South High School) and then as an adjunct at the University of Illinois at Chicago and North Central College. My work with IAMAS offers opportunities to engage with some of the more premier scholars around the world, and their insight and dedication continually shape my work.
My (in-progress) book tentatively titled The Illusion of Choice: How Culture, Ambivalence, and Neoliberalism Prevent Mothers From Being Even Greater Than They Already Are, covers interviews with nearly 100 U.S. women and addresses inequalities of work, childcare, and motherhood. My academic publications appear in Palgrave, Routledge, MaMSIE, Demeter Press and JMI, and I’m currently editing an anthology for Demeter Press called Care(ful) Relationships Between Mothers and the Caregivers They Hire. I have consulted for or appeared in releases by CBS, Center for Public Integrity, Chicago Tribune, Authority and Nature magazines, Fast Company, WGN Radio, and numerous podcasts, and I have served on the editorial board for Journal of Motherhood Initiative.
As executive director of IAMAS, I am oversee several working groups, plan and execute an annual, multi-day international conference, and represent our organization at select international conferences throughout the year, including NWSA, Carework Network, WFRN, and more.
My goal is to enact social change when it comes to the role of childcare and advance the national conversation about mothering.