Mothers as Learners

Currently I’m pursuing a PhD in education, and human development—including how people learn and grow over time—is of great interest to me. In my work as a pediatric physical therapist, I’ve had the opportunity to work with so many children who are learning so many things. And their parents are learning right along side them.

In my work, I most often interact with mothers and, as a mother myself, I have found motherhood to be a transformative experience (not always in a easy way!). As a mother I’ve had to learn so many lessons, some of them as simple as how to save money on groceries and some as complex as how to balance career goals with the wellness of my marriage and my kids. Mothers, despite limited research on the topic, are learning all the time.

Mothers are also unique. Biologically, they carry and feed children with their bodies, creating a unique and, at times, constraining bond. (Listening to one of my kids cry when they were infants, for example, was almost physically unbearable.) Socially and culturally, mothers often bear a disproportionate responsibility for childcare, as well as many of the peripheral tasks that go along with caring for children (think food preparation, dishes, laundry) (Craig & Mullan, 2011; Craig & Powell, 2011; Schieman et al, 2017). It follows that women have unique needs and priorities as learners, and that their learning processes are intimately linked with those of their children.

So who are mothers as learners? Malcolm Knowles, a seminal scholar in adult learning, outlined several precepts of adult learners. According to Knowles (1978) and Davenport & Davenport (1985), adult learners: are self-directed, draw on a reservoir of life experience, are purposeful in their learning—especially as it relates to their roles in society—and are focused on specific problems rather than general subjects…like, say, why the toilet handle isn’t flushing versus “plumbing”, to recall a “learning experience” from my weekend!

“Adult learners are self-directed, draw on their life experience, and are most interested in learning to solve problems that relate to their social roles”

In their book Women as Learners, Elisabeth Hayes and Danielle D. Flannery explore adult learning as it relates to women specifically. They note that women’s learning is a “kaleidescope,” occurring in a broad range of contexts and settings and for a range of learning goals. Women, they write, are a special set of learners in part because societal expectations of gender are difficult to discard, and learning occurs within a societal context. In particular, women are subject to the “greedy institutions” of families and higher education spaces (I would add workplaces, too) that demand a “total commitment of time and energy from women” (p.47). Poignantly, they note that women’s response is often to try to meet all these demands and to blame themselves when they are unable to do so (Gotta say, that rings pretty true!). Hayes and Flannery also note that helping women to find and use their voice for power and authority is a way that education can serve women. Education that offers connection to others and connection between ideas, as well as education that prioritizes language and story can be transformative for women. Hays and Flannery also note that what is considered valuable and real knowledge by educational institutions is often gendered: Realms of knowledge and expertise often associated with women have historically been devalued, so women coming into formal learning spaces may enter with vast amounts of knowledge that is dismissed as worthless.

Hays and Flannery offer a list of guidelines for facilitating learning among women.

Respect women as thinking and feeling people; design learning for women as whole people
Respond to women learners as women from specific social contexts
Become aware of and list your organization’s assumptions about women learners; check them out by attending to women's feedback
Trace the lines of power and privilege holding the educational status quo in place; find out how women figure into who benefits and how
Acknowledge that race, class, and gender affect you, too; reflect often on how they do
Question how instructional and administrative processes affect women learners
Create spaces for women learners to talk, question, be in charge, work together, and succeed
Understand that resistance from some women learners may be in their best interest; try to understand why
Read and talk more about the interplay of race, class, and gender in your work with women learners
Make the invisible visible, and create a richer, more complex picture of women as learners
Be open to changing your mind and the way you do things in light of what you learn

Mother-learners and their needs

Taking all this together, it follows that mothers-learners are adult learners who are also trying to fulfill societally prescribed notions of their social roles as women and mothers. Frequently, they’re filling other roles as well: employee/manager/business owner, partner, family member, community member. Fathers fill many of these same roles too. What’s unique about mothers is, of course, their role as “mother” in a society that overwhelmingly subscribes to an ideal of intensive mothering. Intensive mothering favors a maternal figure that is self-sacrificing, all consumed by motherhood, guided by experts, and child-focused (Hays, 1996). Not light work. This ideal of motherhood can create an unmanageable burden on mothers who sacrifice free time, social lives, and even sleep and self-care to feed their greedy institutions (Pepin, Sayer & Casper, 2018). These demands are likely part of why Hays and Flannery advise their readers to “unlearn your gendered self” (p.251). It’s not motherhood, per se, that creates unreasonable expectations, but rather certain societally dominate models of motherhood.

“Unlearn your gendered self.”

— Elisabeth Hayes and Daniele D. Flannery, in Women as Learners

As is hopefully clear from the paragraph above, mothers as learners have a unique relationship to time. They may only have small amounts of available time at non-standard work times, such as when kids aren’t yet awake or have gone to sleep for the night. Their available time may also be unpredictable or suddenly lost, such as when a child is up throughout the night (eliminating early morning work time) or a child is home sick (eliminating work time during the day). (*Side note: As I write this, I am typing quickly, knowing that one of my children is probably developing a cold and will likely miss some school this week!) In other ways, their time might be very rigidly controlled. The work/study day must end at a certain time, for example, to make the pick-up deadline for the bus, afterschool, or daycare. Dinner, bath, and bedtime might be inviolate. Given a persistent pay gap between men and women, fathers’ paid work might be prioritized over mothers’ work, education, or personal needs for economic reasons. Male partners are less likely to make accommodations to support women’s learning (compared to when men are the students in the relationship) (Savage, 2021) and mothers may also lack quiet, private spaces set aside for school work (Stone, 2019). These unique constraints, as well as other experiences of motherhood, shape how, where, and why mothers learn.

In the next few posts, I’ll explore how and why mothers seek out educational experiences (both formal and informal) and how these experiences can be structured to best serve mothers, including the role of technology. I’ll also discuss how mothers’ learning and development is intertwined with that of their children and families. Come learn with me!

Are you a mother? How do you learn best? What are you learning at this phase in your life? What helps or hinders your learning processes? Leave a comment below!

References

Craig L, Mullan K. (2011) How mothers and fathers share childcare: A cross-national time-use comparison. Am Sociol Rev. 2011;76(6):834-861.

Craig, L., Powell, A. (2011). Non-standard work schedules, work-family balance and the gendered division of childcare. Work, Employment and Society, 25(2), 274–291. https://doi.org/10.1177/0950017011398894

Davenport, J., Davenport, J.A. (1985). A chronology and analysis of the andragogy debate. Adult Education Quarterly. 35. 152-159. DOI: 10.1177/0001848185035003004.

Hays, S. (1996). The cultural contradictions of motherhood. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

Hayes, E., Flannery, D. D. (2000). Women as learners: The significance of gender in adult learning. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Knowles, M. S. (1978). Andragogy: Adult learning theory in perspective. Community College Review. 5. 9-20. DOI: 10.1177/009155217800500302.

Pepin, J.R., Sayer, L.C. & Casper, L.M. (2018). Marital status and mothers’ time use: Childcare, housework, leisure, and sleep. Demography. 55, 107–133. https://doi-org.prox.lib.ncsu.edu/10.1007/s13524-018-0647-x

Savage, S. (2021). The experience of mothers as university students and pre-service teachers during Covid-19: Recommendations for ongoing support. Studies in Continuing Education, ahead-of-print(ahead-of-print), 1–15. https://doi.org/10.1080/0158037X.2021.1994938

Schieman, S., Ruppanner, L., & Milkie, M. A. (2017). Who helps with homework? Parenting inequality and relationship quality among employed mothers and fathers. Journal of Family and Economic Issues, 39(1), 49–65. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10834-017-9545-4

Stone, C., & O’Shea, S. (2019). My children….think it’s cool that Mum is a uni student: Women with caring responsibilities studying online. Australasian Journal of Educational Technology, 35(6), 97–110. https://doi.org/10.14742/ajet.5504

Mothers as Learners

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