Reflections on motherhood and the impact of COVID 19 pandemic on women's scientific careers.

Abstract

I am writing this piece in a bit of an impulse. It has been several months now since life was normal. I used to have childcare support and I could often go outside to work, to run errands or for any other reason. Now, my two-year-old daughter wakes me up at about 6:30 AM and I play with her until lunchtime. She takes a two-hour nap in the afternoon, a period I use for remote work meetings. When she wakes up, I stay with her until around 7:00 PM. Then it is TV and dinnertime for her and work time for me again. She typically goes to bed at 8:30 PM, and I stay in her room until about 9:30 PM. At that point, I am exhausted. I can rarely work at that time. I have been in self-isolation at home with my elderly mother, who is at high risk for SARS-CoV-2 infection. Of course, it does not help that I no longer can count on external childcare and that in my country the response to COVID-19 has been the second worst in the world, with potential to become the worst soon.