University of Wisconsin-Madison professor and mother are juggling work and childcare during the coronavirus pandemic

Gottschalk-Dorschke remembers telling him that there was no universe in which such a thing was possible.

“But for the past year, that's been our life,” she said.

The University of Wisconsin-Madison English professor juggles a full-time job with raising two sons, ages 8 and 10. Both students have been enrolled in the Madison School District, which has been operating online for a year.

Gottschalk Druschke's husband works outside the home and is away most of the day. Her grandparents live out of state. Nursery school is not an option.

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A scroll through her Twitter feed reveals the struggles she and many other working moms have faced daily over the past year.

• A photo of her oldest son bursting into the room while she was recording a lecture for students at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
• Tweet about how she took a day off from her elementary school teaching job due to internet failure.
• The other celebrates the feat of completing 12 hours of Zoom that week with 30 hours left on the video conferencing platform.

Last spring, Gottschalk Druschke was in survival mode.

“A year ago, it was like we were just going to get through this and head into summer,” she recalls.

However, in the summer, the workload increased more than expected. In addition to her regular writing and research responsibilities, she will be transitioning fall classes to online delivery and working with her department in the wake of Black Lives Matter protests regarding diversity efforts. spent a great deal of time on.

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By the fall semester, Gottschalk Druschke hit a wall. While the pandemic seemed like it would never end, her unsustainable schedule continued, with mornings spent managing her children's online learning and afternoons filled with meetings. Therefore, her time for teaching, advising, and her own research became only in the evenings.

“I actually worked from 9pm to 3am every day for 11 months,” she said. “When this spring semester started, I decided I couldn’t do it anymore because the pandemic wasn’t going to end.”

Gottschalk Druschke has transitioned to focusing only on the most important priorities. And now she's looking at what this past year has given her as a mother.

“The fact that I'm still home for 355 days with young children and that I won't be young forever, that's a gift that I'm incredibly grateful for,” she said. “There was never a time like this. The stress will never go away, but it will be a constant reminder for us.”