By Chelsea Langston Bombino
This Mother's Day, the sacred role of mothering is taking on different shapes and forms under the strain of COVID-19. The social architecture that once supported the vocation of motherhood - from pregnancy care, to mental health providers, to houses of worship - now looks fundamentally different.
This will not be my first Mother’s Day as a mother. It will, however, be my first Mother’s Day with a healthy, living child outside of my womb. Our six month old, Benjamin, whose name means “beloved son,” is truly an answer to prayer.
On Mother’s Day 2019 I was expecting my second son, Benjamin. I was also mourning the loss of my first son, Samuel, who died from SIDs in December 2018. Mother’s Day was, in many ways, too painful to observe. Having experienced Mother’s Day both as an expectant mother and as a grieving mother, I felt like I occupied a liminal space in motherhood. I was a mother, yet there was no child in my arms. Certainly, there was the hope of a living child in my womb, and the hope of a child who had gone to Heaven, but there was no physical incarnation of motherhood. No dimpled thighs. No pursed lips eager to nurse. No gripping hand that wrapped itself around my pointer finger.
This Mother’s Day, I am so grateful to have a thriving little boy who is very much with us. But for many mothers, including myself, COVID-19 has resulted in another type of liminal existence and loss in motherhood – the loss of the normal rhythms and practices of institutions and communities that are vital to our capacity to thrive as mothers and as families. For example, in 2019, I received my prenatal care (entirely in person) from a trusted Certified Nurse Midwife practice. Now, that same small practice is conducting telemedicine visits with its final patients and preparing to shutter its doors permanently on May 15 after 25 years of service.
A Public Justice Framework for the Vocation of Motherhood
The author’s son, Benjamin, during a busy day of Zoom meetings with Mom and Dad.
The vision of motherhood as interdependently connected to the supportive communities representing different phases and roles within parenting is grounded in a Christian understanding of bearing the image of God. Even within the vocation of motherhood, there are distinct roles and responsibilities corresponding with different phases of motherhood: from planning for a family, to carrying out a healthy pregnancy, to time for bonding in the early weeks after birth, to how we feed our babies, to the communities of care and support we form, to how we choose to educate and spiritually form our children through their years of development. Mothers learn about the image of God through living out the varied vocations of motherhood.
During COVID-19, a public justice framework requires varied institutions, including government, as well as faith-based and community-based organizations, to work together to address the multifaceted challenges this pandemic presents. COVID-19 is certainly influencing how we carry out our God-given vocations, including motherhood. Public justice views mothers not as individuals in isolation, but intimately bound up in the thriving of their children and families.
Public justice insists that we must recognize the inherent mutuality that exists in the intimate relationship between mother and child. In an article I wrote last year titled Embodied Civic Compassion for Pregnant Women and Their Babies, I write:
Full-bodied compassion requires government to fulfill its right role to protect human life through both restricting the taking of human life and affirmatively supporting vulnerable [mothers] in the workplace, through healthcare, and through other social services. [Public justice] affirms the image of God, dually and inseparably present in both [mothers] and their babies. [This] “both/and” approach recognizes our civic duty to honor both mother and child and their mutual, interdependent flourishing.
Sacred Sector Supports for Mothers During COVID-19
For mothers to continue to incarnate their distinct roles and responsibilities during COVID-19, civil society organizations remain vitally important, even as the norms and practices of these groups have necessarily shifted. For many mothers, their spiritual identities and sacred precepts animate how they navigate their family caregiving responsibilities and the social institutions they seek out for support. The sacred sector refers to the wide range of faith-based organizations that conduct community activities or provide goods and services, and are places of work for employees, contract workers, and volunteers. During COVID-19, sacred sector organizations offer varied supports for mothers and their families.
For pregnant mothers, COVID-19 has fundamentally shifted the institutional norms and common cultural moments that recognize the bringing of a new life into the world. Many prenatal appointments are now being conducted through a computer screen. Baby showers are now happening over Zoom. The same goes for birthing, breastfeeding and parenting classes. New motherhood is very much a physical, bodily experience. And yet, COVID-19 has necessitated that many expectant mothers learn how to prepare their bodies for childbirth without the physical touch of their healthcare providers. Likewise, COVID-19 has necessitated that many new mothers learn how to breastfeed their babies without assistance from a nurse, lactation consultant, or even a knowledgeable friend or relative, that is often essential to breastfeeding success. Trying to diagnose and treat even common nursing problems through telemedicine is challenging, at best. Institutions that support mothers from pregnancy through the early postpartum period are often effective not just because they look out for the clinical, physical health of these women, but because of the relational, spiritual and emotional supports they provide.
“The social architecture that once supported the vocation of motherhood ... now looks fundamentally different.”
Mothers who are privileged enough to have access to a variety of options generally seek healthcare providers, support groups, spiritual communities, and child caregiving supports that align with their own sacred animating values and identities. These central belief systems may be emblematic of a variety of explicitly religious or spiritual commitments. For some women who find themselves pregnant unexpectedly, the vocation of motherhood may seem overwhelming, especially during COVID-19. And these expectant mothers may seek out providers, such as crisis pregnancy clinics (CPCs), that offer a distinctive, faith-based perspective as they provide women with a continuum of healthcare, parenting, material and spiritual resources.
Pam Palumbo, CEO of Pregnancy Clinic Ministry in Maryland, shared in a recent video how this CPC is continuing to serve during COVID-19, even while they are shifting some of their institutional norms and practices. Pregnancy Clinic Ministry is now offering telemedicine visits and online classes on everything from prenatal health to parenting. In the video, Palumbo said, “We also launched a new class called ‘COVID-19 and Your Pregnancy,’ not only in English, but in Spanish. And for women who don’t want to set foot outside of their homes, they can access this online, as well as have a direct telemedicine conference with our nurse manager.”
For foster and adoptive mothers, COVID-19 presents heightened challenges. Jacqui Jackson is both an adoptive mother herself and the founder of the faith-based organization Ignite Hope. This Atlanta-based ministry works with churches, families and communities across the United States to pray for orphans and educate families through fostering and adoption. Jackson noted in a recent conversation with me that, for many of the foster and adoptive families her ministry supports, there are distinct challenges that come with trying to parent a child with trauma during COVID-19. Jackson noted: “Foster children with different social supports, like group counseling, youth group and occupational therapy, cannot get these supports in person anymore and foster parents have to try to facilitate them at home.” Jackson also noted how she herself was facing challenges mothering children with diverse needs during this pandemic: “Our little family is a microcosm of what is happening across our society and institutions during COVID-19,” she said. “Surprising moments of hope, redemption and innovation are commingled with intractable loss and suffering.”
Motherhood and Sacred-Public Partnerships During Public Health Crises
As these examples of sacred sector institutions supporting motherhood during COVID-19 illustrate, varied and nuanced approaches are necessary. Public justice offers a framework for how government and faith-based organizations can fulfill their distinct roles in supporting the vocation of motherhood. Public justice often calls us to seek innovative, both/and solutions where different institutions in society can form partnerships to promote human flourishing. Faith-based organizations often can – and do – partner with the government in the provision of a wide variety of social services that support families. We refer to these collaborations as sacred-public partnerships.
One example of a sacred-public partnership that supports motherhood occurs in the popular BBC series “Call the Midwife”. This series follows the daily trials and triumphs of a group of nurse midwives employed by the National Health Service who live and work with the nuns of Nonnatus House, who are also trained midwives. Nuns and government employees work side-by-side to serve the medical, physical, financial and spiritual needs of community members in an under-resourced neighborhood of Poplar in London.
“Call the Midwife” presents an imperfect, yet redemptive vision of healthcare in mid-twentieth century Britain. During this time, systemic social issues related to race, class and gender, and even infectious disease, had sometimes devastating impacts on vulnerable families. And yet, “Call the Midwife” presents a hopeful vision of human-centered care where the government and a faith-based midwifery order of nuns work together to serve the complex needs of their diverse community. Although the series does not feature a direct corollary of a global pandemic such as COVID-19, “Call the Midwife does take up the topic of how infectious diseases disproportionately impact socio economically vulnerable families.
The themes of “Call the Midwife” constantly interweave the spiritual with the earthly realities we face, and demonstrate that individuals and communities are better for it. This message of the comingling of the sacrosanct with bodily suffering is particularly poignant during COVID-19. It is natural that the sacred and the mundane coexist, that we learn something about the mystery of God through the creaturely limitations and trials we face in our bodies. Sacred sector organizations that support mothers across the lifecycle of parenting - from pregnancy through all stages of child development - provide vital spiritual and material help. During COVID-19, these organizations have necessarily taken on different norms. However, they still remain essential in empowering mothers from all walks of life to live out their sacred callings and advance family flourishing.
Chelsea Langston Bombino is the director of Sacred Sector, an initiative of the Center for Public Justice. Sacred Sector is a learning community for faith-based organizations and emerging leaders within the faith-based nonprofit sector to integrate and fully embody their sacred missions in every area of organizational life. Chelsea is also a wife to Joshua and a mother to Samuel and Benjamin.
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