It’s no secret that the pandemic has taken its toll on mothers, as for many of us our lives have shifted in new ways to make room for caring/teaching/coping with our children at home all the time. I’m sharing some interviews with other professional women I’ve photographed to inspire, uplift anyone who might need it, and validate the struggle it can be to wear so many hats.

“I have never felt so depleted as I felt this past January/February of 2021. I had nothing left in the tank. I was squishing myself out for everyone else. I spread myself way too thin. I had a Come to Jesus moment and realized (again) that I care for others before I care for myself. I was feeling a soul level tired. It changed the way I move, and that means that I put myself back on the map.”

— Whitney Mendel

Meet Whitney Mendel: an Associate Professor in the Master of Public Health program at Daemen College. A social worker by trade and a facilitator of learning for over a decade, Whitney works alongside a number of community organizations across WNY to work toward health equity. Whitney has helped to facilitate conversations, training, and support across a number of systems of care, acknowledging the impact across the life-course of trauma on the health and well-being of individuals and communities and the capacity for healing.

What happened in your life starting in March 2020?

My full time job is as Associate Professor of Public Health at Daemen College, and I’m a birth doula. From 2017- April 2021, I was also a consultant around trauma informed care for front-line workers, working with people in Buffalo.

I have twins that are 18 years old, Mia and Owen. They graduated high school and went off to their freshman year of college in Pittsburgh during the pandemic, at different schools. The start of the lockdown was so wild. We were on top of a mountain in California when my daughter called to say that things were being shut down. As soon as we got home, it felt like a big collision, and the kids were told that they were shutting down school for two weeks. It was their senior year, and we thought it was only going to be a matter of weeks. So at first, the shutdown felt like a lovely reprieve. Then we soon became aware that this was the way we would live.

Mia immediately began to mourn the loss of senior year: field hockey, prom: rights of passage. My son was relieved because he didn’t want to have to do any of those things. My husband was furloughed and I was working fully remote, which was a complete and utter whirlwind.

There was little communication from school about graduation, which was frustrating for the kids. Towards the end they had a virtual graduation and had students come in ten at a time, masked, six feet apart, and walked across the stage with two people in the audience watching. It was silent in there. The school spliced the videos all together, then they did small ceremonies outside on the football field, about a month after they received their diplomas. Prom was entirely canceled. We did lots of drive-by parties, balloons on the lawn. It all felt pretty makeshift and out of place.

Summer was better, getting together with friends masked and distanced, being as careful as we could, waiting to hear what colleges would do. The threat of being fully remote was weighing on everybody, and the pandemic made it harder for Mia to leave home. She felt less safe on top of a regular big life transition. Campuses opened up but they had to quarantine in their dorm rooms. This is a time when eighteen year olds should be touching and exploring new people, and it was very bizarre. Though many of their classes were online, they were largely stuck hanging out with their roommates the whole time. There were no communal spaces. But kids abandoned the rules, they are eighteen! My son found his first girlfriend within a week! It was a lot of fear for me, worrying about the kids getting sick and being away from home, as Covid rates got higher throughout the fall.

For me as a parent, this is my second marriage, I am good friends with my ex husband, and all of us along with his wife were holding our breath and knew they wouldn’t follow the rules. Letting go of the kids and letting go of control of their actions was strange and really hard. My biggest fear was them getting sick and me not being able to be there.

The hardest thing we went through was that my daughter scream cried most of her first semester. She and change haven’t gotten along too well, historically. She was connecting with people, but calling 7-8 times a day begging to come home. It was a weird position to be in because I was firm about her staying, since I had encouraged her to go off to school. I was worried she would come home and then she would never leave. It was a mind fuck trying to do what was best for her while fearing for her. But she would hang up and then go make new friends. I was the last person standing, nearly everyone told me to let her come home. She went to see her brother and they had lunch, and after realizing he was ok, she settled in and became the most popular girl on her floor, and in a sorority! It was hardest to hold her in place while I was scared for her because of the pandemic, not because of the college transition.

Everyone stayed healthy, though my grandfather passed and we couldn’t see him in California. I was the last family member to see him before he died on our trip out to California. Us not being able to celebrate him is sad. He would have loved gin and tonics in his honor.

Now the kids are all vaccinated and we turned a massive corner. Life is creeping onwards to normal, though everyone is changed.

How has your life/practice/work changed?

It’s hard for me to tease apart what changed me: launching my only children into the world, my mothering role with my students, or leaning in really hard to support frontline workers, hospitals, lawyers, and teachers virtually. I helped them process the trauma they were dealing with personally and professionally, and helped lawyers dealing with clients facing domestic violence and housing issues. Plus dealing with the social/political nightmare in our country, I have never felt so depleted as I felt this past January/February of 2021. I had nothing left in the tank. I was squishing myself out for everyone else. I spread myself way too thin. I had a Come to Jesus moment and realized (again) that I care for others before I care for myself. I was feeling a soul level tired. It changed the way I move, and that means that I put myself back on the map. I quit a lot of the support work after a year because I couldn’t sustain it. And I slowed down in general, trying to find time to take walks and fill up.

I am a social worker by training and I tend to be the one behind the scenes, caring for the ones who are doing the caring. Being front row, there wasn’t time to stop. To watch people reach levels of burn out, compassion fatigue, and the amount of grief from the loss of loved ones, they are the ones there with the patients when they die because the family can't be there. I was also burning out and unable to feel; it was survival. I kind of knew that it was happening, I was connected with my therapist the entire time. When I couldn’t reach my own feelings, I realized I couldn’t afford it emotionally. My body laughed at me, and I was flooded with all I was holding onto.

As a doula, I had two clients due late March/early April. In the thick of everything, doulas were kicked out of the hospital so I did virtual support. One mom needed physical help because one twin was in the NICU. I stayed with the mom for two days after her c-section, while her husband was at the NICU. This family was a big exposure risk for me because they had been in the hospital. I left when the baby came home from the NICU. It was an incredible experience to be helpful to somebody, but it was scary. Do we do masks or no masks when we are up at 2am? Do I get tested? How do I manage these things? A recent doula client delivered and I could be in the hospital for 22 hours. About 6 months into the pandemic doulas could come in and be part of the care team. A big bonus that came out of the pandemic is that doulas are valued as part of the care team, not just as a support person.

Looking back on the past year, can you share a few highlights of:

Silver linings of the pandemic:

Right when things first locked down, it was wonderful how much time we had together, especially with 17 year old twins. Those poor bastards had to stay home with us! I was the only one working. My kids started cooking for us every once in a while, we played board games, we watched tv. We wouldn’t have seen each other so much. That was a huge gift. And my husband had time to do interesting things after being furloughed.
I experienced more communication across my extended family, too. We would zoom once a week with my brother, instead of being too busy to talk. Getting my mom set up on zoom was comical.
Another silver lining was hearing people’s/societal acceptance of anxiety and depression that were much more closeted before. Hearing doctors admit to psychological trauma makes it a much more accepted issue, and that is tremendous.
Appreciation for being in nature, the healing qualities of being outdoors, and now the healing qualities to hug friends NOW. Appreciation for what our relationships mean to us.

The challenging/horrible moments that you overcame:

The only other things that run parallel to this are the other pandemic, our society facing systemic racism more openly again, and the election. It wasn’t a personal struggle, it was a collective struggle. I was terrified of the election and I cried like a baby during the inauguration. It is a collective trauma. The amount of violence and loss is astounding to me. Because we were extra vulnerable due to the Covid pandemic, it sat us down to witness the losses of folks like Breonna Taylor and George Floyd in a different way, grappling with our systems. It was at points overwhelmingly hard to get up. And as a parent, wondering what we are launching our kids into. My kids got to vote in this election for the first time. Buoyed by generations coming up, I am excited to see where they take it and see my son date someone out of his race. She thanked me for raising him to tolerate feminist rants. There is hope, but we will still have to go through horrible things to make real change.

How has your community changed over the past year?

This has multiple layers. At my full time job in higher ed, we are there for the students, so I have a wonderful community within Daemen. We created Happiness Hours, which are drop in hours with each other. This brought us closer together even though we were only on Zoom. We look after each other in deeper ways than we have before.

My students had a fractured experience because they were not connecting with their peers in person. The ability to support each other amongst students was lacking, so I became a touch point. Mama Mendel, some have lovingly called me.

The community helping people do front line supports became damaged. Everyone was depleted, the leadership kept asking for more, and it illuminated where there are holes in care systems.

What do you do to fill your cup/keep yourself sane?

I podcasted and walked for hours during the pandemic, and when the weather permits, kayaking and being outdoors. Regular therapy every other week. Disconnecting from the damn phone and the news. Being conscious of how much I took in of the news. It was a barrage. Intentionally connecting with my husband and people who are filling, who I can be with and be myself. I’m happiest when I am with the kids.

If you could go back to last March, what would your present-day self offer as advice?

I would tell myself to be prepared for the long haul, that this is a new way of how we do things. Saying no far more often, which I need to tell myself far more often anyway. I was already a caregiver and it was assumed that I would do more. Hearing someone else’s trauma in my own home/sanctuary was really hard to move through. I wish I had been more intentional/thoughtful to create a ritual to open/close the space of my office. There is no physical closing of the door. I was able to acknowledge this for others I was supporting but not for myself. All of it helped me to realize how much I had done to curate a safe space in our home, a safe emotional space.

Keep yourself on the priority list.

Pandemic/Parenthood Interview: Whitney Mendel

Expanding Visions Exhibition at Silver Eye in Pittsburgh

Pandemic/Parenthood Interview: Natasha Dalley