by Sarah McCall ’26 on April 16, 2026
News
On Monday, April 13, the Civics Collective Initiative hosted a Mother and Motherhood in the 21st Century workshop co-sponsored by the Providentia Society, School of Nursing and Health Sciences, School of Arts and Sciences, the history and classics department, and the women’s and gender studies department. This event was moderated by Dr. Amy Delaney, an assistant professor in the School of Nursing and Health Sciences, and the panelists included Providence College faculty member Dr. Rhiannon Miller of the sociology department and two PC Alumnae, Emerald Ortiz ’14 and Judge Mary McElroy ’87.
Dr. Miller is a member of the PC sociology department. She studies inequality, family demography, gender, and educationally hypogamous relationships. She is the mother of two boys, aged six and four. Judge McElroy graduated from PC as a history major and received her Juris Doctorate from Suffolk University. She began her career as a law clerk and later became the first female public defender in Rhode Island. In 2019, Dr. Miller was appointed to the federal bench. She has two children, aged 26 and 20. Ortiz graduated from PC in 2014 while working as an employee in the political science department. She is a full-spectrum doula who is the owner of Sacred Womanhood Birth Support Services, which supports women in all aspects of pregnancy, including during birth, before birth, postpartum, infant loss, and miscarriage. Ortiz has two biological children and one adopted child.
The workshop began with each panelist giving a short presentation on both their personal experiences with motherhood and the work or research they do in helping mothers and family relationships. After each panelist spoke, the attendees moved to small groups and developed a care web, which assisted in a visualization of the care people receive and give. The prompts for this web included: “Who cares for you? (People, institutions, moments—not just mothers),” “Who do you care for? (Emotionally, practically, quietly)”, “Where has care been missing or fragile?” and, “What kind of care do you wish existed?” Attendees were given markers, crayons, and paper to create their maps and encourage conversation amongst table members, and eventually the larger group. After the exercise, the panelists answered questions from attendees. These questions ranged from expectations for the future to thoughts and opinions on parenting social media trends. The workshop ended with a word web made of words and phrases sent in by attendees to describe motherhood. The most common terms included sacrifice, love, and showing up. Other words used were resilience, complex, strength, commitment, and self-defined.
Each panelist used their expertise to analyze the current role of mothers and how motherhood is perceived by the general society. Dr. Miller defined different sociological terms during her presentation, including domestic labor and the lesser-known cognitive labor. She defined cognitive labor as “any non-physical domestic work such as anticipating needs, monitoring progress, and making decisions.” Additionally, she analyzed the term intensive mothering, which she says is the foundation of the expectations we currently hold for mothers. Intensive mothering is “an ideology that holds the individual mother primarily responsible for child rearing and dictates that the process is to be child-centered, expert-guided, emotionally absorbing, labor-intensive, and financially expensive.” Dr. Miller’s presentation and the focus on terminology provided the necessary background for later discussion amongst panelists and attendees. Other terms she mentioned included high investment parenting, individualism, and the second shift.
Ortiz used her presentation to reflect on what she has learned as a mother, business owner, and doula. She defined her experience and motherhood as a winding path with struggles and sleepless nights, but emphasized the importance of building community and showing up. As a young mother, she did not have a strong community, so she is intentional in building community through her work as a doula. She has not only created a community for mothers and families in Rhode Island, but also for herself and her own family.
McElroy primarily provided insight into her personal experiences as a mother and public defender. During the question and answer period, McElroy shared a personal anecdote of her first child’s birth. This birth occurred 10 weeks early, and she went into labor while at work. For McElroy, work involved constant standing, traveling to prisons, and appearing in court. When she went into labor, people around her raised concerns that the baby was born early due to personal stress. In response, McElroy said, “Work is normal and it is my baseline. The stress is nothing out of the ordinary.” McElroy felt that, as a mother and woman, she was viewed as though she couldn’t handle certain fields of work. Therefore, as she grew in her career, she knew she needed to create a workplace that encouraged parental leave. Now, she has set those who work for her up for success and does not put unrealistic expectations on them.
The workshop ended with a discussion about the future. During this discussion, McElroy said, “We forgot to tell women, you don’t have to do everything. We forgot to tell men that if they want a wife who works they have more responsibilities.” This was followed by a connection to Anne-Marie Slaughter, a former member of the Obama Administration who left her job to provide support for her child. In 2012, Slaughter published an article titled, “Why Women Still Can’t Have It All,” which received plenty of backlash from feminists at the time. However, the three panelists pointed to this in relation to McElroy’s observation about the future. Through further discourse, they determined that “mothers and parents are able to have it all, but not at the same time.” The panel ended with the determination that in marriage, partnership, and child rearing, a balance needs to be maintained. That may involve sacrifice and concerted efforts to adapt, but it is absolutely vital because, as Dr. Miller said, “caregiving needs to happen. Full stop.”