ABSTRACT
This chapter explores critical incidents involving three Ph.D. graduate students, all mothers of young children, in a higher education program. Each scholar-mother shares her perspective on failed diversity moments that occurred since starting the program. These collective moments take shape through interpersonal interactions with faculty, administrators, and peers; moreover, they are complicated by racialized notions of motherhood as well as the nature of the competing roles of graduate student and mother. Centering these narratives in the literatures on role conflict, work-life balance, and mothering in academia, the authors offer a new term to describe the interpersonal interactions that marginalize mothers: maternal microaggressions. The maternal microaggressions described in this chapter represent a spectrum of social identities represented in the literature that play out within a socio-ecological structure (i.e., interactions between scholar-mothers and their environments). These microaggressions can be conscious or unconscious and include microinsults, microinvalidations, and microassaults. The chapter includes reflections on lessons learned from these problematic encounters. Each scholar-mother and a faculty member in the same higher education program share their perspectives concerning the role of faculty and administrators in supporting mothers enrolled in graduate studies.
