7: Discussion of Findings (I): Student Teacher Mothers’ Experiences Pre-COVID-19

This is the first of two chapters in which we discuss the findings of the study. In this chapter, we return to our research questions and discuss the findings relating to the 20 student teacher mothers’ (STMs’) experiences pre-COVID-19 (see Chapters 3 and 5; Appendix 1, Tables AI–AIII).

Our research questions were:

We consider below the main challenges participants faced before COVID-19 and the key factors they identified as sustaining them through the challenges.

The major challenges the women identified before COVID-19 are presented here under the following headings:

Resonating with the findings reported in other studies (see, for example, Marandet & Wainwright, 2010; Murtagh, 2017; Smith, 2019; Woodhouse & Guihen, 2022), our pre-COVID-19 data (Chapters 3 and 5; Appendix 1, Tables AI–AIII) indicate that time and workload pressures presented the greatest challenges for STMs, before the pandemic restrictions. The 20 women were overladen, juggling a relentless, multiple workload. It was only ever possible to prioritise one facet of their workload at a time and never possible to do everything. Nonetheless, they tried hard to attend to everything.