failures in containment and RF
11 mothers were interviewed about their difficulties in their experiences of mothering and occasions on which they felt overwhelmed with their infants’ and their own emotions. Mothers were all South African, of middle socio-economic status and had one or more children aged between 0-5 years. 9 mothers were white of mixed cultural and religious backgrounds and 2 mothers were Indian. Mothers were aged between 35 and 45. Most mothers had full time careers, save for 2 who were stay at home mothers and also home schooled their children. The mothers had a variety of forms of assistance from nannies and grandparents. One or all of these resources were not accessible to these mothers during the lockdown. All mothers were heterosexual and most were married with husbands who were employed full time.
The interviews with participants were open ended and conducted using Cartwright’s (2004) psychodynamic interview technique. Cartwright’s (2004) method calls for multiple interviews to be conducted with the same participant, each using an open ended style that allows the participant to lead the interview with whatever comes up for them. The researcher uses subsequent interviews to clarify information and collect reflections from the previous interviews. He emphasizes the documenting of the researcher’s transference and counter-transferential reactions both before, during and after the interviews.
The study was advertised on social media and mothers volunteered to be interviewed. During the data collection phase, in the face of an expanding outbreak of SARS-CoV-2 in 2019, President Cyril Ramaphosa announced a 21 day lockdown in South Africa, starting on 27 March, with considerable restrictions on human movement. Individuals were not allowed to leave their homes except to buy essential items, only shops selling essential goods remained open and essential workers were allowed to go into work. Schools were closed. The National Defence Force was deployed (COVID-19 Timeline 2019-2020, 2020). Due to this, all interviews were conducted online over Zoom. There were 2 sets of interviews for each mother. The first interview took place during the Level 5 lockdown in South Africa, the most severe lockdown. During this time the participants were working from home, did not have access to their usual supports and resources, such as grandparents, nannies, schools and creches. The second interviews took place a few weeks later under Level 4 lockdown in South Africa when some restrictions had been lifted. Schools were not yet open and many parents were still working from home yet services had been resumed in a limited manner.
Ethical clearance to conduct the interviews was granted by the Human Research Ethics Committee of the University of the Witwatersrand.
