Despite the change over time in academia's gender profile, educationalists Bradley and Oldham (2020) challenge what they perceive to be the perpetuation of "gendered norms of productivity and the mythical notion of work-life balance". Bradley and Oldham (2020) argue that these concepts "endlessly complicate the conceptualisation and operationalisation of the female academic's success" and take the position that "[w]omen cannot give in to this concept of two separate worlds, which splinters the self". They propose a reflective practice that prompts female academics to "claim our entire personhood, professional and parent if we are to seek freedom from feeling 'torn' between these spheres".

As a mother, and in response to my sense of feeling 'splintered' and 'torn' between parental, personal and institutional measures of success, I created a series of artefacts that recognise my personhood as a professional and a parent, consciously trying to repair the divide between these two spheres of my identity. This work was displayed in 2022 as part of a group exhibition at the University of Johannesburg FADA Gallery. I created three densely designed aprons and a tablecloth imprinted with text and imagery extracted from to-do lists in notebooks  – from 2019 to 2022  – and drawings by myself and my young daughter. The lists were a reflective record of pre-pandemic, pandemic, and post-pandemic times and proved poignant and sobering. In addition to the realities of parenting from home, they encapsulated exhausting 'invisible' professional responsibilities, such as supporting first-generation university students, departmental housekeeping, community engagement, extensive teaching hours within an under-staffed department and some dogged attempts to find focused time to engage in research. The printed artefacts were displayed in conjunction with 3D 'creative outputs' constructed with my daughter. Viewed as a whole, the installation evoked the struggles experienced by academic mothers worldwide when two separate identities, academic and parent, were unexpectedly forced to fill the same space during the COVID-19 pandemic.

As an extension and explication of the gallery installation, this paper explores the challenges of female academics who are also mothers and who argue for a more empathetic perspective on the impact of hybrid teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic. I reflect on my creative output and my personal experience as a dedicated mother, academic, teacher, and partner of a medical practitioner who is a frontline worker. Whereas recent international studies primarily focus on the roles and expectations of female academics during the COVID-19 pandemic, my contribution sets out to engage with this conversation specifically from a South African design lecturer's point of view within the incredibly harsh South African lockdown. It provides insights from my creative work concerning greater inclusivity and support within academia.