“an Ideal Mother Is One Who Can Provide Some Kind of Future for Her Child”: The (im)Possibility of Mothering within War and Displacement

Background

While social work has increased evidence about human impacts of political violence, international social workers are still building our research base about the gendered impacts of war and displacement. In the research presented here, we used in-depth interviews with displaced Ukrainian mothers between 2024-2026 to examine their experiences of mothering before the war, during the war, throughout flight and within resettlement.

Methods

Data come from semi-structured interviews conducted between 2024 and 2026 with displaced Ukrainian mothers resettled in North America (N=52; 21 in the United States and 31 in Canada) recruited through community organizations, resettlement agencies, and other networks. Interviews were conducted in Ukrainian, transcribed, translated into English, and uploaded to Dedoose for organization and analysis. The coding scheme was created through immersion with data, using grounded theory practices of constant comparison, to build a conceptual framework centered on understanding women’s internal and external processes of mothering. As we developed codes, we applied them using versus coding (Saldaña, 2025) designed in the schema of before versus after experiences of mothering, with the war as the fulcrum point.

Results

Mothers’ experiences of motherhood prior to the war reflected family unity, maternal confidence and efficacy, largely due to predictability and regularity of life. Prior to the war, findings point to mothers’ felt success in balancing caretaking, including providing ample opportunities and enrichment for their children, with managing their own careers and family lives. Motherhood was a site of success and satisfaction, but was also not all consuming - indeed, they could gain professional recognition while helping their children grow and develop. These experiences dramatically shifted during war. Mothers’ reflections from this long juncture of violence, occupation, flight, and resettlement were characterized by crises in identity, maternal efficacy, and their abilities to balance multiple roles (particularly caretaking and careers). Political violence and displacement created uncertainty, fear, and isolation, where their duties as a caretaker overtook all else; their caretaking took on a new urgency in the midst of also losing professional status, family support, and community integration. Mothers spoke of multiple strategies they undertook to protect children’s well-being, including trying to distract them and help them make meaning of the suffering - but these strategies, and the all encompassing nature of fleeing with children eclipsed their usual coping strategies and self of maternal and self efficacy.

Implications

Our findings about mothers’ internal and external experiences of mothering in crisis point to several areas of need within social work research and practice, which will be discussed in our presentation. Findings also highlight the ways that building strength and capacity among mothers during and after wars and displacement requires programs that regard mothers as whole people; interventions must include comprehensive plans for not only child well-being and caregiver skills, but also economic and professional opportunities and empowerment for women who are mothers. Researchers will describe the implications for shifts in policies and practices at both the macro and mezzo levels, including several advocated for by the research team with our community and organizational partners.