This chapter asks, “What is it like to be a public school teacher in a school that doesn't allow for adequate bathroom breaks?” Using van Manen's interpretive phenomenological methodology, the authors analyzed interviews from nine participants to create an empathetic portrayal of teachers who have inadequate bathroom breaks. These experiences were then distilled into a series of insights through the concept of “broodmothering.” These broodmothers deny their own physical and mental needs in the interest of supervising children, and show a profession burdened by increasing parentification and dehumanization of teachers. After connecting this phenomenon to larger issues in the profession, the authors also posited potential solutions for educational decision makers to provide an environment that helps these “broodmothers” leave their proverbial nests.
TopIntroduction
The “teacher bathroom dilemma” refers to the idea that teachers do not have adequate bathroom breaks (Coker, 2022, p. 5). As Bridget described in the above quote, teachers are simultaneously burdened by the sheer number of things they must do, while also feeling they cannot leave the classroom for even a moment out of fear of what will happen while their backs are turned. Teachers in schools where class sizes are larger, such as Title 1 schools, feel there is even greater danger to stepping away for a moment, even if it is to meet the basic biological need of going to the bathroom.
Bridget’s situation is far from unique. A national survey in 2015 found almost half of all teachers in America reported not having adequate bathroom breaks (American Federation of Teachers, 2015). Despite the ubiquity of this issue, there have only been only a handful of studies on this topic (Coker, 2022; Kovač et al., 2013; Kovess-Masféty et al., 2006; Liao et al., 2006; Nygaard & Linder, 1997).
The first scholarly mention of inadequate teacher bathroom breaks occurred in Apple’s (1988)Teachers and Texts: A Political Economy of Class and Gender Relations in Education:
Intensification represents one of the most tangible ways in which the work privileges of educational workers are eroded. It has many symptoms from the trivial to the more complex ranging from no time at all to even go to the bathroom, have a copy of coffee or relax, to having a total absence of time to keep up with one’s field (p. 188).
While brief, it was the first time someone had described this aspect of a teacher's work experience. Almost a decade later, Nygaard & Linder (1997) completed the first empirical study on teacher bathroom habits by surveying almost 800 female teachers in two large midwestern school districts. More than 84% reported inadequate bathroom breaks were a problem, and almost half reported that they intentionally dehydrated to reduce their bathroom usage. Since then, other studies have continued to show that teachers suffer from higher rates of lower urinary tract symptoms, including a survey of French teachers (Kovess-Masféty et al., 2006), Taiwanese elementary school teachers (Liao et al., 2008), and Slovenian physical education teachers (Kovač et al., 2013). One mixed methods study interviewed a British science teacher who left the profession due to these inadequate bathroom breaks (Evans, 2007). The most recent study on this topic surveyed over 800 US teachers and found that teachers with inadequate bathroom access risked renal and cardiovascular health (Winchester, et al., 2023). This topic has been explored qualitatively with only one study (Coker, 2022), and to date there have been no studies that use phenomenology to explore the experiences of teachers with inadequate bathroom breaks.
Our interpretive phenomenological study of this issue has shown the teacher bathroom dilemma parentifies and dehumanizes teachers by changing them into something else, a phenomenon we call “broodmothering.” While the circumstances of their occupation provide fertile ground for the production of broodmothers, the teachers themselves must first engage in an active process of prioritizing students' needs above their own, strategizing for bathroom breaks, changing their clothing choices, and dehydrating before their transformation into a broodmother can be complete. We contend that any teacher, regardless of their gender identity, can transform into a broodmother, as the phenomenon involves the changing of habits by teachers in a particular occupational context. This chapter explains how teachers change into broodmothers and how this transformation impacts various aspects of their lives, including their relationships with students.