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After more than 14 months living with COVID-19 restrictions in the UK, the importance of social support has never been clearer, particularly when it comes to raising children. As the physical links between households were cut, maternity and community health services restricted, and early years settings and schools closed, the transmission of SARS-CoV-2 rapidly slowed. However, so did the flow of essential social support to parents.

Evidence points towards of additional childcare and it is already well documented that mothers’ and have suffered in 2020 and 2021. 

As a working mum, by mid-March 2020 I found myself, day-in and day-out, almost completely responsible for two pre-schoolers. No activities, no friends, no play-groups, play-grounds, or play-dates, only a daily walk to find rainbows and teddy bears. My husband, for economic reasons (as is often the rationale for ) could shut the door, put on headphones, and retain his freedom. I, on the other hand, lost my freedom and experienced complete isolation.

As a white, middle-class mum in North London, I was aware that my situation was in many ways privileged. Nonetheless, for me, the importance of social support – something I have studied for years – was really thrown into sharp relief.

Of course, it didn’t have to be this way. It wasn’t until late September 2020 that the UK government . MPs working on the Women and Equalities committee have highlighted that COVID support policies repeatedly failed to consider the .

Arguably, such ‘oversights’ are a product of Western notions of motherhood and the importance of the ‘traditional’ nuclear family as the childrearing unit. The nuclear family (i.e. a couple and their children) however, is , but rather a product of middle-class norms during the . Instead, we evolved to raise our children cooperatively; there is no way women could manage to support many highly demanding, needy, competing (I could go on…) children alone.

Worldwide, childrearing is still widely shared, with mothers and children supported by a . This reality, however, has not filtered into the which predominates social and public health policy directed at women with children.

To start addressing these issues, (from UCL and MPI), (from UCL) and myself have guest edited a special issue of Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B on .

Even before COVID it was women who were more likely to take on care work and domestic task. In fact, worldwide women . With many female lead authors in this special issue – perhaps due to a higher proportion of women researching maternal-child health, or a product of our networks as three female guest editors – we personally felt the impact of COVID-19, and the it posed with the loss of formal care facilities and informal social network.

Our aim for the issue was to highlight the depth of understanding possible from bringing together diverse research from across disciplines, cultural settings and geographies. We showcase work from psychology, demography, nursing, evolutionary anthropology, public health, health services, midwifery and human biology to reflect on the diversity of support for mothers and their children, and its consequences.

Robert Hughes and colleagues highlight the in rapidly urbanising contexts, as research on child development focuses, problematically, on the mother. The focus on the mother as the main caregiver has a long history in the West, as mothers’ responsibility is , as discussed by Kirsty Budds. This may be why we frequently , something I highlight in my own research. 

Other key supporters include , and – something we demonstrate with studies from , , , , and . However, not all support is equal and is complicated by , and .

Collectively, these varied but interwoven perspectives reinforce that optimal maternal and child wellbeing is obtained with support which originates beyond the mother and the beyond the nuclear family. This special issue pre-dated COVID-19, but in the era of lockdowns, loneliness and isolation, social support for mothers and their children has clearly never been more relevant.

The special issue can be found .