Teaching through the storm: teacher-mothers’ emergency remote teaching across two crises

Emergency remote teaching during crises forces teacher-mothers to navigate unprecedented dissolution of professional-personal boundaries. This sequential multiple-methods study examines teacher-mothers’ experiences across two crisis contexts: the COVID-19 pandemic (N = 8interviews) and wartime (N = 40questionnaires). Drawing on Work-Family Border Theory, we address four research questions concerning role conflict, boundary dissolution, support systems, and cross-context comparisons. Quantitative findings revealed near-ceiling levels of role strain and boundary blurring, yet notably inadequate emotional support. Qualitative data illuminated how pandemic teaching generated logistical struggles, leading to guilt, whereas wartime teaching created existential demands, leading to fear. Most wartime participants had also experienced pandemic teaching, enabling within-participant comparisons. These comparisons revealed that crisis type fundamentally shapes the experience of work-family conflict: pandemic contexts triggered logistical overwhelm, characterised by guilt about inadequate performance, whereas wartime contexts triggered survival mode, characterised by fear for physical safety. These findings extend Work-Family Border Theory by distinguishing between logistical and existential boundary dissolution, demonstrating that teacher well-being initiatives must differentiate between crisis types when designing support interventions. The study offers an internationally applicable framework with implications for crisis preparedness policies.