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Anne-Laure Mahul-Mellier is a senior neurobiologist working in the Laboratory of Molecular Neurobiology and Neuroproteomics at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne.
The flood of e-mails began on Sunday 15 March. All schools in Switzerland had been closed because of the coronavirus pandemic, and teachers were sending instructions about what they expected me to teach my sons, aged eight and nine, in the coming weeks. The next set of e-mails provided a list of homework assignments, which had to be printed, taught, corrected, scanned and returned to the teachers by the end of the week. The same evening, I received WhatsApp notifications about four new parent–teacher groups. At the same time, my university, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL), had been closed to all but essential staff, so I would have to work from home. Suddenly, I had become a full-time mum, teacher and research scientist. My husband, who also takes care of the kids under normal circumstances, is part of a team that manages a hospital, and so is unable to work from home.
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doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-020-01296-7
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