Maternal homeschooling after abandonment and violence: understanding pedagogical experiences in Peru’s soup kitchens

We examined the critical stance adopted by 25 Peruvian mothers involved in a community meal programme serving individuals in extreme poverty, analysing their educational role within the household in the absence of paternal support before, during, and after the pandemic. This qualitative study focused on an atypical case in order to characterise the participants according to diverse social traits, including family abandonment, spousal abuse, the scarcity of resources associated with a low socioeconomic status, and the lack of formal employment. This involved engaging with community meal programmes across six districts of the city of Lima, where the participating women were encouraged to watch videos on the role of women over the course of a month of fieldwork. The retrospective analytical methodology employed focus group techniques, interviews with the participants, and an examination of the children’s academic performance as a measure of convergent analysis [2019–2023]. The critical dialogue among the mothers generated findings in which thematic codes emerged that were associated with categories such as personal experiences, decisive experiences, and experiences linked to continuity in schooling. From the mothers’ perspective, the evidence enabled an interpretation of maternal education as a form of practical, experience-based instruction within the home, independent of paternal input and grounded in activities related to emotional and behavioural regulation, the application of basic pedagogical practices, and the provision of care to mitigate the spread of certain illnesses. These family conditions facilitated the mothers’ ability to ensure the continuity of their children’s education and to respond assertively to the temporary changes brought about by the pandemic in both economic and health-related domains.

1 Introduction

The Soup Kitchen (SK) is a neighborhood participation organization dedicated to developing social support activities focused on feeding people with low socioeconomic status, attending to their biological growth (Alarcón Castillo, 2020; Aliano et al., 2022; Sarmiento Viena, 2017). This organization is run by and for the residents of the area, and in many cases, they do not have the support of any public institution, despite being integrated into government institutions without legal agreements for social support (Cuadra Lazarte et al., 2021). The literature reports that other organizations around the world also have similar functions thanks to community support (Cerón Vargas et al., 2023), and many are questionable in the international literature due to food insecurity and the state of donations (Buisman et al., 2019; Odoms-Young et al., 2023; Wicks et al., 2006).

The Peruvian Ministry of Development and Social Inclusion (Midis, in Spanish),¹ the municipalities of each district, and other private non-profit investment organizations are attempting to contribute to their sustainability. One of these, the Non-Governmental Development Organization, regulates SKs through the Peruvian Agency for International Cooperation (APCI), with the support of the Government through the Open Data Platform [Agencia Peruana de Cooperación Internacional [APCI], 2023].

SKs in Latin American and Peruvian society have been shown to have positive effects on the development of communities without government recognition (Alarcón Castillo, 2020; Aliano et al., 2022; Sarmiento Viena, 2017). However, this is a social lie, as some SKs are abandoned under the protection of the community. Therefore, this study focuses on their functional administrative axis from a social perspective, as many are trapped by systems of government corruption and political factions (Cárdenas/La República., 2021; Contraloría General de La República, 2013; Ombudsman’s Office, 2021; Loyola / Perú 21, 2020). The highest incidence is experienced in low socioeconomic contexts, which is why the perspective of mothers who work or run SKs is used, since this organization is a means of including women. SKs have been able to function thanks to their strong and sustainable hierarchical structures, which ensure adequate nutrition in poor communities (Cáceres-Rodríguez et al., 2022; Sarmiento Viena, 2017). The lack of attention from the state and the inefficient development of social protection policies have led citizens to face other emerging dangers, such as mafias that cause “urban terrorism” (gang robberies, extortion, open kidnapping, killings for robbery) (Chávez Yacila and Garro, 2023; Federación de Periodistas del Perú, 2020; El Comercio, 2023; Instituto Nacional de Estadística e Informática [INEI], 2017; Instituto Nacional de Estadística e Informática del Perú [INEI], 2020b; Instituto Nacional de Estadística e Informática del Perú [INEI], 2020a).

Journalistic evidence from Peru describes how the mafia has invaded schools in a criminal manner, directing its aggressive efforts toward members of these institutions through demands for illicit money. The most common method is the collection of quotas, and when these are refused, they have resorted to using explosive devices to intimidate these individuals (CNN Español., 2023; El Comercio, 2023; Unidad de Gestión Educativa de Ferreñafe, 2023). Considering these events, we examine the education developed by mothers in households surrounded by these social problems. Therefore, we ask ourselves: could the participation of mothers and their strategies applied through maternal homeschooling of their children generate some kind of education before, during, and after the pandemic?

1.1 Background

1.1.1 Education on pandemics and their consequences

Global education has adapted to a distance learning model since 2020. Parents carried out compulsory education or tutoring at home as a response to the inefficient Regular Basic Education, determining some types of conservative types of religious education in emerging Peruvian societies (Holguin-Alvarez et al., 2020) and parental attention has become a means of teaching. Progressive types of education have stood out here because they are more involved with the most economically and socially disadvantaged groups (Holguin-Alvarez et al., 2022). The pandemic has meant that, in the Peruvian context, since the first 15 days of March 2020, the number of people infected with SARS-CoV-2 was negligible compared to the beginning of 2021, with more than one million infected and more than 30,000 people dying by the middle of that year. This affected the education sector, with a Supreme Decree establishing mandatory social isolation and social immobilization measures (D.S. No. 046-2020-PCM, Gobierno Nacional del Perú, 2020a). However, two proposals were established for the education system (D.S. No. 1465, Peruvian National Government, 2020).

A proposal focused on home education from the public sector has been developed until mid-2021 under the establishment of the “Aprendo en Casa” programe (I Learn at Home), proposed by the Ministry of Education and broadcast on television channels, radio stations and the Internet, and the use of other educational platforms. The advantages for family education are many, including bringing parents closer to their children on a cognitive, emotional and attitudinal level. On the other hand, parents’ economic constraints hampered this scenario. Another proposal began with some failure, as the digital tablets stipulated in the supreme decree were not delivered, increasing further shortcomings: (a) deficiencies in digital skills, (b) unstable connectivity, (c) technical insufficiency to provide feedback and supervise sports activities.

Instituto Nacional de Estadística e Informática [INEI] (2019) indicated that more than 90% of schools in Peru had some form of technology for teaching since 2019, but more than 30% of teachers had connectivity problems. These problems were compounded by other social, biological and personal issues, among which violence against women, who are also mothers, is the most pressing national emergency. By that year, there had been more than 50,000 cases of psychological and physical violence, more than 90% of which were against women (Ministerio de la Mujer y Poblaciones Vulnerables, 2019). In addition, perceptions of safety have been another problem, growing between 2020 and 2021. In this regard, 85% of all Peruvians perceived total insecurity since 2020 (Instituto Nacional de Estadística e Informática del Perú [INEI], 2020a,b). This situation occurs in neighborhoods, districts and vulnerable contexts.

Prevalence is higher in cases of domestic violence and economic and family abandonment, which are causes of severe depressive symptoms in mothers or children due to a lack of support and socio-emotional self-regulation (Liu et al., 2017). This research considers these factors, in particular, as factors commonly rooted in SK, since many mothers who have suffered family abandonment or a history of domestic violence work there, with a lower quality of life, whose impact on the mental health of minors is caused by parental abandonment in single-parent households (Dwyer, 2022; Ornteño-Apaza, 2013; Sánchez, 2016; Vargas Murga, 2017). Therefore, it is important to focus on the experiences of mothers who participate in SKs, considering them as places of social development.

Home schooling has provided mothers with socializing experiences, which help their children to make decisions, organize themselves, reflect on coexistence, and experience new forms of personalized learning (De Carvalho and Skipper, 2018; Gater, 2021). The literature reports on experiences of continuity as those that arise in homes where the mother is not taken into account, but which forge her self-educational fulfillment, improve her quality of life, and enhance her children’s cognitive development through cognitive social interaction experiences (Alrajhi and Dimitriou, 2023; Casey et al., 2020). In this sense, the economy of the communities in which mothers with a certain marital status reside is insufficient to determine the social and educational poverty they demonstrate in the face of different eventualities in their lives. The mental capacity they have developed to deal with negative social events in a visionary way allows them to take a greater interest in the educational upbringing of their children at home.

1.1.2 Homeschooling: conceptual perspectives

European and Asian proposals associate the concept of homeschooling with education at home. The concept has been progressively modified in research that considered families as potential educational entities for students in the face of various social and economic factors, including the rejection of the educational ideology of some countries in the face of the liberal or conservative position of the families themselves (Gaither, 2009; Giusto et al., 2021; Green-Hennessy, 2014; Hill, 2022; Neuman and Guterman, 2020; Neuman, 2018; Tan, 2019; Vieux, 2014). In response to this rejection, the term has gradually been introduced into the formal education system to establish an idealistic and socializing educational option for human beings. In Latin America, the concept of homeschooling is more practical, proposing to solve educational failures, although structural deficiencies in the family prevent entirely coherent solutions from being found (Díaz and Saldarriaga, 2023; Hernández-Vásquez et al., 2023; Juárez-Chávez et al., 2023), some of which converge in family abandonment, parental neglect, and economic hardship. This occurs with greater influence in the country’s vulnerable contexts, inversely diverging from the results of other countries (Bürümlü-Kisa et al., 2023; Cueto and Chinen, 2008; Leyva and Smith, 2016; Omoeva et al., 2021).

Early childhood education and care provided by mothers at home (ECMH) is conceived as the use of educational care strategies by the mother, which are applied intentionally, whether planned or unplanned (Bergman et al., 2024; Kim and Yim, 2024), including daily cognitive and behavioral regulation practices (Zhang et al., 2024), with affective relationships compromising its functionality as social and participatory mediation for development (Bergman et al., 2024). In the absence of strengthening education to overcome its technocratic and organizational failures, ECMH emerges in contrast to the preservation of parenting and compulsory filiation (Holguin-Alvarez et al., 2020; Holguin-Alvarez et al., 2022; Kerry and Murray, 2018; Macfarlane, 2022; Purnama et al., 2022), if anything, toward the preservation of a matrifocal family structure (Dinh and Gangestad, 2023; Smith, 2001; Djurfeldt et al., 2018; Sacramento et al., 2014). However, this has not led to socially coherent education; rather, family structures have emerged that necessarily guide the acceptance of a certain educational and life path for children. In general, homeschooling is the formative and mediating action of school system activities to achieve a replica in the home. This concept includes inclusivity, educational strengthening, and character development (Neuman and Guterman, 2020; Neuman and Guterman, 2017). However, Neuman (2018) considers it an opportunity found in the family to overcome the weaknesses of the curriculum, as homeschooling allows social and cultural knowledge to be adapted to particular contexts.

Tan (2019) views it as an instructional strategy used by parents to implement family policies for individual educational goals. In this sense, homeschooling proposes the systematic support of the resources, strategies, and methods of traditional school pedagogy in its organizational sense (Neuman and Guterman, 2016; Neuman, 2018), but there are few applied concepts that include the current pedagogical aspect in any family education curriculum. The dimensions of homeschooling in some proposals converge in the tutorial and pedagogical dimension (Gray, 2018; Guterman and Neuman, 2017; Mota Ribeiro et al., 2021; Neuman and Guterman, 2016). However, some perspectives indicate that homeschooling is a route of school pedagogy carried out at home, not totally separate from school, including activities such as tutoring, accompaniment, evaluation, and feedback (Neuman and Guterman, 2020; Tan, 2019; Wienen et al., 2019), and is considered an educational path to guided learning.

1.1.3 Maternal homeschooling and parental homeschooling: empirical contrasts

The results have reported the influence of parental homeschooling on the inclusion and integration of students in healthy and stable relationships (Neuman and Guterman, 2020; Neuman and Guterman, 2017; Neuman, 2018). In this sense, it fosters independence in student learning, as well as trust within the family (Guterman and Neuman, 2017; Neuman and Guterman, 2016). The task of parents as home teachers focuses on providing greater supervision, fostering freedom in learning, and often adjusting parenting to specific parental models. Some studies have found obstacles in the development of attitudes, and valuational learning if the family perspective focused on parenting is followed (Gray, 2018; Mota Ribeiro et al., 2021; Pineda Franky and Chiappe, 2018; Stevens, 2001), behavior will always be the essential component in the individual learning that parents provoke in their children, in turn, these variables often stop sustained learning at home (Gray, 2018; Wienen et al., 2019).

ECMH can reverse the lack of family support in schoolwork. In North America, education falls to the mother’s responsibilities as part of her parenting tasks (Champeaux et al., 2022). In addition, it offers emotional and cognitive recharging that is transmitted to children in some family groups. It is also known that the organizational capacity and transfer of this experience was very welcome among British mothers (De Carvalho and Skipper, 2018). On the other hand, many mothers have obtained certifications to educate at home even though the environment generated fear of educating (McDonald et al., 2019), which has not been overcome in the participation of Jewish and Indian fathers when violence is established in educational tasks (Dwyer, 2022). Another factor is emotional exhaustion due to sleep problems (Alimoradi et al., 2022). Conversely, there is an improvement in learning and coexistence when there is no violent behavior toward women in the family (Mak, 2021). Some research highlights the educational role of mothers in households located in places with center-phallic religious perspectives. In contrast, during the pandemic in Singapore and Israel, the maternal role in the education of their children segregated the father figure from home education (Guterman, 2021; Tan, 2019). Other reports argue that the motivation to move forward often provides quality education for their children, considering the religious criteria associated with the freedom granted by parents. The mother’s respect for the identity of boys and girls at home highlights their rights to education and growth. Paradoxically, in Greece, the inclusion of mothers in their children’s education can be considered a failure (Rousoulioti et al., 2022).

ECMH enables mothers to develop personal interactive experiences with their children (De Carvalho and Skipper, 2018), generate attitudes for sustained learning, and establish free and democratic models of coexistence (Alrajhi and Dimitriou, 2023; Gater, 2021). Similarly, it enables the development of participatory education (Daulay, 2021; Engchun et al., 2018; Joung Joung, 2023; Jung et al., 2022) and the adoption of new forms of parenting and behavior regulation (Rashwan et al., 2023; Zhang et al., 2023). This is even more complex to develop in families that include young people involved in criminal activity (Omar and Refaeli, 2023). In this sense, ECMH is a complex, multidimensional concept that shapes both coexistence and family education.

1.1.4 Rationale and purpose of maternal education

The purpose of the study is to understand the experiences of ECMH in the home, considering the social and economic context in which it developed before the onset of the pandemic in Peru. The study is interested in investigating those SKs that contribute to the basic nutrition of families in their community (Carrillo et al., 1990; Sisson and Lown, 2018; Oluwadunsin et al., 2023). The research has found that although the nutritional value of the food provided by these SKs is very low (Cárdenas/La República., 2021; Contraloría General de La República, 2013), the women who run these establishments have managed to overcome these shortcomings by seeking more significant donations. The concern focuses on mothers in socially and economically vulnerable contexts, which is why we have proposed the search for participants who have demonstrated problems related to abandonment and domestic violence (Bhan et al., 2019; Bendezú Jiménez and Arcibia, 2024; Bendezu-Quispe et al., 2024; Liu et al., 2017; Rakhshani et al., 2022). Following these sample characteristics will contribute to knowledge about social strata and mothers in Peru who are abandoned and at the mercy of judicial control over the custody of their children (Díaz and Saldarriaga, 2023; Guamuro-Díaz and Morales Ramírez, 2024).

It is important to consider consensual separation in different Latin American families solely to settle legal disputes between parents (Bendezu-Quispe et al., 2024; Callupe Laura et al., 2022). In this context, a link is made between the critical thinking of mothers who are members of SKs and the educational events that take place in matrifocal family upbringing. To this end, we consider the types of experiences discovered in the empirical literature on the teaching of mothers (Alrajhi and Dimitriou, 2023; De Carvalho and Skipper, 2018; Gater, 2021). Therefore, we ask: how can mothers who work in SKs critically construct their experiences of teaching their children in the pre-pandemic, pandemic, and post-pandemic stages of education? We propose: Interpreting the criticism made by SK mothers, from their role as homeschooling mothers, considering their personal, decisive, and ongoing experiences.

2 Materials and methods

2.1 Design and participants

The research is based on a qualitative approach (Hesse-Biber, 2017; Maxwell, 2013; Yin, 2016), seeking to interpret and understand the characteristics of a particular group. Specifically, it focuses on mothers who form matrifocal families, guided by their educational perspective. Similarly, based on case studies and ethnographic practices (Alexander, 2005; Cheek, 2005; Stake, 2005), the socio-cultural characteristics of the SK as a place of human group development are examined, and the mother-child educational coexistence is investigated.

Similarly, visits to each SK allowed us to characterize its hierarchy and the status of each organization in order to understand its organization from within. The authors analyzed communication channels and trust to describe the characteristics of the ECMH. Similarly, they contributed to discretion in the adoption of data (Altheide and Jhonson, 1997) and the regulation of content that could be exposed in this study. The research included an analytical-retrospective interpretative framework, seeking to analyze the critical stance of mothers from their position as home educators before, during and after the pandemic. This was done through mediated focus groups using a strategy of provoking critical thinking through video analysis.

2.2 Study context

2.2.1 The soup kitchen, poverty and food expenditure

SKs in Peru emerged as a form of social support in the 1970s, with mothers playing a major role as leaders, to provide social support to disadvantaged groups. In some districts of Lima and elsewhere in the country, their self-management was encouraged due to poverty and extreme poverty in the areas where their inhabitants lived (Sarmiento Viena, 2017). Beyond the 1980s, the Peruvian government began to support them through institutions such as the National Food Program (Sordini and Arriola Miranda, 2023). From 2000 onwards, other public programs appeared, such as Qali-Warma, the National Food Assistance Programe, and the Callao Public Welfare Society: https://www.transparencia.gob.pe/buscador/pte_transparencia_listado_entidades.aspx?var_nombre_entidad=comedor+popular.

International organizations direct financial support toward achieving the sustainability of SKs, which operate in more than 14,000 soup kitchens in Peru, and between 400 and 700 soup kitchens registered in the various municipalities of the city of Lima and the Constitutional Province of Callao. Some of the supplies are subsidized by the Ministry of Development. Regarding daily rations, since the 1980s a range of 80–120 have been provided in popular soup kitchens in Lima (Blondet and Montero, 1995). Other organizations, such as Vasos de Leche,² have also provided food support to the community. In a socio-economic analysis, it is important to note that the price of the menu for sale at a reduced price to SK members and non-members ranged from 0.0018 to 0.0027 Intis (amount updated to the current Peruvian currency: PEN 1.00–PEN 2.00). Currently, the price of the menus offered to members ranges from PEN 2.00 to PEN 6.00 (usually the lower price), considering that the actual price of a city restaurant menu for sale to the public can start at PEN 8.00 or PEN 10.00.

Inflation has raised the cost of the menu in poor socio-economic contexts, reaching up to PEN 15.00. As can be deduced, the economic income for SKs is really low compared to the economic income of traditional restaurants. Since January 2025, the minimum living wage for Peruvian workers has been PEN 1,130.00: https://www.gob.pe/476-valor-remuneracion-minima-vital-sueldo-minimo. This indicates that the breadwinner of the family cannot cover food needs, resorting to consuming food in SKs. The expenditure incurred by mothers is sustained by donations from some entities (Alcázar and Fort, 2022; Eguren, 2012; Kamichi, 2023; Sanabria Montañez, 2007). For this reason, their members resort to different economic sources, donations from nearby markets, shareholder groups, and entrepreneurs in the textile sales sector.

2.2.2 Single mothers who contribute to their community

The research involved the development of a case study (Barbour, 2013; Stake, 2005), focusing on atypical characteristics related to particular contexts. This allowed us to characterize the mother of a family who participates as a partner within a SK as the individual to be studied, so here we intervened with 10 SKs, considering that each mother fulfills a function within this institution. The SKs are located in six districts of the city of Lima (Table 1). They were contacted through the Teaching Research Department of a private university in Peru, in association with the neighborhood entities of the SKs located in the southern and northern districts of Lima. The leaders of the SKs received the proposal described above through an open call to participate in the central research project. This process allowed the authors to inhibit access to SK members and to rule out the bias of selecting desirable participants.

TABLE 1

Table 1. Characterization of mothers, position in soup kitchens, and marital status.

The support factor and monetary price of the menu for the selection of SKs were characterized, and standardized indicators for these institutions in the districts covered were considered. Twelve percent of all SKs receive government support from MIDIS in Peru, 1% from the Metropolitan Municipality of Lima, and the price of the menu in the canteens ranged from PEN 3.00 to PEN 7.00. The selection of participants involved considering characteristics similar to those in other studies related to family factors: people who experienced domestic violence, abandonment, filiation disputes, and partner abuse (Bhan et al., 2019; Bendezú Jiménez and Arcibia, 2024; Bendezu-Quispe et al., 2024; Díaz and Saldarriaga, 2023). The home was considered as a means of upbringing that characterized the education of their children (Alrajhi and Dimitriou, 2023; De Carvalho and Skipper, 2018; Gater, 2021). The selection of characteristics included the economic and social vulnerability of the selected families.

The feasibility of the study allowed for a total of 25 mothers and female heads of household residing in the city of Lima to be approached. As can be seen in Table 1, all participants were female, with an average age of 48 years. The characteristics indicate that some participants have spent a long time in each SK without obtaining any position, confirming that their participation is solely motivated by obtaining food credit and seeking personal fulfillment through this work. The selection criteria allowed for the recruitment of Spanish-speaking individuals who demonstrated active and participatory involvement in an SK in their community and who demonstrated regional or urban origins. In this case, coastal origin was higher among participants (65%). Twenty-five percent of the total were of Andean origin, and 10% were of jungle origin. The established marital status was: (a) single, (b) married. However, more specific selection criteria were applied: (1) having suffered marital abandonment, (2) having reported spousal abuse, (3) having participated in SK 3 years prior to the research, (4) having children since 2019 or earlier, (5) being in a low or very low socioeconomic level.

On the other hand, in order to be included, participants had to agree to participate in discussion groups about their experiences 5 or 6 years ago, the number of minor children under their care, and sign an informed consent and assent form. It should be noted that a preliminary quantitative analysis of their children’s academic performance between 2019 and 2023 was included (Table 1). In this case, it was important to analyze the total averages per year of study for the number of subjects who received education without falling behind or dropping out of the education system. Finally, their identities were blinded for ethical reasons.

2.3 A priori categories: information gathering and analysis

The socio-cognitive stance allows critical thinking to be understood as a means of expressing the personal judgment that the social subject assigns to certain events (Castellano, 2007; Facione, 2007; Campos Arenas, 2007; Saiz Sánchez, 2018; Scriven and Paul, 1992). For this reason, three processes were proposed to extract the social content of the subjects evaluated: (a) analysis, (b) evaluation-self-evaluation, (c) organization of critical content inputs. In accordance with these approaches, a data collection method was initiated based on the generation of personal criticism with self-awareness about the education of their children during the pandemic period. We supported the process by analyzing explicit content on the role of women and their revaluation in today’s society. For this, we selected a total of 10 videos from the social network YouTube in which meanings about the role of women in society are expressed (Appendix). The videos include women, conceptualizing them from various positions in the characters: mother, woman, partner, student, lecturer… The duration of the videos was short (ranked: 10 s, up to 2 min, 31 s), which helped to distribute them quickly before activating each focus group. These videos were sent to the participants over a month, and it was waited until all of them had finished watching them at their leisure.

Before conducting the evaluation, a preliminary theoretical matrix was formulated based on studies focused on the development of ECMH (Alrajhi and Dimitriou, 2023; De Carvalho and Skipper, 2018; Gater, 2021), which describe personal experiences, self-efficacy, and community resilience (Moreno, 1991; Childress et al., 2023; De Jong et al., 2022). Based on these references, an a priori theoretical and guiding matrix was developed to analyze the record of consensus responses (Table 2). In this regard, each conceptual feature was formulated, allowing indicators to be separated in order to develop an interview guide consisting of 22 critical discussion questions.

TABLE 2

Table 2. A priori subcategories of ECMH: educational experiences.

With regard to data collection, the focus group interviews were conducted in a Zoom environment with recordings of each session with the participants. The focus group sessions were conducted in three stages relating to each subcategory (Table 2). Each discussion lasted a maximum of 2 h, with short breaks at the request of the participants. Each person was asked in advance whether the memories that weighed on them could influence the meeting. This was done during the information and contextualization session. To enable the mothers to connect to the environment, each was given PEN 20.00 to purchase an Internet data plan for their mobile phones so that they could participate in the meetings.

The selectivity of the subjects mitigated possible biases. Participants were recruited through an inter-institutional call for participants, excluding researchers from the process (SK-University). Similarly, social characteristics were sought based on food costs and place of birth. The three study implementers carried out reflexivity processes, making their interests in selectivity, thematic ideas, and mastery of argumentative analysis transparent by clarifying them in two private interview sessions. Moderation required training in the interview process without forcing participants to answer the questions posed or pressuring them to argue biasedly about sexual orientation, parental criminalization, or racial or religious differences.

Data saturation was determined by conducting five focus group sessions (Table 3). This meant allowing participants to adjust their working time. The sessions enabled us to address the thematic analysis of ECMH and the sub-themes. These would be confirmed in the coding analysis. The execution of each session allowed us to meet with the 25 mothers through initial testing activities, familiarization with the virtual environment, and practice in the use of technology. Each meeting allowed us to interact with as many mothers as possible, as the first three focus groups discussed the features of each a priori sub-theme. However, the replication of the process allowed us to reach a certain theoretical saturation (Aldiabat and Le Navenec, 2018; Glaser and Strauss, 1967; Saunders et al., 2018), enabling us to cover the aspects and thematic characteristics preliminarily considered in Table 2. The interactions of the fourth focus group were developed in two parts: the first allowed for a comprehensive focus group or summative group to be conducted by applying the interview in its entirety, and the second allowed for the resolution of doubts about poorly substantiated responses (Table 3). This step allowed for greater depth in the discourse analysis.

TABLE 3

Table 3. Work plan per session, activities, interactions, and timing.

The work schedule ran from the first week of April to the last week of September 2024 (Table 3). The briefing and contextualization session provided information on ethical issues and answered questions about the use of Zoom technology. It also helped to rectify connectivity issues. The second and third focus groups lasted 2 h. The fourth focus group had a 30-min break, while the others lasted 20 min.

The analysis process began with the transcription of each session’s recording and the extraction of verbal content into a double-entry table, which was recorded in Atlas.ti software. The analysis involved developing phases of open, axial, and selective coding (Corbin and Strauss, 2015). Two expert analysts were consulted, who evaluated their preferences or interests in generalist theory and narrative recording. Each of them applied an analysis based on code-document processing, standardizing the characteristic features of the three subcategories preliminarily proposed (Table 2). Emerging categories were also considered. These were characterized by an orange color to differentiate them. The result allowed us to find a range of coincidences between the expert evaluators of 93 and 92%, which was an indication of theoretical saturation. Subsequently, the codes were grouped by axial and selective coding into the features corresponding to the three sub-themes initially proposed. This analysis also allowed us to obtain specific quantitative data. It should be noted that the analysis of some conceptual questions was carried out manually.

2.4 Ethical considerations

The Research Project: “Maternal homeschooling in Peru: critical review of pre- and post-pandemic experiences from the perspective of single mothers from soup kitchens in Lima,” was evaluated and approved by the Ethics Committee of the César Vallejo University of Peru (D-UCVV-2023–4), since the intrinsic research criteria of anonymity, transparency, truthfulness, benevolence and justice were approved. This allowed preserving the human integrity and social identity of the participants, as well as respect for the image of the institutions included in the study. In addition, the participants signed an informed consent form expressing their acceptance of the publication of the study results, taking into account the criterion of anonymity.

3 Results

3.1 Analysis of thematic codes and academic verification

Rigorous and dense analysis revealed three elements associated with the codes, referring exclusively to: (a) personal educational experiences, (b) experiences of deciding to homeschool, (c) experiences of educational continuity. It was found that more than 30% of the codes were associated with the first sub-theme, understood as the implementation of teaching activities that included the application of flexible schedules for ECMH during a formative period and spending some extra time on education (Table 4). This includes the need to make material sacrifices, apply necessary stimuli to develop creativity, and engage in distracting activities for healthy and democratic parenting. On the other hand, around 20% of the codes define emerging sub-themes describing specific actions taken by mothers to prepare their children for the future, excluding the use of their time to establish loving relationships with other partners. Even so, they have demonstrated a need for professionalization in home education.

TABLE 4

Table 4. Report on code analysis, rigor and density.

Fifteen percent of the codes configure the decisive experiences for home education, pointing to decision-making about free, open education, but one that includes rigor in social interactions, based on the formation of communication skills for socializing, involving the use of passive and active communication. Similarly, 35% of the codes are associated with the third sub-theme on experiences of continuity. In this sense, they materialize in continuity actions that preserve students’ cognitive and attitudinal activities, so that they know how to be resilient and continue to socialize effectively with respect for others. Similarly, others are sought out for help in trying to achieve this educational effectiveness. Emotional capacities, their regulation, and emotional support in mothers are redefined as skills that can be transmitted to children in the absence of a parental image.

In this section, we should consider the lack of digital skills among mothers and the professional teaching skills that were perceived in the arguments as necessary for educational development. In terms of co-occurrences, the arguments with the most categorical information were noted from participants 1 to 8 with a 20% concentration, 15% was deduced from participants 22 to 25, and 10% from participants 13 to 16. The other participants concentrated between 5 and 7% of the categorical weight.

The sequential nature of the analysis involved collecting data on the academic performance of students before, during, and after the pandemic (range: 2019–2023). For this reason, the annual performance grades obtained by each child were analyzed, regardless of whether they studied at school or higher education institutions. Of the total, 90% of children reported very high- and high-performance levels for 2019 (Figure 1), which changed dramatically for 2020, with more than 50% falling into the average and low levels. The change materialized in 2021, as more than 50% achieved a high level in that year, and there was a 20% increase in the number of children at a very high level. On the other hand, progress peaks in 2022, as more than 93% of subjects achieve a very high or high level of performance, which is confirmed in 2023, as around 95% demonstrate a high and very high level. The most negative conditions only prevail for 27% of children who were at the low level when studying in 2020. However, in 2019, 2021, 2022 and 2023, the level does not exceed 10%.

FIGURE 1

Figure 1. Historical report of academic performance levels.

3.2 Personal experiences

In accordance with the purpose of the research, the participants’ critiques of their personal experiences were characterized. The categories describe a certain flexibility applied to their work schedules at the SK, adjusting their limited time to their children’s education (Figure 2), and separating their position as mothers from their position as SK members in order to attend to informal work. The vital and material sacrifices focused on the postponement of their family activities, including living expenses and personal care expenses. Time was invested in temporary activities and in empowering home-based childcare as part of their long-term goals.

FIGURE 2

Figure 2. Responses to personal experiences from the soup kitchen. The abridged version is displayed for space reasons.

The coded traits reveal the mothers’ creative abilities, their attention to different learning styles, and their rigorous approach to parenting. Some play and recreational activities were relevant despite the limitations imposed by the pandemic. The arguments referred to demonstrated part of vertical parenting:

“I didn’t let them watch television when they didn’t do their homework. If they threw a tantrum, I let them cry as much as they wanted, until they got tired; many people don’t do that…” (Fabiola, 41 years old).

“They would get bored and start fighting; their brother would turn on the television, but I had to teach them. I put them to wash the dishes, even if people criticize me…” (Irania, 40 years old).

“I had to make them understand; many times, they took a long time to do their homework. I stopped them from playing for the necessary time, they ended up getting angry, I know…” (Josefa, 56 years old).

On the other hand, the analysis reports the needs of individuals with limited economic means. They work out of altruism, provide support to others in low-income neighborhoods, and display democratic parenting styles. Nevertheless, this has not been an obstacle to establishing a stable family way of life.

3.2.1 Emerging categories in personal experiences

The emerging categories found in the study were located in the subcategory “personal experiences,” with two indicators known as “E1.2. Risky work activities” and “E1. Timeless sacrifice (overtime, extra-activities)” (Figure 2). The first category reflects the mothers’ thinking, centered on the pursuit of their children’s happiness and the fulfillment of their life goals through proactivity. The mothers who take on an educative role reveal the need to create a new future for their children, provided that the children demand more of themselves than the mothers once did. They disregarded the recommendations made by others, such as avoiding the risk of COVID-19 infection through social contact or refraining from staying up all night despite feeling utterly exhausted. In addition, they applied their skills to guide their children toward facing their fears, probably to strengthen their resilience and proactivity in the face of different obstacles that may hinder their educational and professional growth. Within their arguments, they demonstrated a consistent pursuit of strengthening character, despite the constraints of social contact during the pandemic:

“My children struggled considerably because we did not have Internet access at home. I had to take them to their friends’ houses, and I would tell them that they needed to wash themselves before leaving our home and again upon returning…” (Ninfa, 65 years old).

“I did not receive any support; at times we did not even have basic medicine. For that reason, I told my children to speak with others while keeping their distance, even though it was not enjoyable for them or for me…” (Andra, 65 years old).

With regard to the notion of timeless sacrifices, we observed a strong determination among the participants to make decisions concerning their own futures and to seize opportunities that might enhance their children’s academic success. The mothers firmly believe that their own future shapes that of their children; they have chosen to avoid short-term romantic relationships, which they criticize as a waste of time. Time spent in a relationship is instead viewed as time that should be devoted to income-generating activities or household responsibilities. The analysis suggests a transfer of positive attitudes into the sphere of family organization, as well as the strengthening of emotional capacities among mothers who did not maintain a partnership that could have ensured sustainable cohabitation.

3.3 Educational experiences for homeschooling

The analysis of the decisive experiences for education reveals three subcategories (Figure 3): Decisions for communicative education (2.1.1.), decisions for social formation (2.1.2.), decisions for academic formation (2.1.3.). Regarding decisions about communicative education, mothers were found to be open to socialization activities, focusing on granting their children permission to talk with other neighborhood or school friends, with limits based on mother-child trust. In this case, the mothers fostered a somewhat liberal approach to family relationships. Among their arguments, socialization has been both fun and structured:

“The pandemic really brought us together. We split the house chores, went out just once a month, played dominoes, chatted, and pretty much put up with each other all the time…” (Adela, 39).

“I’ve always told them they’ve got to respect people, listen, let others talk, and wait their turn…” (Sandra, 57).

FIGURE 3

Figure 3. Responses to the analysis of decisive experiences for homeschooling.

The mothers support their children in school-based communication activities by providing them with models of adaptive socialization, such as engaging in calm, paced conversations, applying turn-taking when expressing opinions, and seeking solutions through respectful and well-reasoned discussions (Figure 3). This occurred during the pandemic period, initially through the occasional use of mobile phones, later expanding into a new means of social interaction after the pandemic. The children subsequently incorporated the recurrent use of technological tools as part of their communication practices.

The trait labeled “decisions for social development” indicates that mothers learned to use active listening techniques to address academic or social questions. They felt a greater need to communicate during the pandemic, although they noticed their children became more socially withdrawn afterward. With the return of closeness and small celebrations after the pandemic, these became means of connection and collaboration. The mothers demonstrated a socializing approach to parenting based on strategies of closeness and active listening to address communication problems. Most reported that before the pandemic they sought to enforce obedience at home, intensifying this approach during the initial stages of COVID-19 infections. In this sense, the categorical analysis indicates that the mothers established positive, appreciative parenting criteria to improve their children’s social development. They used clear and accessible communication methods, fostered greater closeness, and expressed confidence in their children’s achievements and shortcomings, personalizing positive parenting practices.

In decisions concerning academic development, many of the mothers reported educational delays experienced by their daughters and sons in institutes and universities, despite having received some form of virtual instruction during the pandemic. In certain cases, these decisions were made in exchange for maintaining economic stability and balancing household food expenses. In other cases, the decision was driven by the need to address other demands, such as illnesses associated with COVID-19. The statements revealed that these needs were communicated transparently to their children, enabling the negotiation of intrafamilial agreements:

“Unlike in my case, I buy my kids a new pair of trousers, new trainers. Suddenly, new needs come up, so I start telling them ‘No’ to their requests. We talk again and again; they know how to wait if we don’t shout at them. It’s better to sit down and talk about the need so they understand it…” (Vania, 45 years old).

“We mothers are the ones who have to open up, give them trust up to a certain point. You always have to ask them questions to make them feel confident…” (Esther, 42 years old).

The mothers raised their children under economic and social constraints, prioritizing academic training, especially for those studying in 2020 and 2021. They described their economic and socialization needs, acknowledged reaching transparent family agreements, and constantly exercised coordination skills in addressing food and clothing needs.

3.4 Experiences for the continuity of studies

Based on these continuity experiences, two indicators were extracted (Figure 4): (a) Sensitivity to the child’s development (3.1.1.); (b) Seeking help from others (3.1.2.). The findings for the first trait pointed to an initial concern about household finances and the lack of a parental figure. A second concern centered on infections by COVID-19, imagining with crudeness the possibility of seeing their children die due to contagion by the pandemic virus, or failing that, suffering the painful prostration that the infection of the virus would generate in their children in the future. They demonstrated some of their resilience through their character traits when conducting ECMH. This was evident in their guidance and corrective actions:

“I got ill and had to isolate myself, but even then, while I was shut in, I told them how to do their activities, to shower, to eat, to go to bed early…” (Vania, 45 years old).

FIGURE 4

Figure 4. Responses to experiences of continuing studies.

In the trait of “seeking help from others” (Figure 4), the mothers reported finding support from their closest family members. On many occasions, having reached their breaking point, they had no choice but to accept their help. This help involved being honest in order to obtain food, medicine, and used clothing. Many of the mothers interviewed indicated that the help from their family or closest friends provided psychological support during the pandemic. They demonstrated trust in others:

“I decided to ask my siblings for help so that my children could study, either to buy a mobile phone or for them to lend theirs…” (Leonor, 45 years old).

“I took medication on my own for three days and then got sick again. A friend I had at the hospital wanted to help me, and I accepted — he managed to get more medicine…” (Úrsula, 55 years old).

This manifestation of anxiety and depression was addressed by the mothers with a sense of confidence as they sought support from others. Their children’s activities were carried out in their absence while they were away from home. Many of them reported a lack of flexibility in virtual education and in the technological forms of schooling to which they adapted out of necessity and through the gradual development of trust.

3.5 Strategic support to continue living

Responses concerning teaching strategies in virtual education revealed teachers’ concerns about pupils’ development and the personalization of instruction (Figure 5). Moreover, communication with mothers remained consistent in relation to the assignment of school activities, particularly as some teachers attempted to mask their weaknesses in digital competence. A similar situation was observed among the mothers themselves, many of whom reported being unable to use mobile applications, check email, or operate basic office software. Figure 4 outlines the range of educational activities implemented, some of which were directed toward fostering cooperation (15%), seeking help to learn (12%), as well as teaching preferences and the pursuit of learning opportunities (18%).

FIGURE 5

Figure 5. Symbolization of the strategies teachers applied during distance education during the pandemic.

In other words, the mothers symbolized certain meanings related to the quality of the class and its evaluation: reinforcement, exam, homework, messages, Internet, Zoom. Therefore, they understood that their children’s classes achieved vertical, rote, but not constructive learning: “They filled them with too much homework, …and asked them to send photos of what they had done…” [Josefa, 56 years old]; “her daughter is not presenting copies of the operations she solved, if she continues with that attitude I will have to fail her…” (Esther, 42 years old). Likewise, some participants disparaged the role of the teacher: “the teachers have not had contact when we were in virtual mode…” (Virgilia, 51 years old); “…they have not learned anything, my son did not know how to read, the teacher always looked for a way to pass him without effort…” (Sandra, 57 years old). These responses demonstrated that emotional regulation was insufficient on many occasions.

3.6 The role of the father: can it be missing at home?

In this section, we consider it essential to examine Question 4 (3.4), which addresses the absence of the paternal image and role in the upbringing of the participants’ children. In response, the women reported a lack of recognition of a paternal figure within the household. Beyond the father’s physical absence, they emphasized their own roles as mothers and as central agents of leadership in sustaining family life. The primary emotion they conveyed was one of rejection or, alternatively, an acknowledgment of paternal absenteeism:

“As a mother, I have always been there for them. In some moments of sadness, I have known how to respond, without hesitation, at that moment, I clarified the absence of their father…” (Cecilia, 32 years).

“I raised my three children on my own and never had any problems. I still believe in God, and I ask him to guide my path without it crossing that of my ex-partner…” (Ninfa, 65 years).

“For the moment we don’t need their presence, they have learned to grow like this, they are good and hard-working kids, it wouldn’t have been a shame to have someone who was never at home…” (Virgilia, 51 years).

Many of the mothers expressed a need to rely on themselves, adopting a clear and independent stance whenever required. Although the data gathered briefly indicates their rejection of the father, they implicitly acknowledged that children do need a parental figure at home; however, that figure may be absent if the father chooses to withdraw. In other words, children often hold on to the belief that their father will return 1 day. Nevertheless, as the years pass, they come to accept the reality of his absence and the fact that the mother’s presence becomes a substitute for that paternal image. This adaptive pattern entails cognitive transitions that children must navigate in order to process this emotional and attitudinal reality. The evidence has shown the mothers’ views regarding the paternal role, revealing certain direct refusals toward the father. They described the activities through which they compensated for the lack of his presence in the household, while not entirely ruling out the possibility that his image could still be of value in child-rearing.

4 Discussion

4.1 About personal experiences

In line with the characterization presented, the interpretation of the ECMH has enabled us to identify the mothers’ personal experiences, particularly their material, temporal, and emotional sacrifices, as central to strengthening their children’s education. This has been corroborated through their children’s academic performance over the 4 years during which the mothers assumed an educative role (2019–2023). The contextual landscape reflects the needs experienced by individuals with limited economic resources who, despite such constraints, continue to support others within their communities (Sisson and Lown, 2018; Oluwadunsin et al., 2023), in informal settlements and even within their own homes, driven by altruistic motivations. Consequently, when family models of co-existence are shaped by parental educational practices, long-lasting learning activities tend to emerge, supported by democratic and participatory parenting styles (Alrajhi and Dimitriou, 2023; Gater, 2021; Joung Joung, 2023; Jung et al., 2022).

In terms of economic activity, many of the mothers do not receive donations in the SKs and tend to organize their families according to their projected lifestyle and social norms (Alcázar and Fort, 2022; Eguren, 2012; Kamichi, 2023). This has occurred in contexts of high social and economic vulnerability (Champeaux et al., 2022; Oluwadunsin et al., 2023), as observed among the surveyed mothers.

In this regard, the Latin American literature highlights that the educational activities carried out by mothers can be conducted through reflection on the mother–child relationship (Silva-Peña et al., 2025), and they consistently seek to instill values for moral development in single-parent families (Gomez et al., 2025). In the case of Peruvian mothers, reflective parenting behaviors have been reported, with strategies for time management in the upbringing of their children. Nevertheless, the participants’ negative deficiencies are largely determined by a lack of pedagogical expertise. Reflexive approaches to the educational act were developed empirically, including playful recreational activities accompanied by the application of moral parenting practices.

On the other hand, it should be noted that part of the study has indicated that temporary sacrifices also led them to engage in risky work activities, exhaust their physical wellbeing to meet basic needs, and maintain a rigorous and protective lifestyle. In this sense, the transmission of positive attitudes and emotional strengthening aligns with the parenting styles that mothers in other contexts use to raise their children when organizing the family (Champeaux et al., 2022; De Carvalho and Skipper, 2018). This also coincides with positive parenting practices despite the absence of a marital partner to contribute to this end. Many of these activities have been carried out due to parental abandonment in contexts similar to those in Peru (Bürümlü-Kisa et al., 2023; Hernández-Vásquez et al., 2023; Juárez-Chávez et al., 2023), which influences the search for solutions to the educational shortcomings of schools. The determination of mothers who are educators to live without the need for a partner, symbolizing it as an emotional support or an economic stronghold, is equal to their determination to reject diseases as harsh as COVID-19, and their decision to continue working, even in their free time.

4.2 On the decisive experiences for homeschooling

The interpretation of the mothers’ discourse has also enabled the identification of traits related to their decisive experiences. The informants chose to implement educational actions freely while maintaining certain rigorous parenting practices within the household. The use of both active and passive communication served to strengthen assertive co-existence with their children; through these interactions, they have been able to self-regulate and attribute meaning to the maternal image as that of “guiding mothers.” In line with this, other studies have emphasized communication and socialization processes as instruments for natural biological growth and the development of sociability (Alarcón Castillo, 2020; Aliano et al., 2022). These characteristics also shape aspects of parenting in nuclear families (Holguin-Alvarez et al., 2022). In this context, matrifocal families foster satisfaction in social and communicative learning when there is a strong disposition toward engagement through genuine and reliable communication. The evidence demonstrates that mothers also personalized their educative strategies to enhance positive social interaction (Alrajhi and Dimitriou, 2023; Gater, 2021).

Decisions regarding academic formation focused on addressing delays within the educational budget. Although the sample of children was small, families postponed higher education for some children, which was later resumed during the third and fourth waves of COVID-19. The mothers prioritized the academic education of the younger children, particularly those attending school in 2020 and 2021 at the early childhood, primary, or secondary levels. This contrasts with certain evidence indicating a lack of internal organization in families, as they would not be able to provide activities comparable to those offered in traditional schools (Díaz and Saldarriaga, 2023; Hernández-Vásquez et al., 2023). The study participants were, however, able to manage economic needs in mutual agreement with their older children (who were enrolled in universities or academies). The agreements allowed for academic delays without being imposed, even though the family structure was composed solely of the mother (Dinh and Gangestad, 2023; Djurfeldt et al., 2018). The bond between mothers and children was strengthened, as the children, even at a young age, were able to understand their mothers’ decisions to implement irregular adjustments to their studies.

In this regard, it can be argued that the family–school connection can contribute to the growth of family members, with the literature suggesting that holistic development depends on this link (Arellano et al., 2025; Bhaumik and Sahu, 2025; Meriño, 2025; Juutinen et al., 2025). Other factors, such as culture and socioeconomic gaps, may slow the transfer of knowledge within the educational community. On the one hand, the mothers reported having implemented strategies to distribute educational access among their children. On the other hand, it is important to understand whether these distributive conditions have fostered sustainable social qualities in their children, taking into account quantitative parameters of sustainability.

4.3 About Experiences for the continuity of studies

The mothers’ experiences of continuity revealed a search for emotional support in their children’s education. In this regard, it is understood that they developed tutorial aspects to support their children’s academic achievement; their sensitive concern helped them overcome reluctance to ask for help. Many sought to avoid infections, keeping their children healthy in the face of any illness. Therefore, the educational activities carried out by the mothers were done with fear due to the probability of viral transmission. Processing these images strengthened the mothers’ resilience and character during their ECMH (McDonald et al., 2019; Neuman and Guterman, 2020). Many of their attitudes were brought from home to the SK through interaction with other mothers, reinforcing them at home. Conversely, studies indicate greater weaknesses in mothers who presented unresolved depressive and stress factors during the pandemic (Pequet et al., 2024; Wang et al., 2024).

Additionally, the evidence of mothers coping with reality allowed them to open up more to others. This may be a personalized and open coping style, which has been found in other samples where, through trust and the sharing of their ideas about mortality, they reported lower rates of anxiety and depression (Ozakar et al., 2024). On the other hand, the mothers also described seeking support in completing assignments because they did not find it from teachers. In this regard, the study by Faghir et al. (2024) states the need for all educational systems to provide effective and flexible instruction in virtual learning. By comparing the mothers’ ideas about the virtual education their children should receive, the need for adaptive education in socially technological environments in the post-pandemic era can be affirmed.

The shortcomings of online education in 2020, within the context of this study, predated the lack of teacher training even before 2019. The problem evolved, particularly with programs like “Aprendo en Casa,” which shared several converging deficiencies: lack of participatory access, thematic and cultural decontextualization, biased content, and limited student interaction (Alarcón-Llontop et al., 2021; Bravo et al., 2022; Cáceres and Hidalgo, 2023; Díaz and Sanchez, 2021; Vega and Quispe, 2024). Consequently, academic tutoring was relegated to the use of telephone operators between teachers, parents, and students. Therefore, the problem became widespread among the population, and obviously, this extended to households connected to the SK. In light of these public deficiencies, it is necessary to acknowledge that the mothers also lacked technological competencies for education. Factors typically highlighted as critical for effective virtual education focus on time constraints, the absence of training provided by institutions to parents, and inadequate technological resources (Alonso et al., 2025). Although mother–child communication can be vital from birth (Friedmann et al., 2025), the development of maternal skills can enhance the development of children’s competencies in contexts of labor and economic need (García-Sierra, 2025). In the case of mothers in the SK, it has been demonstrated that they responded to the necessity to teach and communicate, while also promoting greater communicative engagement in their children. They organized themselves and encouraged their children to become more structured in their study and recreational hours. While academic progress of the children was monitored, patterns of decline and recovery in academic performance continue to challenge the associative evidence regarding mothers’ decision-making in education.

4.4 Regarding the specific topics: strategic support to continue living

Among the results, the meaning attributed to the pursuit of continuity in life solely represents the desire to continue living, free from illness, and pursuing education. The mothers recognized that, despite living amidst death or the risk of COVID-19 infection in the neighborhood, they needed to intervene in their children’s cognitive tasks, understanding that the quality of schooling was inadequate. An intrinsic pressure to educate their children was observed, supported by information provided by teachers and delivered through electronic means. This aligns with aspects of the personal decision to educate, while the difficulty of teaching without technological competence was also associated with challenges in advising on the completion of school tasks. In this regard, evidence supports the mothers’ capacity to enable their children’s academic success before and during schooling (Rousoulioti et al., 2022), with the aim of ensuring that their children learn effectively and with appropriate emotional regulation (Joung Joung, 2023; Rashwan et al., 2023; Zhang et al., 2023). Indeed, many families required tools for emotional regulation to continue their activities following the pandemic, as well as strategies for monitoring and empirical tutoring.

Current evidence reported the generation of tensions between mothers and their children due to a lack of time and the overload of household tasks (Li et al., 2024; Shi et al., 2025). Moreover, mothers’ lack of confidence in their own pedagogical abilities increases when their teaching is not cohesive with that of the school teachers (O’Keeffe et al., 2025). The mothers’ level of education limits their capacity to perform an effective tutorial role if they are not provided with technical and professional support by school teachers (Shi et al., 2024). It is noteworthy that coding analysis has revealed the use of emotional regulation, suggesting that empirical tutoring may have required this tool even during the stages prior to 2019.

4.5 Regarding the role of the father: can he be absent from the home?

Regarding the meaning of the parental role at home, a significant finding of the research is that the mothers in the SK study accepted the existence of a parental role that structures every nuclear family (as a concept). This role was absent in the homes of the six districts where they lived, leading them to conclude that it was unnecessary to consider it in their children’s upbringing. Conversely, the mothers continued the family’s essential activities under their leadership. However, in other contexts with economic and social needs, the need to include a father in the family often forces mothers to return to married life, with the same weaknesses they experienced before their separation (Bhan et al., 2019; Bendezú Jiménez and Arcibia, 2024; Bendezu-Quispe et al., 2024; Díaz and Saldarriaga, 2023; Guamuro-Díaz and Morales Ramírez, 2024). In other contexts, they often manage to thrive without needing to integrate a paternal figure into the family (Alrajhi and Dimitriou, 2023; De Carvalho and Skipper, 2018; Gater, 2021). At this point, it becomes questionable. These women sought ways to progress without emotionally impacting their children when they needed to be cared for and educated at home without their father. Each mother has made it clear that she had to disregard the father’s presence to succeed.

Conversely, the findings have demonstrated that the absence of a father may hinder children’s personal fulfillment, affecting their development from early childhood and influencing factors related to wellbeing (Kucukkaragoz, 2025), moral judgment, and the void in the authority role, which can lead to the generation of aggressive behaviors in children (Zharima et al., 2025). Other studies have found that parental support does not typically generate these issues, as it is primarily manifested through the mother–child bond (Jumiati, 2025). Among various factors, when this mother–child bond is resilient, the belief in the value of education is strengthened even in the absence of a paternal figure (Mathe and Lekganyane, 2025). It should be taken into account that, although the results are only applicable to the mothers from the districts studied, it is important to recognize that they have strengthened their children’s education despite marital separation. In this regard, the support elements were established to contribute to the children’s education, encompassing resilience, emotional regulation, personalized attention, observation, and even prototypes of academic tutoring. Indeed, it is acknowledged that the mothers’ pedagogical weaknesses may have reflected some lack of support during 2020 and 2021, although the data did not fully reveal this. Nevertheless, the parental role in upbringing and education remains indispensable, even though the discussion arguments demonstrated a clear rejection of the father’s role, which aligns with expected outcomes given the participant selection criteria. It is assumed that this criterion may have generated a predisposition among the mothers toward rejection, and likewise, it is assumed that their opinions were framed in terms of the absence of the individual rather than the fulfillment of the role—issues which remain clearly uncertain and were beyond the scope of the study.

5 Limitations and implications

The study’s limitations converged around the practical application of the instruments, the atypical nature of the sampling, and the inclusion of the SK as a mediating element, which determined the emphasis on themes of reinforcement: resilience, household management capacity, and the quality of academic tutoring, without being able to obtain deeper data on the implementation of strategies within a solid pedagogical framework. This was due to the study’s measurement processes, which fell beyond the methodological scope. In practice, the difficulty lay in accessing broader measures of each student’s semester progress, rather than relying on an approach based on annual averages. Additionally, there was a lack of more extensive diversification regarding the educational role of women and its comparison with the resources of the “Aprendo en Casa” programe, and its outcomes during 2020 and 2021. The inclusion of mothers with technical professional training would have enriched the study further.

The practical implications suggest investigating differentiated groups from vulnerable contexts in Latin America. The cultural diversity of Peru allows for the study of women’s educational roles across different economic situations that need to be addressed. The lack of technological resources can be examined through the use of daily evidence records, applying a deconstruction of their educational experiences. Furthermore, the disconnect between the father’s role as an educator and the mother’s role would prompt reflection on policies targeting these differentiated groups. The findings may inform initiatives in parental resilience legislation within the family and establish regulations for the care of children living in families characterized by aggressive behaviors.

6 Challenges and future work

Research challenges will include addressing central themes and attempting to fill new gaps in knowledge:

Challenge 1: Apply sequential mixed methodologies with retrospective evaluation to schoolchildren. The purpose would be to contrast the perspective of self-efficacy with the educational decline experienced in 2020.

Challenge 2: Apply transformative methodologies combining qualitative methods. The objective is to deduce the gaps in educational and social inequality from the perspective of people living in extreme poverty. This would involve developing critical ethnography maps.

Among the political challenges, other needs arise:

Challenge 3: Equitable Training for Mothers in Vulnerable Contexts: How does training for homeschooling mothers compare with their level of professional development?

Challenge 4: Access to Digital Resources as a Sustainable Educational Tool: What factors contribute to family progress when parents receive professional training in online education?

Challenge 5: Recognition of Public Policies for Single-Parent Families: How are economic, food, and educational support programs linked for mothers experiencing domestic violence? Do they provide evidence to support the continuity of their children’s academic development?

Finally, future work should include mixed-methods studies on resilience and emotional strategies of mothers in current practice, as well as reflection on the social behavior of children through focus groups in indigenous cultural groups.

7 Conclusion

In accordance with the study’s purpose, the findings on educational experiences allowed for the characterisation of the subcategory of personal experiences as mothers who educate while providing family protection. They act as formative agents for their children in the pursuit of proactive success, demonstrating creativity and rigor in their educational processes. They also seek their own happiness by accompanying their children on this educational journey, without the need for a partner. In the subcategory of decisive experiences in home education, the mothers promoted an education aimed at open (inclusive) coexistence, where their children’s socialization processes adapt to the family’s affiliative characteristics. Proximity and active listening, as developed by the mothers, have been important in these types of educational experiences. At the same time, they applied strategies of delay and economic restriction in household spending to support their children’s studies, simultaneously achieving an education in financial management for this purpose.

Regarding the subcategory of continuity experiences, mothers became more sensitive, with spiritual strength in the face of family needs. They avoided infection from the virus, provided psychological support, were reliable, and conveyed positive ideas to foster educational achievement that their children had not developed at school before, during, or after the pandemic. Finally, we observed the mothers’ refusal to establish any rapprochement with the father; his functional representation was, at the very least, weak in the children’s perception, with the confidence that they had raised their children to overcome historical obstacles such as the COVID-19 pandemic.

The study has contributed to the recognition of vulnerable communities living in extreme poverty and to understanding the role of mothers through a retrospective analysis of educational experiences. The findings represent an advance in the understanding of empirical educational practices in matrifocal families, focusing on their emotional regulation, resilience, and socialization.

Data availability statement

The original contributions presented in the study are included in the article/supplementary material, further inquiries can be directed to the corresponding author.

Ethics statement

The studies involving humans were approved by Ethics Committee of the Primary Education Academic Program, UCV. The studies were conducted in accordance with the local legislation and institutional requirements. The participants provided their written informed consent to participate in this study. Written informed consent was obtained from the individual(s) for the publication of any potentially identifiable images or data included in this article.

Author contributions

JH-A: Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing. GM-A: Conceptualization, Funding acquisition, Investigation, Methodology, Software, Supervision, Validation, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing. JR-S: Methodology, Project administration, Resources, Software, Supervision, Validation, Visualization, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing.

Funding

The author(s) declared that financial support was received for this work and/or its publication. The research was financed by the Research Support Fund 2023 of the César Vallejo University of Peru, and is the result of the Research Project: “Maternal Homeschooling in Peru: critical review of pre-and post-pandemic experiences from the perspective of single mothers in Lima’s soup kitchens” (RVI 450–2023-VI-UCV/Code P-2023–324).

Conflict of interest

The author(s) declared that this work was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Generative AI statement

The author(s) declared that generative AI was not used in the creation of this manuscript.

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Footnotes

1. ^https://www.gob.pe/institucion/midis/institucional

2. ^The translation in: glass of milk.

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Appendix

List of videos on the role of the stay-at-home mother. The data are available at the following location: https://zenodo.org/records/10795262.