Independence for Working Parents--Up in Smoke?
I originally wrote this blog article in July of 2020, trying to capture what the pandemic-summer-blues felt like on a national level while relishing a brief moment of personal intellectual freedom.
Many things have improved in this year—a vaccine is available and we are seeing fewer deaths from COVID-19.
But many things haven’t changed, or have gone backward, like a fizzled-out sparkler:
4.5 million women have left the workforce. 4.5 MILLION.
More than 3 million child care slots are gone, never to return.
Of the parents who remain in the workforce, 40% say they are afraid to use family-friendly benefits for fear of a negative career impact. Almost half of parents are doing without support out of fear?!
And it’s not just parents.
Two-thirds of unpaid caregivers say they are experiencing mental health concerns like depression, anxiety or suicidal thoughts. That’s 2 out of 3.
At a’parently, we are working every day on employer-based programs to support and empower parents, caregivers and leaders. We would love to hear from you — about your own work-life scenario, your ability to feel independent from your caregiving role at times, your employer’s benefits and policies, and your mental health. It all matters.
Yesterday I had a 7-hour stretch of time at my desk, with no kids in the house.
I was able to focus, tuning out the many distractions of COVID-era news and worries (this is not always easy for me, even seated at my desk.)
I was engaged during my three calls, not once worried who would pop into the Zoom frame or spill something just off-camera and holler, “Mom, Mom!”
I was productive, whipping through tasks but also keeping the big picture in mind (well, on Post-it notes, because that’s where I like to keep the big picture!)
I realized I could be all of those things because I was operating independently. My brain and my time and my productivity were all operating independently of my beloved family members. For me, and for many working moms, this is impossible to achieve when the kids are home. And yet, it’s exactly what my business needs of me, what your employers need from you, and what you as a professional crave and deserve.
In the New York Times yesterday, a front-page story by Deb Perelman set up the age-old “you can’t have both a kid and a job” argument that we thought we had left behind when women joined the labor force en masse in our shoulder pads and pantyhose.
I resent articles that view the struggle of working parents this year as an emotional concern. We are not burned out because life is hard this year. We are burned out because we are being rolled over by the wheels of an economy that has bafflingly declared working parents inessential.
She’s right: we are back to the days of kids vs. job choices for many parents. I’ve heard several personal stories lately of mothers who quit their jobs because there are no sustainable options for child care or for helping with their aging parents.
We’re going backward.
In this Bloomberg story, the data shows the pandemic is erasing a decade of working mothers’ progress. The economic fallout is disproportionately hitting women and mothers, which is dangerous because 40% of mothers are the primary breadwinners in their families.
In her State of the Union Address on Black Mothers in America, Blessing Adesiyan of Mother Honestly laid out these stark facts about the way the crisis affecting Black moms:
Black mothers are four times more likely to be single and serve as the primary breadwinners of their home.
Black moms are more likely to participate in the workforce than moms of any other race, and about 85% of black mothers are the primary, sole or co-breadwinner for their families, but in 2017, they were making only 54 cents compared to white dads’ dollar.
According to research in the New York Times, "Black women are three to four times as likely to die from pregnancy-related causes as their white counterparts," with racism playing a direct role.
More than 75% of black women spend over three hours each day on housework, compared to just over half of white women.
Black women also spend nearly three times more hours per week caring for elderly or sick relatives, compared to just the 12 hours white women spend.
So, what do we do? Here are three ideas:
Schools throw away their “responsible restart” plans and start over, with truly creative options for 2020-2021 school year such as: mixed-grade pods in the same neighborhoods, allowing students to peer tutor each other on days out of school; use of empty corporate offices and rising student teachers to spread out classes but keep in-person instruction going; community collaboratives with professionals to increase instruction days.
Companies step up and step into the care gap, with innovative care-as-a-benefit options for their employees, including: employer-sponsored backup care with minimal co-pays; online tutoring and digital instruction during study-at-home days; and senior care research assistance and backup care options for aging parents.
The government invests in sustained co-educational services by hiring unemployed professionals to teach kids anything from coding to astronomy to logistics while their parents go to work; paying people and students to step in where school meals and other services have been suspended; and training the next generation of teachers for free. Maybe something like this will actually prepare our children for the 85% of jobs in 2030 that haven’t been invented yet.
If have other ideas, please post them in the comments and let’s see if we can avoid going backward any further. After all, when I called my book Retrofit, I meant for the outdated ways to catch up to modern life, not the other way around.