Viruses — pandemics — expose and exacerbate the existing dynamics of a society — good and bad. They are like a fun-house mirror, grossly reflecting ourselves back to us. One of those dynamics is the burden we put on individual parents and families. We ask individuals to solve for problems that are systemically created.
https://medium.com/@chloe.cooney/parents-are-not-ok-66ab2a3e42d9
The struggle is real. Less than a month into pandemic parenting, talking with friends and family who don’t have young kids is like getting a glimpse into a completely different world.
Those without young children talk about a full work day in normal long blocks of uninterrupted time. They set up a separate workspace for each household member to occupy and call their own as they work or complete educational activities online from home. Some mention being bored and how they are working their way through the Netflix catalog, finishing old projects, taking up new hobbies, and catching up with friends on long chats.
For parents, without their children in school 7+ hours a day, after school activities, and/or outside help, it’s nonstop kidtime. Any worktime is filled with interruptions and “requests” for attention. Kids may be excited to be home from school and have parents at home to take them places but become quickly frustrated when they are not allowed to go anywhere or see anyone in person except their family. Parents who still must work outside the home have an even heavier lift in figuring out how to find care for their children or make do without and hope for the best. Added to this is the constant worry about the added risk of transmission and the difficulty enforcing distancing safety procedures when the kids finally do get to see you when you get home.
I’m lucky to jave beem working from home already. Now, I rarely make it upstairs to my office until after the kids are asleep – with a shifted schedule into the wee hours. Sometimes, I try use my laptop downstairs but after only a few minutes, I have to put it away to avoid one of the kids trying to type something on it or start exploring the open internet. Each child has a workspace, but other than the 45 minutes of so of Meet time with their teachers, it is abandoned for free reign over all parts of the house … with playtime toys and games spread spread everywhere.
My pandemic parenting reality: I have no time to do more than half of what I normally did – and what gets done usually comes out of sleeptime. Obviously, this is not sustainable.
Then, why do I blog and post on a website? Because we are all in this together and I want to do my part. Because parents are not okay and structural changes are needed to fix this situation. The challenges of this pandemic are stressing an already broken “system” of parenting in the United States. The very nature of child development means that parents shift their focus as their children age. Parents struggle to get through each stage of child development without the time or energy to reflect on the bigger picture. Parenting labor – overwhelmingly done by mothers – is not included in economic calculations so it remains uncounted, undervalued, and therefore, presumed to be limitless. The problem is hidden and there is no consistent constituency to advocate for the major changes needed to support parents. So, nothing changes.
When this broken system crashes like so many others as a result of COVID-19, we need to build a better one that integrates the needs of families, values the work of raising children, and supports gender equity within households and society. But will those with the insights into what needs to be done have the time, energy, voice and platform to make the structural changes so desperately needed?
More stories here:
‘I Feel Like I Have Five Jobs’: Moms Navigate the Pandemic: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/20/parenting/childcare-coronavirus-moms.html
Parents Are Not Ok. https://medium.com/@chloe.cooney/parents-are-not-ok-66ab2a3e42d9