Working parents underwater

 

Working while parenting has always been shaky. Then the pandemic hit, and whatever little structure there was came tumbling down. Suddenly, the working parent struggle was laid bare, news articles and desperate comment threads detailing parents in meetings while entertaining toddlers; working while supervising restless grade schoolers and virtual lessons; burning out worrying all if of this will go on forever. It’s never been harder to work and raise children. The ripples could be with employees for years.

·       1/3 of families have had one parent leave the workforce.

·       1-in-5 do not know whether they’ll be able to come back.

·       60% say caregiving duties stand in their way.

And for working mothers, it has been especially disastrous — a whole generation of professional women watching hard-won accomplishments evaporate and losing precious time they will never get back.

11.3 million women’s jobs lost in a single month, wiping out all their gains of the past decade.

And it is not just parents of young children at risk. American parents stand to lose even more productivity as more school districts limit how many students will return to the classroom for the upcoming school year. In fact, far from solving working parent problems, back-to-school will likely add new ones, with erratic education schedules (assuming there’s any school at all) creating constantly changing care needs which could be hardest to fix.

Yet even as the movement toward reopening workplaces rolls on, few employers have made plans. And care shortages promise to make arrangements harder for employees to find on their own. Post-pandemic, the number of available childcare spaces could shrink by as much as 50%. More than two-thirds — 23.5 million working parents— have no potential caregivers at all, putting millions of employees at risk.

2020 is a year of a lifetime. So be strong, keep patience and stay encouraged.

-SS