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"Let me say the quiet part loud: In the Covid-19 economy, you’re allowed only a kid or a job." This op/ed is very good, but let's also be honest: In the Covid-19 economy, MOTHERS are allowed only a kid or a job. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/02/business/covid-economy-parents-kids-career-homeschooling.html
Are fathers newly burdened by the increase in at-home work? Yes! We don't have numbers yet on fathers who quit their jobs vs mothers, but if anecdotes + all of history is any indication, it will be women who overwhelmingly drop paid work to do care work at home.
27% of mothers don't work outside the home, and 3/4ths of them stay home intentionally to care for children. Just 7% of fathers do not work outside the home, and just one quarter of that already tiny 7% intentionally stay home. 3/4ths are retired, in school, or can't find work.
And even among the small number families where Dad is the full-time caregiver, it is likely not the case that he's doing as much as a stay-at-home mom. When women are financially dependent on a partner, they do more household labor. When men are dependent, they do less.
Single parents, obviously, can't really make the choice to opt out of paid work. And guess what: Just 12% of single parents are dads parenting solo. 35% are parents who are cohabiting but not married. The biggest group: of single parents: Moms who are parenting solo (53%).
Stay-at-home parent stats from @pewresearch: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/09/24/stay-at-home-moms-and-dads-account-for-about-one-in-five-u-s-parents/
Unmarried parent stats from @pewresearch as well: https://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2018/04/25/the-changing-profile-of-unmarried-parents/
Unmarried parent stats from @pewresearch as well: https://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2018/04/25/the-changing-profile-of-unmarried-parents/
Do read @debperelman's whole piece because it's so comprehensive and it touches on ALL of this, but it does come down to the assumption that women are primarily in charge of childcare and women's paid labor is just not as important as men's paid labor.
Yes, dads have stepped up, and that's great! Dads have been steadily increasing the time they spend with their kids even pre-corona. But mothers still spend much, much more time than dads on both childrearing and housework, whether they work for pay or not.
One problem is that the people making decisions about reopening are much more likely to be men, for whom childcare is not a primary concern - their wife takes care of it, even if she works. We know that overwhelmingly, men will go back to work & women will have to figure it out.
This will be passed off as a "family decision," but do note how "what's best for our family" is overwhelmingly what keeps dad working for pay and mom at home with the kids -- leaving her dependent, professionally stunted and financially vulnerable for the rest of her life.
There are two problems here, and @debperelman addresses the most important one: The way gendered assumptions of labor & responsibility are folded into our workplaces and our politics. Covid-19 has revealed just how much we've failed to recognize 21st-century family structures.
So we get mad at employers for calling workers back or saying work-at-home needs to be work & not childcare, but the reality is that many businesses (especially small ones) are also operating w/o a safety net. And parents have been clear that doing work + childcare is not working
Americans live in one of the most prosperous nations in the history of the world. Yet we have some of the worst worker protections among wealthy democratic nations. We have no universal childcare, no universal care leave. Our national policy is "women will take care of it."
Which brings us to the second problem: American families also largely embrace a domestic policy of "women will take care of it." National policy is the #1 big issue. But unless we deal with sexism writ large, including in the family, women are still going to lose.
So we need both: First and foremost, political changes that, given that they've been done in most of our peer nations, should not be radical: Universal childcare. Paid parental leave -- with requirements that fathers take it.
And just for kicks let's add a third problem: In the US, there is tremendous resistance to the concept of children's rights, or children existing as anything other than appendages of their parents. That children have a RIGHT to a good education barely registers here.
If we understood children as vulnerable people who are entitled to certain basics - safety, freedom from violence, food, housing, education - this whole conversation would look very different.
