Mothers Are Hurting

I’ve paraphrased the headline of a long article, in fact a whole section, from the Sunday, February 7th edition of The New York Times. I don’t always pay attention to this organ of the patriarchy, but in this case, what they are writing is of great importance to all of us.

First some essential numbers:

• The number of payroll jobs women lost since March, 2020: 637,000
• The number of payroll jobs lost by men in the same period: 3,829,000
• LAST HIRED, FIRST FIRED….
• 34% of men working at home during this period received promotions.
• 9% of women working at home did.

In short, the pandemic took a wrecking bar to the advances we’ve made in the last thirty years—or thought we had made.

The problems have always been with us, but it was easier to ignore when the economy boomed. We’ve never been able to persuade fathers to take on an equal share of childcare, housekeeping and cooking; now, with many mothers both working at home and supervising their children’s at home education, the difference is doubly destructive.

And many men remain in denial. 45% of men with children under twelve say they do most of the homeschooling.

Only 3% of women agree.

The numbers are even worse for women of color. 66% with children living at home reported a “disruption of employment or income” during the pandemic.

The effect on children is disastrous: one in four children experience what is blandly called “food insecurity”—this means hunger—during the pandemic.

The mothers the Times interviewed in-depth reported a cascade of consequences, beginning with Chaos (while some men have home offices, many women do not: one is shown working on her laptop on the floor in her closet, her four-year-old rampaging around her) to Resignation, to Drowning, to Exhaustion ( a woman crouching asleep on a pile of clothes coming out of the dryer). The psychological consequences are severe as we once again find ourselves trying to Do It All.

Yes, there are ways the government can help, and with the Biden administration, help is planned if not yet arriving—particularly raising the minimum wage to fifteen dollars an hour. But I doubt that our capitalist system will ever provide the help we need.

“Don’t call what you are feeling burnout,” the Times concludes. “Call it betrayal.”

In Women The New York Times Feminism Mothers