All Moms Are Screwed
Volunteer Elizabeth Beheler wrote last September about how the pandemic was affecting her life and family. Her follow-up opinion piece sheds light on the ongoing complexities of schools reopening and how, at the end of the day, whether or not they open is irrelevant when mothers, female caregivers, and women at large continue to lack fundamental societal support.
Last summer, I wrote about what it’s like being a mom in these pandemic times. The Close the Gap California team recently asked for my perspective on how mothers are faring at this point- the one-year anniversary of the pandemic and statewide stay-at-home order in California. I decided to be honest. I have a 1st and 5th grader in our local school district. The hot topic as of late has been how California schools should re-open. There are moms on all sides of the issue, and it’s kicking up some dust because everyone is kind of strung out.
Here’s my opinion: it’s not about the schools. All moms are screwed.
COVID brought to light how moms were already just one step away from our entire support system collapsing. That’s the bigger issue here and the one I wish we were talking about more.
Do you have any idea how many HOURS I have listened to my son talk about Minecraft since last March? I don’t even hear him anymore. I’m exasperated and exhausted by the constant talking, the constant interrupting, and the constant asking for help and needing to intervene. Moms are tired. And don’t get me started on feeding everyone ALL the meals, cleaning, keeping them physically active during COVID, and creating joyful holidays. I’m not even going to bother linking to resources about the emotional labor of women. You all know what I’m talking about. I’ve also noticed the number of women in online mom groups scrambling to find their elderly parents’ vaccine appointments. That seems like a part-time job in itself. The New York Times set up a phone line for moms to call and say whatever they wanted for 60 seconds. It seems like most of them just screamed for their allotted minute.
Wealthy moms are screwed. Yes, they are less screwed than other moms but they are screwed just the same. Some moms with means are opting out of public schools and taking their children to private schools, pod schools, other states, or even other countries. But they’re getting shamed for it. At the core, these moms are using the resources they have available to them to do what they think is best for their own children. Wouldn’t it be great if all moms had such choices?
Middle class moms are screwed. We’re screwed if we work, and we’re screwed if we leave our jobs. Moms trying to work from home are struggling because their children are interrupting meetings to ask for snacks, picking their noses in zoom backgrounds, and sticking their tongues out at online school cameras. They are trying to make sure kids stay marginally focused on their computer screens which is ironic since once the school day is done, these same kids will lock into inane youtube videos at top volume. Moms who leave the workforce (by choice or not) are screwed because they are interrupting their career trajectories, forfeiting seniority, money, healthcare plans, retirement funds, and slipping down the slope of doing more unpaid labor at home because they likely don’t make as much as their partner, so eventually they HAVE to do more at home because they CAN’T make as much as their partner.
And yet all these grievances don’t even begin to touch the level of screwed for mothers who are scraping by to put food on the table and make rent. We all know these mothers were screwed long before anyone knew what COVID-19 was. Many of them — especially those designated as essential workers — haven’t had the luxury to be able to work from home and are running out of bad options.
Mothers who have children with special needs are screwed. Mothers with disabilities themselves are screwed. Single mothers who have no back up or nearby family are screwed. I don’t pretend to understand the hardships and stress these mothers are enduring, and I fully support anything that might make things better for them. Moms of color are screwed- Native moms were the first to be devastated. Black moms and Latinx moms have also been disproportionately negatively affected by the virus itself and the pandemic in general. Asian moms have our own concerns.
Moms who keep their kids home from in-person school because they aren’t comfortable with them in the classrooms yet, or because they are worried about teachers feeling unsafe, are screwed. California only just started vaccinating educators. They are worried about the social impacts and mental health effects this past year is having on both their younger and older children.
Moms who send their kids to in-person school are screwed. They know that at any moment the schools might close if the numbers spike or if a variant starts fueling an uptick in outbreaks or if the CDC changes its guidelines (for better or worse, as it has numerous times), like it recently did with the number of feet allowed between school desks.
They know they could get the call that their kid has potentially been exposed to another kid who has potentially been exposed to the virus and then have to figure out which kid it is and which classroom their siblings are in and who the kids are in that classroom. And then it’s 14 days of quarantine or forcing them through COVID testing, which I would not wish on anyone. All of this for part-time in-person school, in most cases.
Schools in some districts have the resources of space and money to re-open safely. Some definitely do not. It doesn’t take an expert to know which districts, in which communities, serving which demographics will struggle to open safely. Many school districts serving lower-income communities have been struggling since early on in the pandemic when they needed to provide families with digital access to do virtual schooling. There are a lot of kids who are falling behind this year and will return next year needing help to catch up. Some mothers won’t be able to hire tutors and learning specialists and have their children properly assessed and follow through with intervention recommendations. The education gap is widening as we speak. These moms are screwed.
When I refer to Moms here, I also vaguely mean parents. No argument that the pandemic has been hard on everyone and all parents and caregivers. But where does this equal parenting concept fit in? Today’s Dads are more present and attentive than a generation ago, and sometimes Dad is even the default parent. Yet, for all the progress we’ve made in sharing the workload at home and with raising children, the pandemic has shown that we have not yet achieved equal parenting as a society.
So what is a feminist mom to do? I really wish I had the answer. I’m too deep in it so the best I can do is write this essay. It makes sense to start with a rescue line, like President Biden’s stimulus package, to those who are drowning. We should be doing everything we can for the people who need it most, immediately. Any mother of more than one child knows how this kind of triage works; you stop the bleeding first. There are so many people who just need the basics right now. I’m not suggesting that moms who are not in dire straits jump the line. We can hang in there and make do, it’s what we’ve been doing this whole time.
Beyond emergency lifelines though, how can progressive policy (the policy that Close the Gap California Recruits write when they are elected to the State Legislature) help moms and women as a whole? The experts seem to agree that mandating equal pay, raising the minimum wage, universal healthcare, early education and affordable childcare will benefit mothers.
And what about equal parenting moving through the recovery period and beyond- how can we continue to make gains? While many larger corporations have improved written and unwritten policies for moms in the workplace and for working dads, we have to demand more. (Side note: Is “working dads” even a thing or are they just called “parents” or “men who have kids”?) How do we keep forward progress in our own homes and marriages? How can we moms improve it, so motherhood is a choice we can present to our daughters in good faith? What does equal parenting actually look like and how do we get there in our daily lives?
It’s going to take a lot more policy to get us to equality, but pushing for it as the norm in our own lives and demanding it from our elected representatives are the first steps.
I would be remiss not to state the obvious: Electing mothers is good for child welfare policy.
Recruiting mothers to run for office, supporting mothers who are political candidates, and electing women to public office in general improves the lives of mothers, families, and women at large.
I imagine trying to be a politician as a mother is a colossal task. I am thrilled to do whatever I can to support moms brave and ambitious enough to do it. (And if she can tell me how she finds that kind of energy, I’m all ears!)
The truth is, I don’t have any great ideas of my own for how to fix the problems with motherhood in a global pandemic. My bandwidth is being used to keep my kids as happy and healthy as possible and maintain some small shred of sanity. I am not an economist or a sociologist or a public health expert. I’m also not a tech CEO with big ideas.
All I can do is share my own perspective as a mom so those with the knowledge and policy power can understand and help bring about change. I hope they are listening.
Close the Gap California is committed to building on progressive women’s historic momentum by recruiting them statewide and achieving equality in California by 2028. Join us!
About Close the Gap California
Close the Gap California (CTGCA) is a statewide campaign launched in 2013 to close the gender gap in the California Legislature by 2028. By recruiting accomplished, progressive women in targeted districts and preparing them to launch competitive campaigns, CTGCA is changing the face of the Legislature one cycle at a time.
One in every four women in the Legislature is a CTGCA Recruit. Our Recruits are committed to reproductive justice, quality public education, and combatting poverty, and nine of 10 serving today are women of color.
