NYT: In the Covid-19 Economy, You Can Have a Kid or a Job. You Can’t Have Both.

[Anonymous]

The solution for the author is to allow her nanny to bring her children to work and to have all the kids do distance learning together.

The solution for us all is to make reducing spread out number one goal, and to close all super spreading locations and make everyone wear masks all the time.

Be aggressive about reducing spread, and make it very very difficult for people from a plague state to enter our state. Aggressively trace contacts of people who are positive. Do all those draconian things they did in other countries because we need to shut down spread before we can open schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Honestly, from the perspective of this Gen X working mother, this crisis is just more of the same, except that the problems that have existed for decades are magnified. The expectations placed on women to support the education of their children and do their jobs are unrealistic. Sure, school is not daycare. But a regular school calendar is beneficial to working parents in terms of finding care and taking days off. Random work days, snow days, and half days are not. The many school closures create inequities for parents whose work does not permit flexibility or who lack the means to outsource quality care (or who don't have extended family support).

Preach, my fellow GenX sister!

Though, if I hear "school is not daycare" one more time, my head is going to explode. It manages both to denigrate people who work at daycares AND shame working mothers in one fell swoop. Elegant, but horrible.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People aren't talking about it because it requires admitting the vast majority of parents with school aged kids aren't able to work with the same availability or quality as pre-pandemic. And of course we all know and see that, but openly discussing it makes it real.

And we all know employers are looking for any reason to cut people right now. While they can't discriminate based on familial status, they certainly can terminate people for low performance.

So if we all just pretend like it isn't happening, we feel about 10% safer in our jobs, that we need to pay the bills. At least the employer would need to broach the conversation and document low performance to terminate for cause, which is a real bad look right now when you can just lay people off and give them unemployment. But if workers are out there talking about it, the employer has all the proof they need with no work on their side.

That is why she can speak up as a self-employed blogger and all us W2 employees are just trying to keep our heads down and appearances of having it together up.

I have not seen that at all... what industry do you work in?

Professional services.

They pushed the curve that meeting basic expectations and not over achieving puts you at risk for layoffs come July 6. The next round will be in August. To millennials (which is majority of workforce) it’s being sold as performance issues. But a year earlier, the same performance would have gotten you a bonus not a lay-off. I’m in HR so know the game.

Any small drop in high (not average) performance - or miss - is quickly documented. Anyone on the bench is not meeting expectations so you need to be picked. It’s impacting people at all levels except partners.

I’m expected to put in 50+ hours of high impact work or you are at risk. Which when you are juggling equates to 60 hours for higher quality, bc I’m not as efficient. The firm pushes all the efficiency strategies at same time

. I don’t have super young kids - but DL took a huge toll even at elementary level. For older kids, with their structure taken away created newer challenges. It’s really hard to have same quality and the fatigue is very real. When I read the line about doing this another 106 days, that exactly describes my thoughts on doing this during the fal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People aren't talking about it because it requires admitting the vast majority of parents with school aged kids aren't able to work with the same availability or quality as pre-pandemic. And of course we all know and see that, but openly discussing it makes it real.

And we all know employers are looking for any reason to cut people right now. While they can't discriminate based on familial status, they certainly can terminate people for low performance.

So if we all just pretend like it isn't happening, we feel about 10% safer in our jobs, that we need to pay the bills. At least the employer would need to broach the conversation and document low performance to terminate for cause, which is a real bad look right now when you can just lay people off and give them unemployment. But if workers are out there talking about it, the employer has all the proof they need with no work on their side.

That is why she can speak up as a self-employed blogger and all us W2 employees are just trying to keep our heads down and appearances of having it together up.

I have not seen that at all... what industry do you work in?

Professional services/consulting. If you haven't seen people not available for meetings at normal work hours, kids interrupting calls, longer turnaround times on projects, coworkers harder to get ahold of... I would ask what kind of role you're in that you have such privileged coworkers?

Thr higher up in the organization, the less I've observed impacts. Many high ranking men have stay at home wives, or the high ranking women have the money to hire help like a nanny or a big enough house and retired parents thag can come stay with them. They have separate spaces they've turned into offices, nice furniture to work at, the ability to go buy monitors to recreate their work setup when the company ran out of extras to send home. A lot of them have older kids too by virtue of being older since they are further progressed in their careers.

The closer to "front line"/lower paid roles like admins, sales support, client service, etc - the more the impacts are noticeable. Not always, but they often are two income households, have younger kids, do not have guest or extra rooms in their homes they can dedicate to work, their extended families nd parents often still work themselves, and so on.

My company's situation is different. It is middle management that is dropping the ball. Frankly, our front line is different from yours in that our frontline workers (analysts, entry level sales and marketing) are almost all fairly recently out of college or graduate school and therefore have no kids. They have been working the same as before.

I would say the negative impact is actually the worst at the middle manager level at my company. That's where you have people balancing childcare for younger kids with a high workload and people-manager responsibilities and where you are seeing people dropping the ball and the effect is noticeable because other managers they have to work with notice it plus their direct reports are not getting managed or coached the way they should be.

I would say upper management generally does okay because some are older by the time they reach this senior level and therefore their kids are older--I know that three of the most senior women in our company have kids in college. The few with younger kids generally were able to line up care or they have a "trailing" spouse that has a more flexible job.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People aren't talking about it because it requires admitting the vast majority of parents with school aged kids aren't able to work with the same availability or quality as pre-pandemic. And of course we all know and see that, but openly discussing it makes it real.

And we all know employers are looking for any reason to cut people right now. While they can't discriminate based on familial status, they certainly can terminate people for low performance.

So if we all just pretend like it isn't happening, we feel about 10% safer in our jobs, that we need to pay the bills. At least the employer would need to broach the conversation and document low performance to terminate for cause, which is a real bad look right now when you can just lay people off and give them unemployment. But if workers are out there talking about it, the employer has all the proof they need with no work on their side.

That is why she can speak up as a self-employed blogger and all us W2 employees are just trying to keep our heads down and appearances of having it together up.

I have not seen that at all... what industry do you work in?

Professional services.

They pushed the curve that meeting basic expectations and not over achieving puts you at risk for layoffs come July 6. The next round will be in August. To millennials (which is majority of workforce) it’s being sold as performance issues. But a year earlier, the same performance would have gotten you a bonus not a lay-off. I’m in HR so know the game.

Any small drop in high (not average) performance - or miss - is quickly documented. Anyone on the bench is not meeting expectations so you need to be picked. It’s impacting people at all levels except partners.

I’m expected to put in 50+ hours of high impact work or you are at risk. Which when you are juggling equates to 60 hours for higher quality, bc I’m not as efficient. The firm pushes all the efficiency strategies at same time

. I don’t have super young kids - but DL took a huge toll even at elementary level. For older kids, with their structure taken away created newer challenges. It’s really hard to have same quality and the fatigue is very real. When I read the line about doing this another 106 days, that exactly describes my thoughts on doing this during the fal.

We are not laying off people but we have doing extra rounds of performance management including PIPs, etc. and are telling people that poor performance is given even less of a pass than before.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Multi generational housing is NOT the answer during the time of Covid! Are you nuts??? Look at what happened in Italy you idiots.

Exactly. Multi-generational households were THE driver of the high fatality rate in Italy. Hotel Mama is a common concept there, and it didn't work out well for the elders.

I don't know what we would do if my parents didn't live in the other unit of our multi-family home. Yes, it's somewhat of a risk, but it was the situation when this whole disaster started. I'm also eternally grateful that our jobs don't require the insane corporate workweeks of so many.

The solution here is job sharing for WCW buttressed by a UBI to provide a floor for all. Those who can't possibly work from home should be able to collect UI if they can't work due to childcare issues. That would be fair. But that's not the society that we live in. So we have this.....utter utter disaster.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So true. Woman will be set back by this for sure.

or men will finally step up.

And do what? They have precisely the dilemma described in the article - they need to send their kids to school and they need to go back to work - and the article did not propose any solutions.

It is idiotic to make this a men vs women problem, because it isn’t.

Women disproportionally do the vast bulk of childcare in this country.

SO. WHAT.

You’re totally missing the point.

WHAT DO YOU WANT MEN TO DO?

More childcare? Isn't that obvious? What are you missing here?

What kind of childcare? Provided by who? Why is that a “men step up” issue? What do you want me, a man who is not the CEO and has no great power or control in my company, to step up and do?

Pre-COVID: Who schedules doctor appointments and takes the kids in your house? Who monitors the kids homework and all the paperwork that comes home from school? Who researches, selects, registers, and arranges transportation for the kids to get summer camp every year?

Post-COVID: Who is responsible for providing childcare during the days the kids aren't at school?

"Stepping up" means don't leave it all for the mom to make it work. Pre-COVID moms did the vast majority of this work but they largely were able to balance it with paid work. That isn't possible post-COVID and it means for most dual income families, that someone is going to have to sacrifice. It shouldn't always be the mom.

And before you default to "well, my job pays more", you should take a second to appreciate that many women are paid less because they do the vast majority of the unpaid work and the gender pay gap itself is tied to parental leave (in countries with equitable parental leave policies, the gender pay gap closes).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So true. Woman will be set back by this for sure.

or men will finally step up.

And do what? They have precisely the dilemma described in the article - they need to send their kids to school and they need to go back to work - and the article did not propose any solutions.

It is idiotic to make this a men vs women problem, because it isn’t.

Women disproportionally do the vast bulk of childcare in this country.

SO. WHAT.

You’re totally missing the point.

WHAT DO YOU WANT MEN TO DO?

More childcare? Isn't that obvious? What are you missing here?

What kind of childcare? Provided by who? Why is that a “men step up” issue? What do you want me, a man who is not the CEO and has no great power or control in my company, to step up and do?

Make sure that your wife isn't taking on the bulk of childcare instead of you. Advocate to your employer that you need a flexible schedule because of childcare needs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Multi generational housing is NOT the answer during the time of Covid! Are you nuts??? Look at what happened in Italy you idiots.

Exactly. Multi-generational households were THE driver of the high fatality rate in Italy. Hotel Mama is a common concept there, and it didn't work out well for the elders.

It was also a big problem in Wuhan. The only child policy meant that sometimes a couple would live with two sets of grandparents.

[Anonymous]

BREAKING: structuring your life so you’re living at the limits of your capacity — emotional, financial, etc. — means you’re incredibly fragile. Some people don’t have a choice. Two-income white collar families do.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:BREAKING: structuring your life so you’re living at the limits of your capacity — emotional, financial, etc. — means you’re incredibly fragile. Some people don’t have a choice. Two-income white collar families do.

“You shouldn’t have had kids if you can’t take care of them,” is comically troll-like, but has come up so often, one might wonder if you’re supposed to educate your children at night. Or perhaps you should have been paying for some all-age day care backup that sat empty while kids were at school in case the school you were paying taxes to keep open and that requires, by law, that your child attend abruptly closed for the year.
-from the above linked NYT article.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So true. Woman will be set back by this for sure.

or men will finally step up.

Lololol

[Anonymous]

My husband has a small business that was hit very hard and trying to just survive and not lose his life’s work. So as much as I would like him to step up more - we are both in fragile spot. I can push myself for the internal metrics of my company - but I’m exhausted. He has far more external variables that he can’t control.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So true. Woman will be set back by this for sure.

or men will finally step up.

And do what? They have precisely the dilemma described in the article - they need to send their kids to school and they need to go back to work - and the article did not propose any solutions.

It is idiotic to make this a men vs women problem, because it isn’t.

Women disproportionally do the vast bulk of childcare in this country.

SO. WHAT.

You’re totally missing the point.

WHAT DO YOU WANT MEN TO DO?

More childcare? Isn't that obvious? What are you missing here?

What kind of childcare? Provided by who? Why is that a “men step up” issue? What do you want me, a man who is not the CEO and has no great power or control in my company, to step up and do?

Make sure that your wife isn't taking on the bulk of childcare instead of you. Advocate to your employer that you need a flexible schedule because of childcare needs.

I am a man. I already do the bulk of the childcare. I can ask my employer for flexibility, but there is nothing I can do "as a man stepping up" to make sure I get it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So true. Woman will be set back by this for sure.

or men will finally step up.

And do what? They have precisely the dilemma described in the article - they need to send their kids to school and they need to go back to work - and the article did not propose any solutions.

It is idiotic to make this a men vs women problem, because it isn’t.

Women disproportionally do the vast bulk of childcare in this country.

SO. WHAT.

You’re totally missing the point.

WHAT DO YOU WANT MEN TO DO?

More childcare? Isn't that obvious? What are you missing here?

What kind of childcare? Provided by who? Why is that a “men step up” issue? What do you want me, a man who is not the CEO and has no great power or control in my company, to step up and do?

Pre-COVID: Who schedules doctor appointments and takes the kids in your house? Who monitors the kids homework and all the paperwork that comes home from school? Who researches, selects, registers, and arranges transportation for the kids to get summer camp every year? I am a man, I did (and do) all that and more.

Post-COVID: Who is responsible for providing childcare during the days the kids aren't at school? Good question. We both have jobs.

"Stepping up" means don't leave it all for the mom to make it work. I never did that before. Pre-COVID moms did the vast majority of this work but they largely were able to balance it with paid work. That isn't possible post-COVID and it means for most dual income families, that someone is going to have to sacrifice. It shouldn't always be the mom.

And before you default to "well, my job pays more", you should take a second to appreciate that many women are paid less because they do the vast majority of the unpaid work and the gender pay gap itself is tied to parental leave (in countries with equitable parental leave policies, the gender pay gap closes). I don't agree with the "because" here. My wife gets paid less because she has less education and less responsibility, a choice she made long before she had kids, and indeed, long before she met me. And in any event she does not do, and never has done, "most of the unpaid work.".

Man answering.