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

[Anonymous]

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/02/business/covid-economy-parents-kids-career-homeschooling.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage

Yep.

[Anonymous]

Brilliant article from the Smitten Kitchen lady. Who knew she was multi-talented!

[Anonymous]

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

[Anonymous]

Thanks for sharing this. So true and depressing.

[Anonymous]

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.

[Anonymous]

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

or men will finally step up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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

or men will finally step up.

+1.

[Anonymous]

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?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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

or men will finally step up.

Hahahahahahahahahahaha

[Anonymous]

Yep. Totally true. But when people say “schools need to open so I can work” the response is, “school isn’t daycare! Figure it out!”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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

or men will finally step up.

Hahahahahahahahahahaha

My thoughts exactly.

[Anonymous]

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.

[Anonymous]

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.

[Anonymous]

This is what all the reopen governors should have focused on. Let's be careful, everyone wear masks, lots of testing, squash as much virus transmission as possible so we can have schools and daycares open so the economy can go back to functioning. But nope.

[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/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.