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

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

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]

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?[/quote]

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).

[/quote]

This isn’t just a wage gap issue. My husband makes less than half what I do and yet still refuses to acknowledge the looming child care issue for next fall or take steps to request accommodations with his office, partly because he’s convinced « something will work out ».  In the meantime I am scrambling to rearrange my work schedule and considering requesting to temporarily reduce my work hours [for an accompanying reduction in pay]. I know many would say this a husband problem, and believe me I have tried to tell him he needs to step up but absent divorce not sure what more I can do. For better or worse I think this situation is often the norm for husband/wife partnerships regardless of the wage distribution and the fact that my husband’s (military) supervisory chain basically assumes his wife will handle any child care issues definitely doesn’t help.

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This is PP.  I did not mean that it was a wage issue, but that wage differences are often used as an excuse to continue foisting childcare responsibilities onto women.  Also the irony that women being responsible for childcare in the first place results in wage differences.

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