Anonymous wrote:I hate that they paint this to be just a women’s issue. My husband and I are both struggling. I know many other men doing their share also struggling. Painting this in black and white terms as a problem that only impacts women is not accurate.

This is very true. Today, it's my husband who's having the hard time. He's the one supervising the DL while I work (and type on DCUM during a conference call I have to dial in to but don't need to participate in) and he's struggling. We both struggle.

HOWEVER, my situation is not the norm it seems, as my husband is a true partner in every sense of the word. For the most part, women have been disproportionately affected by what it going on, and that's what the article is getting at. If the percentage of men leaving the workforce was the same as women, it would be a neutral topic. But it's not, because too many men, whether they're husbands or bosses, are making this impossible for many women to do. I'm thankful I'm not one of those women and it sounds like maybe you are not either since your husband is in the same boat you are, but this IS a problem that is affecting women more than men, hands down.

Anonymous wrote:The thing is I would like to bring some of the suggestions in the article to my employer, but I know it would just raise a red flag with them and put me under more scrutiny. That’s part of what makes it so awful. Acknowledging the problem makes you a target.

Please if you are a male employer, read it all and think about changes within your company. Women need advocates here.

I hope everyone is telling this to their husbands. Even if they aren't employers, they should be talking to those who are and discussing the impacts this has on their life. Not having your husband have your back is totally unacceptable.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you don’t have children at home, think of ways to help those who do.

I take birth control so I don't have to do this. Why am I being asked to help parents (for free) but parents aren't being asked to help me? Do my laundry and pay my electricity bill, then I'll watch your kids. Every time someone says "but community" they're expecting help without giving anything back. Paint my living room if community is so important to you.

Those of us without kids are already picking up the slack in many offices. I've been doing the work of 1.75 FTE since last April. My coworkers know and say thank you, but I don't have a choice.

Yeah. But it's kind of interesting to see that some women have higher standards for childless women than they do for their own husbands. You need help? Start asking your DH for help. It's really sort of sexist that they expect other women to work for free just so their DH can maintain his lifestyle of doing nothing. I'm just not interested in doing additional work because a woman bred with a loser and she doesn't care to fix her household.

How do you fix your household? Like step by step?

My consulting fee is 10k.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you don’t have children at home, think of ways to help those who do.

I take birth control so I don't have to do this. Why am I being asked to help parents (for free) but parents aren't being asked to help me? Do my laundry and pay my electricity bill, then I'll watch your kids. Every time someone says "but community" they're expecting help without giving anything back. Paint my living room if community is so important to you.

Those of us without kids are already picking up the slack in many offices. I've been doing the work of 1.75 FTE since last April. My coworkers know and say thank you, but I don't have a choice.

Yeah. But it's kind of interesting to see that some women have higher standards for childless women than they do for their own husbands. You need help? Start asking your DH for help. It's really sort of sexist that they expect other women to work for free just so their DH can maintain his lifestyle of doing nothing. I'm just not interested in doing additional work because a woman bred with a loser and she doesn't care to fix her household.

How do you fix your household? Like step by step?

If spouses are unable to agree on division of chores: contact a therapist or find ways to motivate action (no help with plates=no cooked dinner)

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Vaccinate the teachers. Then open the damn schools. - my primal scream

That's great for you but what about me? My kids aren't school-aged yet. They were both supposed to be in preschool but I pulled them out due to covid concerns when, despite using birth control, I found out I'm pregnant with our 3rd. And now I don't want to send the baby to daycare until she's maybe 6 months or a year old for her health and safety.

Ok, what about you? What was your plan for childcare before COVID? Daycare, right? Many daycares are open. But, let's assume out of abundance of caution, you don't want to send your 2 kids (soon to be 3) to any childcare arrangement outside of home. Guess what. For the cost of 2 daycares (~3-3.5K depending on the ages) you can get a nanny to provide care in your home. Infant daycare is more like 2K+ in DC metro area (again, in non-Covid times), so with that math even with no pandemic you're better off with an individual nanny. Do you homework, screen them, pick someone whose risk tolerance is similar to yours, and that's your solution.

I haven't been able to fully read this piece because I AM SO TRIGGERED.

So yeah, it's spot on.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you don’t have children at home, think of ways to help those who do.

I take birth control so I don't have to do this. Why am I being asked to help parents (for free) but parents aren't being asked to help me? Do my laundry and pay my electricity bill, then I'll watch your kids. Every time someone says "but community" they're expecting help without giving anything back. Paint my living room if community is so important to you.

I have two kids, and I agree with you. I don't expect childless acquaintances to help me with my children for free.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:The thing that strikes me the most in a lot of these articles is how the fathers are there but not really helping out. Like, they see their wives on a work call and the kid crying at the same time, and go take a nap on the couch or walk back to their office. It’s so enraging and depressing at once. Women are being failed by the system writ large but also in their own homes. My DH is not perfect but he would never pull crap like that. We both work in a school, and as of this fall, I am teaching, he is an administrator, kids are also at daycare and school, albeit with lots of changes and restrictions. We have been lucky where I live, so lucky. My heart goes out to the mothers who are juggling these roles...I was there last spring, and it was so, so hard.

This. Covid has definitely wreaked havoc on people who are trying to work and also do all of the stuff that used to be covered by schools, but in many cases the reason women (as opposed to, you know, all parents) are affected so much is that the men are just not taking on much/any of the added burden. I hear story after story of this nature, and all of the DHs in question pride themselves on being enlightened, etc. And yet...

Women can take this opportunity to truly evaluate their marriages and determine whether or not they want to continue working two full time jobs. Believe it or not, this is the reason why MANY women become SAHMs - if the husband is not going to do both (earn money and take care of children/home) then the wife sure as hell doesn’t have to do both. If lifestyle has to take a hit, that’s on the men.

Yeah, that’s not really going to help any of these women in the long run, though.

Quit your job, get a divorce, hire childcare, or if none of those options are appealing then continue complaining about things you have no control over, I guess. Which of those is the LEAST helpful?

Quitting the job is the least helpful.

I quit my job and it’s been awesome. So much less stressful for the entire family. YMMV of course.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The thing that strikes me the most in a lot of these articles is how the fathers are there but not really helping out. Like, they see their wives on a work call and the kid crying at the same time, and go take a nap on the couch or walk back to their office. It’s so enraging and depressing at once. Women are being failed by the system writ large but also in their own homes. My DH is not perfect but he would never pull crap like that. We both work in a school, and as of this fall, I am teaching, he is an administrator, kids are also at daycare and school, albeit with lots of changes and restrictions. We have been lucky where I live, so lucky. My heart goes out to the mothers who are juggling these roles...I was there last spring, and it was so, so hard.

This. Covid has definitely wreaked havoc on people who are trying to work and also do all of the stuff that used to be covered by schools, but in many cases the reason women (as opposed to, you know, all parents) are affected so much is that the men are just not taking on much/any of the added burden. I hear story after story of this nature, and all of the DHs in question pride themselves on being enlightened, etc. And yet...

Women can take this opportunity to truly evaluate their marriages and determine whether or not they want to continue working two full time jobs. Believe it or not, this is the reason why MANY women become SAHMs - if the husband is not going to do both (earn money and take care of children/home) then the wife sure as hell doesn’t have to do both. If lifestyle has to take a hit, that’s on the men.

Yeah, that’s not really going to help any of these women in the long run, though.

Quit your job, get a divorce, hire childcare, or if none of those options are appealing then continue complaining about things you have no control over, I guess. Which of those is the LEAST helpful?

Quitting the job is the least helpful.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The thing that strikes me the most in a lot of these articles is how the fathers are there but not really helping out. Like, they see their wives on a work call and the kid crying at the same time, and go take a nap on the couch or walk back to their office. It’s so enraging and depressing at once. Women are being failed by the system writ large but also in their own homes. My DH is not perfect but he would never pull crap like that. We both work in a school, and as of this fall, I am teaching, he is an administrator, kids are also at daycare and school, albeit with lots of changes and restrictions. We have been lucky where I live, so lucky. My heart goes out to the mothers who are juggling these roles...I was there last spring, and it was so, so hard.

This. Covid has definitely wreaked havoc on people who are trying to work and also do all of the stuff that used to be covered by schools, but in many cases the reason women (as opposed to, you know, all parents) are affected so much is that the men are just not taking on much/any of the added burden. I hear story after story of this nature, and all of the DHs in question pride themselves on being enlightened, etc. And yet...

Women can take this opportunity to truly evaluate their marriages and determine whether or not they want to continue working two full time jobs. Believe it or not, this is the reason why MANY women become SAHMs - if the husband is not going to do both (earn money and take care of children/home) then the wife sure as hell doesn’t have to do both. If lifestyle has to take a hit, that’s on the men.

Yeah, that’s not really going to help any of these women in the long run, though.

Quit your job, get a divorce, hire childcare, or if none of those options are appealing then continue complaining about things you have no control over, I guess. Which of those is the LEAST helpful?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Vaccinate the teachers. Then open the damn schools. - my primal scream

That's great for you but what about me? My kids aren't school-aged yet. They were both supposed to be in preschool but I pulled them out due to covid concerns when, despite using birth control, I found out I'm pregnant with our 3rd. And now I don't want to send the baby to daycare until she's maybe 6 months or a year old for her health and safety.

Daycares are open lady.

PP again — oh, and for those who wonder why teachers don’t want to go back... did you know that even in regular years they have to put in their own money for stuff like Kleenex and cleaning supplies? If you were teaching in a system so broken you had to buy Kleenex for your students, would you trust them to keep you safe in the middle of a global pandemic?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Vaccinate the teachers. Then open the damn schools. - my primal scream

+1

I work a high-risk job outside of the house as a unionized professional. I didn't have the option to protest going to work unless I quit or found a remote job. We've been wearing masks at my workplace for a year and have low staff infection rates despite being exposed to COVID from our high-risk clients as well as each other.

Vaccinate the teachers, ramp up ventilation and sanitation protocols, follow common sense guidelines even if it's inconvenient or costs more to staff, seek alternatives to traditional classroom instruction as long as it gets kids out of the house. School districts and teacher unions need to get it together.

+ infinity

Save your rant. It’s not school boards who decide when teachers get vaccinated, and if there is adequate supply. It’s not the school boards that have endless resources to allocate to all the improvements and changes that would be needed to follow any of the public health plans that have been outlined for safe reopening. I live in a district where most schools don’t have windows that open. In the middle of a pandemic. What are the options?

My kid goes to a private school, and even they didn’t have the funds to redo their ventilation system after getting one of those grants from the government. The system was never meant to be able to sustain this kind of stress. We are living in a failed state, with an utterly disastrous pandemic response.

I am also tired of people who say, well I interact with people all day at my job. Unless you’re sitting in an airtight room with 30 other people for 8 hours it’s not the same situation in terms of risk of transmission. Not the same PPE. Not the same time exposure. Not the same ventilation. Etc.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Vaccinate the teachers. Then open the damn schools. - my primal scream

+1

I work a high-risk job outside of the house as a unionized professional. I didn't have the option to protest going to work unless I quit or found a remote job. We've been wearing masks at my workplace for a year and have low staff infection rates despite being exposed to COVID from our high-risk clients as well as each other.

Vaccinate the teachers, ramp up ventilation and sanitation protocols, follow common sense guidelines even if it's inconvenient or costs more to staff, seek alternatives to traditional classroom instruction as long as it gets kids out of the house. School districts and teacher unions need to get it together.

+ infinity

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you don’t have children at home, think of ways to help those who do.

I take birth control so I don't have to do this. Why am I being asked to help parents (for free) but parents aren't being asked to help me? Do my laundry and pay my electricity bill, then I'll watch your kids. Every time someone says "but community" they're expecting help without giving anything back. Paint my living room if community is so important to you.

Those of us without kids are already picking up the slack in many offices. I've been doing the work of 1.75 FTE since last April. My coworkers know and say thank you, but I don't have a choice.

Yeah. But it's kind of interesting to see that some women have higher standards for childless women than they do for their own husbands. You need help? Start asking your DH for help. It's really sort of sexist that they expect other women to work for free just so their DH can maintain his lifestyle of doing nothing. I'm just not interested in doing additional work because a woman bred with a loser and she doesn't care to fix her household.

How do you fix your household? Like step by step?