School closures: Thousands of women have just had their double shift doubled

[Carefulvulvadriver]

What should the feminist response to the above be? Yes yes, of course fathers should do their share of the home school and childcare, but we know many dont and wont, and that still leaves a problem for single mothers like me.
This afternoon the government has announced that 100s of primary schools across the country will not reopen as planned in January. I suspect many more will be added to the list over the next week or so.
We know that will leave 1000s of women once again having to juggle work, childcare and home school. They will feel the stress and hit to their mental health of trying to do that. They will miss out on promotions, pay rises and opportunities as a result. They will have to cancel study plans. Many will work until 3am each morning as the only chance they will have to work will be after the kids have gone to bed. And as ever, it will be the poorest women who will be the worst hit, as will their kids. Some men will suffer from this too, but it will disproportionately hit women.

How should feminists respond? Surely this IS a feminist issue - it's about how social policy and our economic way of life has not been designed with women in mind. The woman stuff - the looking after children and educating them - is somehow to be tagged on as an after thought; the work and time to be magic-ed out of thin air, as it's only the man stuff that counts or is important.

In my view we should be demanding paid parenting leave, funded by the government. I think we should also be putting pressure on the government to confirm it will run "catch up" schools in the summer holidays for the kids who have missed out on education (there will be a problem getting the staffing, although I wonder if TAs might be available as I know that in some cases they are on zero hour contracts and so not paid in the holidays).

What else? Any one got any ideas? And what if we dont get it? Will we just do what so many of us did back in spring (me included) and just suck it up? I love my job, I'm lucky that it's really fulfilling, but isnt it time we refused to do the impossible?

Furlough should be offered to parents of primary aged children off school.

I think the school closures will attract more sympathy because they're so publicised. It's the two-weeks bubble burst isolation that has completely done in a lot of my friends.

So if that didn't make sense- with the lack of childcare I went for the ' on the clock 10-12 h per day' model but still had to cut some work. The bits that get cut are the bits that progress your career ( research in my case) because you can't cut the basics (teaching) but doing only the basics makes you look like a failure (not clever enough for research).

I expect there are analogous problems in a lot of career type jobs, having those extra couple of hours each day disproportionately affects career progression. It's a feminist issue even in normal times.

It is a huge issue for women

Children too who lose out

@issue

jeaux90 This is a feminist issue, of course it is, the government don't give a shit about mums, single or married.

--- this 1 million times.

Although I had hoped employers may see the benefit of home working and that that may help women but now I wonder ...

it's not possible for parents (of young children) to do both - work, childcare and homeschool. We furloughed staff who had to care for children.

@Redlocks28 totally my experience too.
Just to give another perspective- lots of families I know it's been the women going out to work (in schools, nhs, law firms etc) and men staying at home with kids, then catching up with their work in evenings/weekends or taking annual leave.
Lots of the men really enjoyed the time with their kids. And several I know liked the opportunity to be more flexible with work, knowing that their colleagues and bosses would be understanding. When previously they felt they needed to be 'on' full time even when family life needed flexibitly but in a more hidden way (like no one in the house sleeping cos of newborn, or wife pregnant and needing a lot of support etc), now they know they could share their need to be flexible and everyone at work would understand.
So in some cases I think lockdown has been very helpful for businesses seeing that they can and need to be flexible with all parents. Ie I think in some circumstances lockdown has helped make parenting more equal

I work 30hrs in a key worker position outside the home. H works fulltime from home. I have one child at college, and two at school, one of whom has Aspergers. I made the decision a couple of months before Christmas to stop doing all the housework I was doing, and this simply led to H berating the children for not pulling their weight. We have had to use savings to ensure each of them has a laptop to access remote learning, but I am not in the house to ensure it happens, and H thinks that as he is working when he is home, it's not up to him, which has been the same with general housework, though there is much fanfare if he has put a wash on during the day when I come back. Child with Aspergers has struggled enormously with the uncertainty.

It was coming anyway, but this has been the death knell for the marriage, and we are now going to separate, but that presents its own issues in the current situation, too, and obviously just because the marriage is over, as I am still in the home, when I am not at work, the default assumption is I will cook, clean, and monitor school. Even when I tried to drop it all deliberately, I was pestered constantly with 'What can I cook? What do we eat?' type questions via text. And obviously, I used the money I was saving to leave, to tide us over and now we're in Tier 4, so there's no realistic option of me being able to move on from this nightmare because I am the one on part time wages.

Is that all a feminist issue? Probably. Am I utterly exhausted? Fuck yes.

I’ve emailed my MSP.

Another small note to make - the need for older women - grandmothers - to distance/isolate, must also be having an impact, as so much of childcare burden is borne by them. This is a conveniently invisible sector, those who will care for their family for no recompense support the economy to a shocking degree (remember the grandparents' strike in Spain?). Still lots of older women doing the school pick up where we are, endangering their own health in the process.

Also to all women affected by this, what a shit year it's been for so many.

I’m feeling physically sick about it.
I keep trying to write it out but the logistics are making me feel so stressed, it’s worse seeing the impossibility of it written down in black and white.
Self employed.

Another issue is, if women with children have paid time off work then who is going to pick up the slack at work? You can bet your bottom dollar it will be the other women in the office! The men will be too important to busy themselves with womens work.

I worked myself to the bone last lockdown and I've already told my manager that I'm not doing it again.

I think it needs financial support and not necessarily furlough. Self employed parents (and particularly self employed who fall through the cracks of support , of which there are MANY) are going to suffer immensely due to school closures.
I feel I need some sort of not quite universal basic income to do this again. Parental basic income or something. Not joking

@HunterHearstHelmsley

Another issue is, if women with children have paid time off work then who is going to pick up the slack at work? You can bet your bottom dollar it will be the other women in the office! The men will be too important to busy themselves with womens work.

I worked myself to the bone last lockdown and I've already told my manager that I'm not doing it again.

Just to be clear, I'm not saying I don't think there shouldn't be paid time off. Just that there is a further feminist issue wrapped up in it.

@Candiscophonous

I’m feeling physically sick about it. I keep trying to write it out but the logistics are making me feel so stressed, it’s worse seeing the impossibility of it written down in black and white. Self employed.

I really feel for you. If you want to outline we can try and help. But likely paid cc which is ££ and not always possible. It’s so hard.

And it’s so maddening and sad how much of the public discussion around this (when it even exists!) treats caring for and educating children as things we just make happen that don’t require any actual time, and that we should stop whinging about not being able to outsource.

The importance and cost of caring, all caring, for children, disabled friends and relatives, elderly relatives and neighbours, has been totally overlooked in this pandemic.

Parents are expected to work from home whilst homeschooling kids because caring for kids (never mind also educating them!) is not seen as work.

People were cut off from essential childcare support networks for ages because no-one in government appreciated the massive economic burden of childcare provided by informal family relations.

Bubbles to support the elderly or disabled weren't considered for ages because they don't realise how much invisible work gets done by the millions of friends, neighbours and relatives looking out for each other. Even now, a support bubble is supposed to be one person per vulnerable adult when, in my experience, families have usually coped by spreading the load across multiple people.

Don't get me started on how children and adults in residential settings have been abandoned because they're not allowed visitors, with that being seen as an "acceptable mitigant".

This invisible work has never been acknowledged for the essential role it plays in keeping society going. It mostly isn't paid work and its mostly done by women, and frequently older women at that, so it clearly can be forgotten.

Bunting and all the other women struggling .

I definitely experienced burnout during the first lockdown, trying to do it all. OH has loads on and was in a precarious situation, but also tended to default to sending the kids to me if there were any issues. This caused lots of rows. My youngest is a ball of energetic who won't sit in front of telly for any length of time and eldest is at a key stage and needed substantial and consistent support with her education. She was also very emotional and upset about suddenly being cut off from friends. Like many PPs I would get up early and stay up late to get work done and tried to meet their needs in between. There were many work video calls with children demanding attention or smallest crying in the background, while I tried to hold it together and focus. I found it harder and harder to concentrate as I became more tired. I don't want to do it again and I'm genuinely considering quitting.

If any one can put £ towards it try for temporary help. It’s too much to take on

@MarshaBradyo. Completely agree. Outsource if you can. Try neighbour's teenagers, university students still at home, online babysitting and childcare sites. I've always managed to find help when I've asked around. Better than leaving young children unattended.

So many of the employers who have been less flexible will be men too. This pandemic has seen the same industries, such as hospitality, take the hit over and over. It is also women who will have done much of the hard, still out of the home, work too, rather than being at home.

A universal basic income would be a good starting point.

This has to be a government led push to ensure all businesses are expected to support families who need to be at home.
Children cannot be left alone, I've been put in the position of leaving one of mine by my headteacher, awful choice - SP so job or child safety.

Furlough for childcare reasons needs to be much more publicised and expected, men included.
Flexibility, leave, weekend working. I know impossible in some cases but not all.
Women also need to expect that their employer and their partner step up.

One thing I find interesting about the idea of WFH with children is how many people now think it is totally possible if you just put the effort in, but probably wouldn’t have thought that before. It’s not that they don’t realise. They do realise, but drop that realisation under pressure.

If you asked on here in pre-pandemic times “AIBU to take my kids out of school(/nursery) and homeschool because I’m WFH now? I’m sure I can still carry out a full day’s work on my laptop while I’m teaching them phonics, so my employer shouldn’t mind” you’d have been snowed under with “YABVVVU of course you can’t do that!” replies. There’s a reason that most employers didn’t allow WFH without childcare, and it’s not because they deeply cared about preserving work-life balances.

But now, even on here, it’s sneery comments about how childcare is your responsibility, or it’ll make kids less coddled and more resilient if they develop independent learning skills, or employers thinking that “it’s okay, you don’t need to work all your hours between 9 and 5” will make it doable.

Some people don’t know or care what caring for and educating children involves. But so many others do know, and yet will forget when other options become hard too. It’s as if acknowledging this work is like swimming upstream - even many of those who do it sometimes will give up on it once the currents pushing you against it get stronger.

That’s ok but many , many people are self employed. Lots fell through the net of support last time, and continued to work through and juggle childcare , despite reduced earning capacity due to cancelled contracts etc. This time it won’t be contracts we’ll be losing , it’ll be our careers.

[quote MessAllOver]@MarshaBradyo. Completely agree. Outsource if you can. Try neighbour's teenagers, university students still at home, online babysitting and childcare sites. I've always managed to find help when I've asked around. Better than leaving young children unattended.[/quote]
I think it's important to note that indecision on the part of the government has left women with very little time to arrange additional support. It was clear prior to Christmas that rates were rising and the pressure on hospitals increasing. They missed an opportunity to make this announcement on Monday, insisting that schools would remain open. I also think the point a lot of women are making is that they're working extra hours around the kids needs. Bookending the day with work. This delaying the inevitable has happened repeatedly throughout the crisis. It's then harder to develop effective contingency plans and leaves everyone chasing their tale.

Or indeed their tail