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?

So many great posts on this thread. Sad ones too - that all resonate with me and my experience. @TooExtraImmatureCheddar you summed so much of it up - the crazy juggle and the guilt no matter what you do.

So what can we do? I like the idea of a women’s strike, but don’t know if we can pull that off. How about a petition on the parliament website for starters? At least try and get this debated by MPs? We could draft the text on here. Ask something along the lines of:

1. parents be paid a home schooling allowance when their child’s school is either closed or bubble shut down - leave it open to debate as to whether that’s universal or related to income (ie so it’s targetted more at lower income families)

1. Gov sets out now what catch up provision will be available in the summer
2. Gov issues statutory guidance to employers on flexible working for parents, including a requirement to undertake an impact assessment this time next year to assess the impact corona virus has had on the sex and gender inequalities in their work place, including progression, access to career development and pay

?

It’s also the assumption that working from home means you’re on a laptop answering calls and zooming. Lots of us have to produce stuff. We use heavy machinery and technical often hazardous materials, or we rely on being on site, or working with clients etc etc. Many self employed have already had to move/ downsize premises etc, and now the assumption is that we should do work from our kitchen while watching the kids.

I am for universal homeschooling allowance , per child.

Absolutely a massive feminist issue.

I’m in the civil service - no furlough, but we had an offer of special paid leave. I took two weeks off, when it was that or have a breakdown, because working with a 2.5 year old was literally impossible. I also had oversight of my unit of 100ish people and their leave applications - we were vastly weighted towards women taking the leave. In fact I can only think of two men who did - one to take care of a sick parent, and one who had recently taken six months shared parental leave (so not reaching any men for whom flexibly looking after their kids would be a new thing).

I’m now on mat leave, I went on it a month early (back in July) because I just couldn’t cope. My DH is good, but I have the lower paid, part time, more flexible career. Whilst there is an element of choice there, the fact that I have this career and he has the higher paid, full time, inflexible career is of course partly sex-based, it would be ridiculous to suggest otherwise.

Unfortunately I can’t see an answer which is not generational - raising today’s kids and teenagers to believe that raising children is genuinely something to be shared by both parents.

A pp said that women love their children more. I’m not sure I would agree - but on the whole women are expected to (and subsequently do) sacrifice themselves for their children, in a way which is very rarely seen in men.

Also I just want to clarify that I don’t want schools to be open. Ours have been horrendous in covid 19 numbers, really frightening. Neither do I wish to pay to put them in another corona petri dish in the form of paid childcare by way of an alternative.

Totally agree. I'm a single mum of 3 and was made redundant after the last round - they based it on recent performance so it was meant to be unbiased but of course what that really meant was that those of us with small children all.lost out, even if our performance had been stellar last year. However because caring responsibilities aren't a protected characteristic, there was no official discrimination, as there were plenty of child-free women who we stayed.

I think a big part of this is making caring responsibilities a protected characteristic, and acknowledging that women as a group are going to need more support, and single mums (who are disproportionately from disadvantaged groups already) in particular.

It will be a net benefit to society too, to keep women in work or help them return - increases productivity, increases tax take and reduces benefits and numbers of children growing up in poverty.

I frankly don’t WANT to “bookend” my day with working. Call me selfish 😂

At 6 months pregnant when my toddler is in bed I want to bloody rest. I already get up at 6am with him, getting up earlier isn’t a practical option.

I’m so upset by all of this.

I don't want more money or furlough. I just want reliable childcare so that I can do my job. I have a three year old and I work from home providing online mental health services to vulnerable children. The work cannot be done out with daytime hours as I need to talk to the children directly and not surprisingly they are asleep when my toddler is asleep. My employer is in another country and I am the only single parent of a preschool child. When I asked for help during the last lockdown I was told that there was no other work I could do and it was strongly implied that if I couldn't do the work maybe this wasn't the right job for me (they're not daft enough to put that in writing though). I can't write a post on Mumsnet without interruptions I can hardly do my job with a three year old "in the corner of the room", which is the current government backed advice. The rate of infection in my area is 56 out of 100000. How is closing nurseries acceptable in these circumstances? I have written to my MSP 3 times and not even received an acknowledgement let alone a reply.

frankly don’t WANT to “bookend” my day with working.

No I bet. Also zero chance in my industry. The entire day is calls with clients / colleagues who need you to be present otherwise you not at work at all.

Last lock down I had a newborn (born in March), 2 primary kids and DH. This time around I have the 9 month old baby, 2 primary kids, DH and a full time new role in senior leadership in a FTSE 100 company. I am terrified. I only started in November so I don't feel able to make demands however I truly don't see how this is manageable. DH is still the higher earner so it will fall to me predominately. Hopefully the baby will still be ok in nursery.

Women always have these discussions and questions, yet I don't see any of the husbands having these conversations. I am on a WhatsApp with lots of working mums at the school and we are all trying to plan. The inequality of the sexes is real. It is only truly and obviously evident once you are a mother, and it is getting worse and worse this year alone.

Hey @HappyPumpkin81 it’s shit, isn’t it?
Just to say - the suggestion of requiring the government to pay us for home schooling isn’t necessarily because we want more money (although for those who have lost their jobs or had to cut hours due to childcare, that is clearly very important). It’s also an attempt to quantify the actual value of what women (mainly) are having to do when we are both working and juggling home school. Without that quantification and hit where it hurts, it will continue to be ignored as we’ll continue to have to suck it all up.
And none of that is meant as being anti school closure (in my area I think it is sadly necessary). It’s about the total disregard of the impact those closures have on women and the complete failure to put any remedial measures in place to off set that impact.

And there is also:

Cooking, planning and buying for a whole load of extra meals for everyone who is now home all the time

No cleaners in the house so suddenly can’t outsource that, or the ironing and constant tidying up after everyone

And

It’s about the total disregard of the impact those closures have on women and the complete failure to put any remedial measures in place to off set that impact.

And the lack of time to prepare because of poor decision making processes.

@ArabellaScott

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.

YY @ArabellaScott - I also noted the prevalence of inter-generational violence against women in the femicide survey. Around 10 women had been killed by their sons or grandsons. As always, the number of deaths is the tip of the iceberg and this is something I'm really interested in. The army of older women filling the gap from straightforward childcare to stepping in to foster troubled children is completely invisible.

@Grellbunt

And there is also:

Cooking, planning and buying for a whole load of extra meals for everyone who is now home all the time

No cleaners in the house so suddenly can’t outsource that, or the ironing and constant tidying up after everyone

And

You can still have cleaners at least at the moment anyway. Unless yours won’t come - don’t make life any harder for yourself by cancelling any outsourced stuff that can still happen.

I really like the idea of employers having to investigate the impact on their employees by sex, caring responsibilities etc. It needs to be discussed

@Femin1st I understand. I think I am just pissed off that I am continually being asked to make sacrifices for a society that I feel has no regard for me or my child.

My cleaners cancelled because... she doesn’t have childcare 😂😫

@LittleBearPad Cleaners are not supposed to be entering homes in Scotland. I have not heard from mine though and if they show up I will let them in. I always leave the house when they are here anyway. I feel Nicola Sturgeon is trying to make life as difficult as possible for women in Scotland!

Nipolean is no friend to women that’s for sure.

I see the problem as being a lack of properly funded childcare, and that has been the fault of the Government for years. It's appalling that women have to scrabble around, trying to find someone to care for their children while they work.

Before the pandemic, thousands of childminders and nurseries were lost through poor funding. When I became a childminder nearly 20 years ago, there were well over 100,000 of us: just before the pandemic, there were less than 40,000.

We are now seeing the longterm effects of all that childcare expertise being thrown away. Even now, they have largely ignored childcare and Early Years in their announcements.

We kept working during the last lockdown, taking keyworker children. Childminders are much smaller settings and could so easily have been used to set up childcare bubbles.

Agree with OP and most on here. I feel physically ill just thinking about going back to work with two dc at home, one with SEN.

Last lockdown I became really sick trying to juggle kids, ft work and schooling with no support. DH struggled too. I ended up breaking and lost a big project to someone else in the organization (yep, child free single man took it on). I also lost my career progression opportunity as was too poorly and exhausted to go through the interview and assessment process.

No option to furlough. My only option really is to ask to go part time and this will put our family in a precarious position financially.

This is absolutely a feminist issue. The whole system of work, caring, policy and political planning is weighted against women as a class. Not just currently but historically and as a default. So at a time of crisis it is women who “fail” and fail first.

[quote HappyPumpkin81]@LittleBearPad Cleaners are not supposed to be entering homes in Scotland. I have not heard from mine though and if they show up I will let them in. I always leave the house when they are here anyway. I feel Nicola Sturgeon is trying to make life as difficult as possible for women in Scotland![/quote]
Sorry - I didn’t know the Scottish rules, that’s rubbish!

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.
1000X this!
Women make up a vast army of unpaid carers the world over and it's just expected of us. Even just the extra work of shopping for elderly relatives during all of this, has taken up so much of my time. All the helpful neighbours and such we read about in the first wave, how many of them were men, really?
My work has been extremely busy due to Covid, and yes, lots of lip service paid to flexibility, but I have seen women take the hit over and over, even while some of the men at work have made a big thing of putting "school run" in their diaries, the women have been trying to act like they can do it all, and failing in all areas because in reality their husbands just don't think their wives jobs are as important.
I had one chap during the first school closures complaining that he had to work in his bedroom as the children were too noisy. His wife also had a full time job, but apparently he had to be shut away as he needed to be on calls all day..I would have loved to hear her side of that!
Add to all of this the fact that almost all lone parents are women, and that the children of lone parents statistically have worse outcomes, this is further disadvantaging a group of women and children that can least bear it.
Fine, close schools, but the media and the government need to be honest about who is getting screwed over. They need to be keeping score, collecting data, and doing a real enquiry into how they can stop women bearing the brunt of the next pandemic/crisis. We need to learn from this. The country needs to wake up to the reality of invisible labour. And we need to legislate somehow so that men are automatically disadvantaged by having children in exactly the same way women are, because it's only when they have to deal with that will we get anywhere.

I also have problems due to this.

Reading this thread though has made me think that while it is a feminist issue, it's very specifically a mothering issue. There's also a parental issue, but fundamentally it's about mothers.

Like someone upthread said, the women who take time off/away due to homeschooling will later be competing with other men and women who don't. So she still misses out.

The idea of mothering becoming a protected category is quite interesting. Imagine how just that one thing would revolutionise how women who have children are viewed in the workplace, never mind wider society.

From an intersectional viewpoint, being female plus being a mother is a double disadvantage and I'd add in a working mother as a third, further, issue.

*treated in the workplace maybe, rather than viewed.