‘I don’t know if I can do this’ Parents brace for school year juggling jobs, remote learning
But as the virus surges throughout the U.S. and many school districts again shift much or all learning online, those remote routines are resuming with no clear end in sight. Now, employers and employees are grappling with how to adapt to a new reality that may require them to extend short-term fixes and create more long-term solutions, whether that’s staggering schedules, splitting jobs between two workers or offering leaves of absence. “I think employers had to very quickly allow a lot of things in the spring that they can’t sustain on an ongoing basis without a little more thought and a little more structure around it,’’ said Patty Pryor, a principal and litigation manager for the law firm Jackson Lewis who focuses on disability and leave management issues. “There has to be flexibility for all this to work out.’ The stakes are high. Without support, some overwhelmed parents, particularly mothers, who typically take on more of the caregiving burden, say they will likely drop out of the workforce – and many already have. Mothers stop working An analysis of federal census data by the Center for American Progress found that from April through July, roughly a third of unemployed millennial mothers were not working because of the closure of a school or child care
amid COVID-19 pandemic Charisse Jones | USA TODAY | August 17, 2020 T would stretch into the fall. “I was like, I cannot do six more months of this,’’ said Wells, a mother of four who is director of education for the global health program at UCLA’s David Geffen School of Medicine. With her husband working as well, “I don’t know how we’re going to be on all the calls and get the work done when we have these responsibilities. It’s just really, really hard.’’ When the coronavirus outbreak led schools to shut down in the spring, parents had to quickly rally, juggling their jobs with the added roles of teacher, tutor and occasional IT technician. raci Wells was at a school board meeting when she found out the springtime balancing act between her job and helping her children with online schooling It was a stressful time, but one that many families presumed would be temporary, coming at the end of the school year.
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The Business Review | September 2020
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