“I just gave birth … and I’ll be back at work in a couple weeks”: Out-of-office messages expose the impossible math of U.S. caregiving.
This commentary is co-published with The Contrarian.
This Thanksgiving, I have the good fortune to be a dinner guest at someone else’s table—in this case, my dad’s amazing independent living facility. I am in awe of the dynamic community he has found there and doubly grateful for its staff who will be taking care of our family’s turkey feast.
For too many though, especially women, kicking off the holidays is the polar opposite of rest and revelry. And it is not just due to seasonal overdrive. Caregiving in this country has reached crisis levels: A record number now serve as unpaid caregivers, an “unseen workforce” in desperate need of policy support, according to a recent report published by Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health.
Nearly half of the states are on the brink of a caregiving emergency, with the worst conditions concentrated in the deep South. Today, roughly one in four American adults are caregivers, with most (59 million) caring for adults and another 4 million for children under 18 with an illness or disability.
A recent report by the AARP and National Alliance for Caregiving reveals a devastating reality for caregivers forced to take on Herculean responsibilities, nearly always at the expense of their own health and financial stability.
Enter: a new public awareness campaign, “Out of Office for Care,” which launched this week—right in time for Thanksgiving—by Paid Leave for All, a collaboration of organizations and individuals leading the fight for paid family and medical leave for all working people. Founded in 2019, Paid Leave for All represents millions of workers, small businesses, caregivers, families and advocates nationwide.
#OutofOfficeforCare invites employees to set their “OOO” automated email replies to accurately reflect the array of care responsibilities that pull them away from work, and then share those messages publicly. People across industries—artists, founders, caregivers, cultural influencers, nurses, educators, nonprofit leaders, small business owners and parents—can give the country an unfiltered look at why they step away from work, and what it costs to do so without paid leave.
“People across the country are setting their out-of-office messages and finally saying the quiet part out loud: They’re stepping away to care,” said Dawn Huckelbridge, founding director of Paid Leave for All. “They’re sharing these messages publicly to make plain the caregiving that shapes our lives. While many of these messages have some humor, they remind us that care is the backbone of this country, and that it’s past time the U.S. passed paid leave. Too many of us don’t have an ‘out of office,’ or any paid time to care.”
OOO replies range from clever to catastrophic. Some name the person they are caring for; others reveal the exhaustion of trying to do it all. All together, they show a country exerting caring in every direction and a policy landscape that hasn’t caught up.
Among those making the rounds:
- “Thanks for your note! I’m OOO because my parents are getting older and I can’t manage their RX and 500 unread emails at once. In-home care is $60K and I have limited PTO. WiIl get back to you ASAP!”
- “Hi, sorry to miss you! I’m OOO because I just gave birth, but like 1 in 4 women in the U.S. I’ll be back at work in a couple weeks.”
- “OOO for recovery. Healing is its own kind of labor.”
- “Out for caregiving … because when my child is sick, I go too.”
This action comes at a pivotal moment. More than 450,000 women have left the workforce this year, one of the steepest declines outside the pandemic. Workers point to burnout, the crushing cost of childcare, and lack of access to paid family and medical leave as defining pressures—all while our nation’s lawmakers continue to enjoy full paid time off.
#OutofOfficeforCare aims to turn a rote ritual into a national conversation about who has time to care and who doesn’t.
In addition to amplifying social media posts, Paid Leave For All is running digital billboards in Washington, D.C., and in New York City’s Times Square during one of the busiest travel weeks of the year. All messages gathered will be delivered to Congress when lawmakers return to Washington.
Make no mistake: Caregiving is a feminist issue and a civic value. Transforming our inboxes into a mosaic of OOO messages is a powerful way of visualizing the vast scope of care work that keeps our families, communities—and democracy—functioning.
