Closing schools was supposed to decrease possible COVID contacts, helping to flatten the curve. But opening schools might actually be safer than the unregulated alternatives that parents have come up with for educating and caring for their kids during the workday.
Tag: Parenting
From Latchkey to Lock-in: Solo Moms Don’t Get to Choose Between Parenting and Providing
Many women in many dual-parent households have dropped out of the workforce during the pandemic to carry this domestic load, but most solo moms can’t do that. We have to keep the plates spinning as best we can. I wonder about all the other pandemic lock-in kids living in single-mother households—roughly one quarter of the U.S. population.
Charting a Future of Child Care Post COVID-19 and Beyond
The 2020 she-cession laid bare for everyone just how broken the childcare system is. Fixing the broken child care system is about getting our country back on track. But more specifically, it’s about providing women the critical support we need to participate in the labor force, as well as care for our own social-emotional health.
Women Aren’t “Opting Out” of the Work Force. They’re Being Forced Out
Crushed by the load of caregiving, women are leaving workplaces in droves, and the wage gap is an important motivator.
“A more accurate description of ‘opting out’ is in fact women being forced out of work—forced out by companies that never really wanted us there anyway, forced out by managers who are not amenable to being flexible, forced out by partners who are not willing to pick up their part of the load at home, and forced out by constantly being ground down through silencing, erasure and plain old everyday sexism in our paid work.”
Amy Coney Barrett’s ‘Happy Go Lucky’ Haitian Children and the White Savior Narrative
Despite the national political drama that is swirling, in many ways, last week’s Senate hearings to approve Justice Amy Coney Barrett were uneventful (especially in comparison to the confirmation hearings that took place two years ago for Brett Kavanaugh). But, for me as a Haitian-American scholar who writes about representations of Haiti and Black girlhood, there was a moment that disturbed me.
Vote For Paid Leave: Women’s Rights Are on Ballot—Along With Their Children’s
One in four U.S. women without paid leave return to work within 10 days of giving birth.
With an abundance of other topics to address—from abortion rights and racial injustice protests to the global COVID crisis—paid parental leave has the potential to get lost, but mustn’t.
It Was Never About Saving Babies. It Was Always About Motherhood.
There is perhaps no better (or eerier) reminder of the insidious, underlying idea that women are destined to be mothers than the nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to fill RBG’s spot on the Supreme Court.
Barrett is not “the new face of feminism”; this is a repackaged misogyny guised behind a smiling mother—a mother that values this identity so much, she wants to create a world where giving birth is no longer a choice, but a legal mandate.
Afghanistan Will Now Include Mothers’ Names in Children’s Birth Certificates
Afghan mothers will have their names printed on their children’s national identity cards, thanks to the #WhereIsMyName campaign, which challenged taboos around women’s names.
President Ashraf Ghani on Thursday signed into law an amendment long sought by women’s rights campaigners.
Until now, Afghan law dictated that only the father’s name should be recorded on ID cards.
Using a woman’s name in public in Afghanistan is traditionally frowned upon and can be considered an insult.
A Roof of One’s Own
In this personal essay, Ms. contributor Suhasini Yeeda shares her reflections on the house she grew up in.
She writes, “By the time I was gifted the back room, there were neither parties nor full houses. It was just my mom and me and the silence about our shared history spent in my father’s house before his passing. There was everything that came after this loss. Before and after, there was the roof.”
Pregnancy-Related Death Is a National Crisis. Medicaid Expansion Could Help Address That.
A new study found that when states expanded Medicaid eligibility, pregnant people were less likely to lose health insurance postpartum. That’s a big deal, experts said.