Before Covid
I’m a mother of four children, aged between 5 and 15. A year ago, both my husband and I were working in a high-intensity full-time positions. Aside from short parental leaves (which both my husband and I shared fairly equally), I have always worked.
We balanced our careers by rotating every few years, with one covering more family responsibilities while the other made career changes or jumps. We shared childcare and household tasks fairly equally. And our childcare was organised around daycare, school, afternoon clubs, and the support of babysitters in the late afternoons – and occasional emergency or vacation support by grandparents.
And then came Covid
Right as the Covid19 pandemic hit, I had decided to leave my full-time position to search for more balance, meaning and impact in my work.
Initially, as Germany (where we live) went into hard lockdown in Spring 2020, and all four children moved to home and online schooling (and no care for my youngest), it felt like perfect timing. I was not forced to juggle a stressful job with long hours and days (and evenings) full of meetings, but could squeeze in some learning, thinking and writing into (rare) free moments. I decided to found a small platform and consulting company to focus on issues I care about.
After two years where my husband had “covered my back” for my career, I figured that this was now my turn. We felt grateful at the time to have one secure job, and knowing that one parent was fully there for our children.
Half a year into lockdowns, I wrote about the joys, burdens, and also opportunities linked to being a parent during the Covid19 pandemic. Summarising these lessons, I wrote that “this pandemic has been the best – if harshest – lesson I have ever had in my nearly 15 years of being a parent.”
And lockdowns continued
Several months later – a year into lockdowns, and still in the middle of what has been a 4-month long hard lockdown in Germany – the situation has again changed for me.
What started as a temporary state currently feels permanent. I’m fully covering childcare, online schooling, and nearly all household logistics.
My earnings have plummeted from a well-paid job to consulting work to a near zero, as I’m currently not able or willing to commit to projects that I’m not confident I can be available for or deliver on. Having worked for an international organisation, I’m not entitled to most social security benefits.
The impact of Covid19 on women – on me
I suddenly find myself one example of the impact of Covid19 on women, who have fallen through many cracks. I’m still incredibly privileged, living in a safe environment and household, with economic security thanks to our household income and my own savings. Our health system still functions, and I can access services such as physical, mental and sexual health care when and if I need it.
And with more than 15 years of professional work experience, I know that my perspectives are not dire. Life and work will continue. Once lockdowns ease, and daycare and schools reopen, I’ll again get more help with childcare and household tasks (which can be physically draining with a household of six). I’ll find fulfilling tasks to do, where I feel am I contributing to improving someone else’s life beyond our household.
The status quo
Some fabulous academics and researchers, such as Clare Wenham at LSE, have focused on these gender dimensions of the pandemic. Clare recently in a talk rightly highlighted that Covid19 has no caused, but has further exposed and deepened, these deeply entrenched gender inequalities – in society, the workforce, and also in the household.
What many women are currently experiencing – what I am currently experiencing – is the sad status quo.
Self-reflection
My usual strategies to protect my status as a woman – also in a household – and to ensure equity and balance, don’t currently work. I’m stuck in a situation where there’s one full-time secure job and pay, and a near endless lot of childcare and household tasks to manage on the other hand.
I love every moment I have with my children, and I’m grateful that I can spend it with them without having to try to be on calls and work down stressful to-do-lists at the same time (or cover all of that during my sleep time once the kids are in bed). I’m grateful I don’t need to resort to 24/7 Netflix as childcare for the children (even though they’d be delighted, at least for a while!). I’m grateful I’m not burning my own candle at both ends, and my husband doesn’t have to either.
But I’m terrified of getting stuck much longer in this gender dynamic. Thrown back into the 1950s, 30 years before my birth, and into cultural norms I was never raised in (having been brought up in a very equitable Nordic family and culture). I’m terrified that after studying so hard, and working for so long, this is where I’ve landed and where I’ll stay.
I’ve over 15 years always said – and especially my family has agreed – that I am a better parent because I work. In a paid, valued job that is intellectually challenging, and that keeps me looking at the big picture (not some untidy corner of a children’s room). Ideally one that has an impact, and also a healthy work culture, and definitely one that is compatible with my role as a mother of four – and as a positive example for all of my children.
Perhaps this blog is a reminder for all of those women out there, who find that their values and ideals are slipping aways in practice. Where workforce participation and fair pay is a distant dream, and household equality has been thrown out into the trash. You’re one of many, of millions – and sadly billions. We’re in this together, you – and I – are not alone.
And perhaps this blog is a reminder to myself not to lose hope. Things will get better. Things are not awful. But things need to change. We as parents – and especially as women – deserve better.
If you have constructive suggestions or ideas – both personal or policy – to share how to do this, also in the short-term, please do share. A year into hard lockdowns, it’s needed.
Katri Bertram 