Why The Pandemic’s Crunch on Women Has Hit Teaching Particularly Hard
Why the pandemic's pressure on women has hit the classroom particularly hard
Amber has a lot on her plate. She is a teacher and mother. Her children lost their kindergarten place when their city went into lockdown and now they are in quarantine. So Amber teaches her students online while taking care of her kids. Quitting is not an option. She loves to teach. She needs the paycheck. She's doing her best to deal with it, but it's unsustainable.
Teacher moms like Amber don't have a job or work two jobs at the same time because they have no one to take care of their children. "A USA TODAY analysis of new census data shows that in 2020, Americans missed more jobs than ever before because of childcare challenges, and the burden was borne almost exclusively by women."
Most teachers are women, and the pandemic is taking a unique toll on women
Data from the National Center for Education Statistics shows that 76 percent of public school teachers were women in the 2017-2018 school year. And many teachers are mothers. About half — 48 percent — of all public school teachers have children living at home, according to an analysis by Michael Hansen and Diana Quintero of the Brookings Institution. If you are a teacher and a mother with children at home, it is very likely that you do not have reliable childcare. It is also very likely that your children will not be able to come to school in person. So that means like Amber, you try to teach your students while looking after your kids.
"I'm expected to be online all day and give feedback, but I'm also a mom so I feel like I'm not juggling work and school well enough. it's rough It's been a long day (not even 10 a.m.), a long week (it's only Monday), a long month (February 1), a long year (2021)," says Amber.
Unlike women in other roles, teacher mothers have the burden of looking after their own children and their students
Teaching is not a job with a lot of flexibility. You cannot cancel a course at short notice because your toddler is ill. A teacher's responsibility requires that we be present and engaged with our students. When we have our own children to support at the same time, the quality of our teaching and education suffers. "I feel like a chicken with my head cut off trying to keep up with the sub, giving grades and giving feedback to my students, somehow doing homework with my preschooler and making sure the kids are safe, healthy and entertained enough are so as not to need me all the time," says Amber.
For teacher moms, work-life balance is harder than ever
Like Amber, I struggle with balancing work, family, and household chores, and we're not alone (I don't know of any working mom who isn't). This survey of teachers on working conditions found that “40 percent of respondents said caring responsibilities made it difficult to get their work done, and 16 percent said they couldn't balance their work with other chores at home. Mid-career teachers — who are more likely to have school-age children — were more likely to have had these work-life balance challenges.”
Teacher moms deserve a better system: we can't do everything
COVID-19 and the past year of living, working and parenting during a pandemic has been challenging, painful and at times impossible. And yet it has also laid bare all the systems that are broken and have doomed working women. We want to teach. And we want to take care of our children. We want to take care of ourselves. But we can't. Not the way it is now.
Amber can't open the daycare again. She cannot leave her preschooler unattended. She can't stop showing up to work. But without reliable childcare, she cannot teach either. To all the teacher moms who hustle and teach students while tending to their own kids, I see you. I hope it won't always be like this. And just so you know, my kids also eat fruit snacks and Cheetos for breakfast.
Teacher moms, how is the pandemic affecting you? Please share in the comments! And subscribe to our newsletter for more articles like this one.
Also, check out Check In On Your Teacher Friends because we're not okay.
