Erica, an Indiana mom, was working part time last spring as a computer scientist. At the same time, she was taking care of her first-grader, preschooler, and toddler at home, with schools and day care centers in the area shuttered due to the pandemic.
During one of her work shifts, she was nursing her toddler while trying to read at her desk, “and he swung his leg, and it somehow landed in my tea, and it kicked the teacup over,” she told sociologist Jessica Calarco and her team as part of a study of pandemic parenting. “Tea all over both of us, all over the desk, all over the chair, all over the wall, and then he bit me at the same time.”
It’s a scene likely all too familiar to the millions of parents still trying to work while caring for children as the Covid-19 pandemic hits the one-year mark. Erica’s husband, an office manager, also worked from home, but his job “is very demanding,” she told Calarco’s team. “They talk a lot about flexibility, but at the end of the day, if [his boss] sets a meeting, he sets a meeting. You can’t not go, even during a pandemic.”
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