celebrating mothers by Katie Raquel
Coronavirus Double Duty
Working from Home and Parenting
M
onterey County residents have been sheltering-in-place since March 17th. We may be in this together in spirit, but the reality of how this crisis impacts our daily lives is dramatically different from household to household. For some, it’s a breather offering a chance to step back, tackle a project we’ve been putting off, or embrace a simpler way of living. Many of the working parents I’ve spoken with
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share a different story: they’re drowning. And knowing how lucky they are to be still employed and safely at home, they’re keeping quiet about it. I own a small business, and for the first few years, I grew it from home while caring for my three young children–developing skills and systems that worked for us. I went on to expand on those ideas for a book about work-life balance for entrepreneurs.
But there is a considerable difference between what I did and what parents are expected to do now: my work was on my timeline. No meetings that I didn’t accept. No deadlines that I didn’t create. Work projects and goals that were tailored to my work-at-home limitations. That isn’t a luxury working parents have during the pandemic. Employers are expecting parents to accomplish MONTEREY BAY PARENT • May 2020
