"I don't like being a mom in America." What about the dads?
"Pandemic Parenting" has become a women's narrative — to move the needle, we need to hear from men, too.
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There are a couple stories in the news this past week that have me thinking about the current state of parenting in the U.S.
If you haven’t heard the “The Agony of Pandemic Parenting” episode from the New York Times “The Daily” podcast, it’s an emotional and moving listen. Several months ago, The Times opened up a phone line to ask Americans what it’s really been like to raise children during the pandemic.
The episode, released last Friday, opens with a lot of screaming, and a lot of bathroom confessions from women on the brink. I found it to be simultaneously validating to hear the raw voices of other struggling American women screaming into the (phone line) void, and also emotionally triggering. There’s something about the messages that feels like you’re listening to people in prison, or worse.
Between the screaming and wrenching phone messages, the episode follows the story of Liz Halfhill, a single mother and full-time paralegal in Spokane, Washington, and her 11-year-old son Max, detailing their experience (ordeal, really) over the past year in lockdown at home. Two things struck me about the story.
The first thing is that the Times put out a call for stories about pandemic parenting, and named the episode “pandemic parenting,” but all of the people in the episode are women. Every single agonized voice is a woman. The transcript is a long list of Moms: Mom 1, Mom 2, Mom 3….a stack of women’s voices piling up in frustration and despair over lack of government support, school closings, the expectation to somehow keep working and homeschooling as though it’s possible to perform both, a society that feels callous.
The most striking quote of the story, for me, came from a mother who has been pushed to a point where she questions her choice to have children at all: “Maybe I’m not cut out to be a mother. I love my kids, but I don’t like being a mom.” Then she revises her statement, her voice breaking: “I don’t like being a mom in America.”
I’m left wondering: Where are the raw voices of the pandemic dads? Many of them have been working from home, in the very same households as these screaming women. Are they in the next room clutching their pandemic beards as they try to complete a spreadsheet or a phone call as their toddler cries? Do they also have a primal scream, but they just don’t feel like they can release it? Are they, too, tired of being a dad in America?
Some have had no choice but to leave the house to perform work that may not have felt safe for themselves and their families. And of course, some of them have locked themselves away to let their spouses deal with the crisis, and some have absconded to a workplace where an empty and relatively safe office awaits them, far away from the chaos of home (how would it be??). We don’t hear from the single dads, the families with two dads — we don’t hear from any of them. (Speaking for my own family, my male partner has borne the brunt of parenting pretty equally—leaving us both equally miserable during the grating lows of lockdown. This sometimes left me wondering if one of us should somehow try to take over so that at least the other was fully functional).
I’m wondering whether it was only women who called into the Times, or if the producers chose to focus on only on women because pandemic parenting has been framed as a women’s issue.
Most of the reporting on male parents during the pandemic has centered around how dads have spent more time with their kids, or have realized, suddenly, “Hey! Maybe I really should do some more work around the house.” But what would happen if we heard the anguished cries of male parents, and they joined the chorus of beleaguered women? It reminds me that Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s first landmark case as a lawyer rested on a strategy that she used several times — elevating issues that impact women by showing how they also impact men. I’m willing to bet that change would come faster, and benefit both parties.
Interestingly, I have seen more men responding to another piece that’s been everywhere this week, the story on “languishing,” by Adam Grant. “There’s a name for the blah you’re feeling, it’s called languishing,” the article reads. “Languishing is a sense of stagnation and emptiness. It feels as if you’re muddling through your days, looking at your life through a foggy windshield. And it might be the dominant emotion of 2021.”
Grant names a liminal space that many people feel trapped in right now — maybe not depression, exactly, but certainly not thriving, either. It has been interesting to see how many people in my social media feed have linked the liminal, in-between concept of “languishing” to parenting: “Also known as pregnancy,” one of my friends who is at 32 weeks with her third child posted along with a link to the article.
But men have responded, too: “This is how I have felt ever since I had a child two years ago, before the pandemic,” one dad responded on a social media post featuring the article. “Bw kids and a pandemic, I don’t remember the adult things that used to make life enjoyable,” said another.
It’s not the same rawness that comes through from the women in the “The Daily” podcast, but this article has opened a space for dads to say that they have not been thriving, either.
Finally, this brings me to the other thing that struck me about the “The Daily” podcast episode, which was the way that it ended. After all the anguished cries from women who are worried that they will be homeless if they can’t keep performing their job with their 5-year old in the room, or that their children are facing a mental health crisis, or that they have regrets about parenting altogether, the show switches to hopeful, almost upbeat music.
Liz Halfhill, the single mother whose story the show follows, has all but given up on distance learning for her child, Max. Her sweet 11-year old just can’t make himself sit in front of a computer for hours a day. Halfhill, who has the impossible task of performing her own job while supervising Max, says that she wishes they would just cancel school and let parents handle the pandemic themselves any way they can, because her son hasn’t learned anything for a year.
But! In the final segment, the hopeful music rises, and lo, a solution has been found: Susan, a close family friend, has said that Max can come and be on his laptop at their house while she teaches her kids, and then he can play with them after “school.” Max is not quite so miserable; it’s enough of a boost that the two of them limp along through the following months.
The episode ends with a quote from Halfhill: “I think I now realize I’m absolutely unstoppable. I’m always going to figure out a way to make it work. Like, nothing will stop me. Nothing can stop me from just keeping on keeping on, I guess.”
Reader, say it with me: Nooooooooo!
Leaning on other women who are already overburdened, and ultimately deciding that women (and parents) are unbreakable is not the takeaway we need from all this.
These two pieces together have me thinking about what comes next. It feels like so many of us are close to thriving again. But there are also the kids who are a year behind in school, kids who can’t be vaccinated yet, the people who have lost jobs, and the people who were languishing before all this began. To move all of us toward thriving will require reflecting on our collective experience and how to help everyone work toward thriving. Not just dismissing this crisis and the challenges that follow as another “women’s problem” and relying on the damaging myth that all of us, men, women, and children, are somehow — despite the entire world stopping for a whole year — unstoppable.
If you’re a dad, what has your experience been in parenting during the pandemic? Has it felt like “languishing,” or worse? If you have a male partner, what has your experience been vs. his? We would love to hear your story via comments or email.
Honestly I think I have no perspective on what the last year has really been like. It's just too huge.
"Languishing"is part of how I've felt. It feels most connected to being almost completely out of work for over a year now (I'm a musician and make my living mostly playing on Broadway, so, no gigs). I am fortunate that my wife is still working full time and I have decent savings and unemployment.
My experience in parenting during the pandemic is mixed. The hardest thing this year has been managing my 5 year olds fully remote learning. She HATES zoom learning, and I have had so much fear around how this is affecting her, what is going to happen, what should I do, how much should I be pushing her to do the schoolwork, how important is it, etc. There was one day my wife came in and found me in the fetal position on the floor consumed by anxiety about whether to stay in remote learning only or to try in-person learning.
On the other hand, since I work most nights when we're not in a global pandemic, I now get to see my daughter WAY more than I ever had before. It's hard to imagine going back to only seeing her in the morning and then a little in the afternoon. Weekends I sometimes would barely see her at all. My relationship with her is SO different now, I am so much closer to her.
That idea of wrapping up that story with "families are unstoppable" misses the mark, in my opinion. What the hell does that even mean? Why not just say people are resilient?
I'm not a dad... but I had to comment on this idea of women and men and families being "unstoppable." Agreed, this is a dangerous take-away indeed. Insisting that families find a way to thrive with very little support is a popular capitalist tool. (Side note: When I was teaching special- ed, the culture at our school was life is hard for teachers and students, but we should all be working harder. That's how we demonstrated our value -- who could get the best grades/ be the best teachers/ work the longest hours, and not burn out. As adults, we were helping young students buy into this myth of "relentless grit" is normal for survival. It makes me SO angry that working families are struggling this much in one of the richest countries in the world.