

And we made sure we had a meeting where we were paying her at least $15 an hour, and we gave her a month off every year. She would take care of two to three babies at a time in these other two homes. We did a nanny share with two other families. My mother helped us, and that was unpaid labor. When my first daughter was born, we both had full-time jobs and it was still very hard to make ends meet. In trying to figure out Build Back Better, I guess it was collateral damage or just something that we were willing to let go of.Īngela Garbes is also the author of Like a Mother: A Feminist Journey Through the Science and Culture of Pregnancy. And that funding for the CTC was allocated for a year, and in December, Congress let that lapse - even though the funding had been set aside. There were some articles, including mine, that are basically like, "Women are not OK, mothers are not OK." And then we saw things like the advance child tax credit, which was the government sort of acknowledging, yeah, this is hard work, having families and raising children, and so we're going to give you some money each month. I felt like there was attention being paid. On how momentum to change the system has slowed And that's when we really saw a lot of that anger. People have been making these decisions and logistical negotiations for years, but suddenly it was a problem that affected everyone. And a lot of us were more familiar with the financial hardship of having kids in day care. It's just too much." So I think that anger, this care crisis, it predates the pandemic. People were saying essentially, "I can't be a mother, be an online school proctor and be a professional worker at the same time.

The statistic that always stays with me is in September of 2020, 865,000 women were forced out of the workforce in one month, and that was because schools remained closed. It's just too much.' And so I think like that anger, this care crisis, it predates the pandemic.

People were saying essentially, 'I can't be a mother, be an online school proctor and be a professional worker at the same time. In September of 2020, 865,000 women were forced out of the workforce in one month, and that was because schools remained closed.
