How The Coronavirus Schools Shutdown Is Adversely Affecting Working Mums – And What You Can Do About It

‘I’ve just sent them to nursery and I’m feeling guilty, do you think I should’ve kept them at home today?’ asked my friend this morning on WhatsApp. ‘Noooooo! This is our LAST DAY, enjoy it!!!’ I typed back quickly, surprising even myself.

There’s no question about it – as I’m writing, we are… T-minus two hours to no childcare in a double-income household and it’s starting to get a bit ‘real’ that we’ll be juggling a lot in the confines of our flat next week. As I said to a friend, I’m well aware that if all we have to do to keep ourselves, our family and wider society relatively safe, is spend time with our toddler, then we’re way down the list of people who need to be considering themselves ‘affected’ by coronavirus.

But, it is true to say that more and more women are worrying that the group most adversely affected by the coronavirus schools shutdown, come Monday, will be the working mothers, who, if they’re not a key worker, are about to be plunged into a life many never expected for themselves – one at home, with their children.

After years of strides forward, thanks to flexible working, incredibly fit grandparents and increasingly equal and woke partnerships, many are worried we’re about to take a giant stride back decades, at home, in the workplace and even in our relationships with our children.

I’ve had some dispatches from the frontline already – many friends or their kids have been symptomatic, so have been piled at home together and working for a few days. I’ve had reports of tears, fights and 10pm selfies of my friends, wine glass in front of a laptop, trying to catch up on work that they simply couldn’t do in daylight hours. There have already been fall-outs on WhatsApp groups between working and non-working mums – and I myself have already had some uncharacteristic strops from my lovely 16-month-old, fed up that I’m ‘just finishing a quick few emails’ in the ONE HOUR we’ve overlapped work and childcare so far.

But it goes deeper than this, into long-term career prospects. Because a survey this month by Grazia found that even before coronavirus shook up our daily lives, women were doing a huge majority of theinvisible labour at home. Seventy-three per cent of our readers felt they did more than their partner – and shockingly 80% believed that the invisible labour gap in their relationship increased after they had children.

It doesn’t take much of a leap, then, to suggest that these women will feel like they’re expected to take on most of the childcare, and therefore have their careers overlooked in comparison.

And when you’re at home with two children, rightly or wrongly, it becomes a quick calculation of priority between partners. With the median gender pay gap standing at 11.9 per cent, the majority of households may finally find themselves submitting to the brutal reality – and ramifications – of the word ‘breadwinner’. With that pay gap still in place, working mums are the ones who statistically stand to come out worst when couples sit down and discuss who should take the kids today.

Samantha tells Grazia, ‘Without a doubt, chore inequality continues to be rampant, which extends to childcare. I’m already assessing how much work I will actually accomplish on any given day, with the challenge that when I can focus on it, the WiFi will probably be consumed by the kids. I’m kind of resigned to being mum at all times and CEO occasionally during working hours.’

‘I run my own business and usually work school hours around the kids - my husband is full-time self-employed,’ says Rachel. ‘There will definitely be the expectation of my doing most of the work next week and having to fit my hours around the kids. My husband is great and will help but I think they expectation will be from his work that he’ll still work full hours and I think this would be the case regardless of whether I worked for myself or full-time.’

Of course, things are made even more difficult when you’re a single parent. ‘My children’s father and I split up eight years ago and he’s yet to offer to support with childcare on any normal basis,’ says Abigail. ‘The coronavirus has made things even trickier. One of our sons has asthma so it’s a case of our kids staying with either him or me. Of course, it’s not really been a conversation, more a “Are you isolating with the boys now?” with the expectation of me sacrificing work to look after them. I’m yet to see one man on my socials make that sacrifice. I’m a commercial photographer, so my work has been cancelled for the foreseeable, so while juggling the kids’ education and day-to-day needs, I’m now trying to set up a free photography tips group and online paid courses to bring some sort of income in.’

And while we’re all being told to do the best we can, because this won’t last forever, many women are worried at the longer-term ramifications of workplaces being able to so obviously see the difference between their parents and non-parents… or should we say people who do the childcare, and people who don’t.

While any such prejudices are illegal, most of us know that in reality, we spend a lot of our time trying to stave off the pressures of our homelife affecting our work, for fear of being judged.

Jennifer, who works in the banking industry, told me, ‘It’s going back to those same problems we always have – those families where the man works and the women doesn’t. Those men will be fine, as will people with no childcare commitments. They will succeed and take on the high-profile things. Again, mothers will just move backwards.

‘All these diversity guidelines businesses have crafted don’t matter now. If you’re a working mum, at home on a conference call, you’re now on mute because your kids are chatting away in the background, so you’re less likely to participate or be able to take on the actions. I worry that when all this ends and job cuts come, it will be the women first.’

Single mum and freelancer Jasleen added: ‘Although I freelance, I can't keep explaining to people that I'll get back to them when my son is asleep, when a number of people I am working for are doing the normal office hours at home. I had to include my son on a team call the other day via video because there was no other option. Was I judged? Yep probably. The first or second or even third time might get some cute smiles, but after that, I know it will become annoying for others.’

With many women already out of work, businesses closing and the economy suffering, those fears become more prevalent. And it’s also important to account for the fact that women are statistically more likely to be in roles in industries like hospitality and retail, which have already been hugely affected by job losses. They’re also more likely to be freelance, having built careers that they can work around childcare, or in more creative industries – another area where bank balances are being hit hardest. A report from 2013 by Plan International and the Overseas Development Institute found that women and girls were hit disproportionately by the last global recession – what would another one bring?

But the pressure isn’t coming just from the office – there’s a new mum guilt in town. The guilt of not providing instagrammably amazing ‘school days’ for your children, complete with arts, crafts, exercise and science projects.

‘I keep getting sent things on my daughter’s school WhatsApp about lesson plans and things to do with the kids – I can’t do that,’ says Jennifer. ‘You can only do that if you don’t work and can dedicate your whole day to the kids. This is what I’m being surrounded by in the area I live, and it makes me feel guilty – yet again, the working parents are the ones who "fail".’

Rachel agrees: ‘My children are seven and four, both at school. The school has already sent home lessons for them to do next week. On one hand I’m grateful for this but on the other I’m now facing the expectation that next week not only am I mum and business owner but teacher as well. For one week we can cope with this - but what if, as the government are hinting, this carries on for 12 weeks or more? Mums who don’t work will be able to offer so much more for their kids. I am worried about my kids falling behind if this goes on for an extended period of time.’

Denise, a PR Director adds: ‘I have a full-time job where I’m lucky enough to work from home most of the time. However, from next week I will have a six-year-old and a two-year-old with me, both of which have entirely different needs. My school class WhatsApp group has gone berserk with numerous activities you can do. My mum friend who doesn’t work chastised me for still sending my child into nursery this week whilst later sending me timetables of her children’s learning and play structure down to the minute. The pressure is very much on and the normal ‘mum guilt’ will treble.'

Counselling Directory member Lucy Fuller – a psychotherapist and counsellor – advises that when it comes to childcare, ‘Parents must put their own anxieties aside as much as they can and talk together as two adults to make an initial plan. When we are anxious, it is easy to let our worries get the better of us and be unreasonable or childlike in our communications, but this is a real test of staying calm and being able to have a caring and calm approach to communication. Think how you problem=solve as a professional at work – the same air of responsibility is required here.'

‘It is worth making a list together of all possible solutions, however mad they seem,' she suggests. 'Think outside the box and then look at them all the suggestions together. Where there is a difference of opinion between a couple, each partner needs to have their concerns listened to calmly and their issues accepted before working together to a solution. If one partner is the bigger earner, it is likely that more childcare can fall to the other person and if this must happen, it must be with as little resentment as possible. This situation is not going to last forever.

‘Going forward, the situation needs to be fluid and reviewed often. Again, the lines of communication between a couple need to be kept open so that grievances and concerns can be heard in a non-judgemental way and solutions found together. The bottom line is to be supportive of each other as much as you can.’

She is also keen to ease the guilt some of us are facing. ‘Don’t get over-worried about home-educating your children. Let the novelty of being at home wear off first and think of this as an extended Easter holiday. Once the boredom sets in, look at online resources as well as online programs that are educational and fun. Teachers keep their pupils engaged by chopping and changing activities often so aim to do the same – but not all activities need to have you completely engaged face-to-face with your children.

‘Constantly entertaining your children is a modern day belief. Bored children are the most creative. Apart from limiting screen time, let them entertain themselves and just plan one or two activities a day together and these do not have to be lengthy. You need to keep yourself sane and calm as a priority because our children will be as anxious as the adults around them and it is anxious children who will start to play up, not bored children.’

(Some names have been changed for legal reasons.)

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