When one becomes a parent, they must make decisions. Will they be a stay-at-home parent or a working parent ? The outcomes leads to more decisions.  As a working parent, you must then choose the perfect childcare provider.  The place where you will leave your most cherished possession for over 40 hours a week.   

  But imagine, one day your complex web of relationships is destroyed. You no longer get to seperate your professional life and personnal life.  COVID-19 has done exactly that. As the virus infiltrated itself in our lives, it destroyed our webs.  Not only was one expected reduce or even illiminate any social interactions or rely on their village for support, they were still expected to work.  In the blink of an eye, working parents became full-time caregivers with no way to seperate the two.  

Picture this, you are on a Zoom call with senior managers from your organization discussion a reopening plan strategy, at the same time your three year old is screaming for lunch and your 1 year old toddler decides to throw is  fork at your head as he spills his milk all over your papers... and it is only 9 am.  This is a typical event in the day of a parent trying to meet too many duties.   

Burnouts, extreme feelings of guilt and inability to meet all needs are rampid. Asking parents to be full-time employees while being a full-time parent with no support is unimagineable, yet here we are asking parents to do the unthinkable.  

 

This burnout does not impact everyone in the same way. The stress of having to balance everything during the pandemic is especially affecting parents, mothers in particular. A Canadian study showed that mothers' anxiety and depression nearly doubled due to the pandemic. This study shows the impacts of having to balance all of these roles on a more full-time basis has led to over one-third of mothers feeling symptoms of depression compared to the previous statistic, which was under one in five. This is not exclusive to mothers, but it is still more common due to gender norms that are still present in Canadian society. 

 

 A result of these added pressures is many women leaving the workforce. COVID-19 is setting women's progression with the pandemic having a near-immediate impact on women's employment. Now, one-fourth of women are considering downshifting their careers or leaving altogether. The pandemic has impacted all women. However, three main groups have experienced the greatest challenges: women in senior positions, working moms, and Black women. 

 
 

Although some companies are making efforts to support their workforce during this pandemic, women still feel more pressure than men at work. This finding suggests that more needs to be done by companies to adjust the expectations and norms which are lead to women feeling this way. The culture in many workplaces, including my workplace, has led to mothers leaving management roles to find roles where they can work from home to accommodate the additional tasks if they cannot find proper care for their children. 

 

Companies should allow for more flexibility in order to attract and retain women. They can do this by creating a more inclusive culture. Currently, many companies are set up to be rigid with meetings, set roles and timelines. If everyone worked better as a team, then if an emergency at home happens, a fellow employee can help out. This can be done by management sharing responsibilities amongst team members to have people who can do the same work if they need to for a certain situation. Meetings should also be minimized as they are time-consuming, and the same message can often be achieved by a phone call or an email. 

 

Companies need to be more emphatic than before with their employees who are parents of, especially younger children. Companies need to realize that we are in unusual circumstances where restrictions about schools and daycares opening are constantly changing, causing parents to adjust quickly. These adjustments can hopefully be implemented at companies after the pandemic as well.