Caregiving Crisis: This sucks for dads, too
Father's Friday is coming, Biden's infrastructure proposals are uncertain and the cost of the pandemic on working women is enormous.
Hey everyone,
We talk a lot in this newsletter about women and moms. But the pandemic and the caregiving crisis (connected, but distinct!) also take a significant toll on men.
In this issue, just ahead of Father's Day, we've invited Brian Anderson, co-founder of Fathering Together, to talk Dad Stuff. Fathering Together is a community started in 2019 that offers resources and connections for anyone who identifies as a father or father figure. The group has some 126,000 members and is working on a campaign in honor of Father's Day called "More Than a Necktie," kicking off with the group’s first-ever Father's Friday one week from today. We'll discuss more on that below.
First, we wanted to share some experiences of dads in the pandemic. Brian talked with three dads about how the pandemic has influenced their identities as fathers and the roles with which they engage their families. He spoke with: Ted, a life coach in Germany (a father of three boys, all 8 and under); Lorenzo, a police officer in Virginia (dad to two daughters, 10 and 5); and Craig, a musician in San Diego (father of a teenage son with autism and 5-year-old daughter).
How has fatherhood changed for you during the pandemic?
Ted – What changed for us was predictability around childcare and if our kids could go in-person or not. So it meant I had to really be intentional with co-parenting and helping with homeschooling and keeping our house in order.
Lorenzo – I was coaching my oldest daughter’s soccer team and suddenly the season just stopped and my other daughter’s dance lessons stopped. The loss of those social and physical activities had a huge impact on them. Thankfully, my sister-in-law was available to help with childcare and school.
Craig – For me, not being able to perform put me in a pretty low state, but I knew I had to be a role model for my 5-year-old daughter and persevere. So we got creative. I asked if she wanted to perform with me and do Facebook Live events to keep our spirits up. She immediately said yes and the process of creating an interactive weekly show with her has made me much more attuned and connected to her needs.
What have you done to build an emotional bond with your kids?
Ted – With my three sons, I’ve had two strategies. The first is joking all the time. Since they're pretty young, most of the humor is potty jokes, but it allows us to laugh a lot and for me to tap into my “inner boy” a bit more. The second thing is that at bedtimes, I share stories of my childhood. We call them “When I was a Boy” stories and they focus on bug bites, swimming, and cuts and scrapes from skateboarding. My sons are always on the edge of their seat even when I think the stories are pretty boring.
Lorenzo – Thankfully, I’ve always had a strong emotional bond with them. Between coaching and dance recitals, I’ve been very active in their lives and have worked very hard to show them how much I care.
Craig – I’ve worked hard from the moment of her birth to be present. From the moment I met her, I gave her the mantra “I’m powerful and creative,” and she owns it now! I make sure she knows I'm there to support her, but it's very hard for me to watch her stumble and fall without stepping in to “save her.” The biggest challenge I have is thinking about how I use my voice, language, and body language to create the space for true connection.
What does post-pandemic parenting look like for you?
Ted – To be honest, we’re thinking about homeschooling our boys. We don’t want to be dependent on a school system, and we can tell a difference in how much happier, better behaved, and more curious our boys are when they stay at home.
Lorenzo – I see us returning to what we knew. Our school system is back to normal this fall and all sports and dance lessons will be running like it was pre-pandemic. I’ll still have some worry about masks and stuff, but I’m looking forward to having normal routines for our girls again.
Craig – I plan to take what I’ve learned about parenting during the pandemic and help other parents live with more intention and create the type of relationship they want with their kids. It was always a bit of a dream of mine, but especially having a son on the autism spectrum, I’ve faced down a lot of challenges and I want to give back to my community and help other parents who are struggling.
Brian concludes: One thing I’ve come to love about our Fathering Together groups is how we find common ground around our kids despite our differences. While we’ve all responded differently to the pandemic, one commonality is that we all own our fatherhood a little differently. We’ve all recognized the need to step up in new and inventive ways to keep our relationships strong with our children and build within them a sense of resilience, strength, and curiosity.
-Brian Anderson, who says fatherhood is like this on a good day:
Emily again. 👋 Thank you to Brian and the Fathering Together community for sharing your stories. Dads are doing so much work these days, and we want to acknowledge that. (I enjoyed this recent NYT story about a coach for dads who want to learn how to take on the labor load.) Wishing all dads and those identifying as father figures a wonderful Father’s Day1.
Welcome to our many new joiners in the past few weeks. Happy to have you here in the trenches with us. Read more on why I started this newsletter and please spread the word. Everybody, hang in there and we’ll see you soon.
What To Know About the Caregiving Crisis This Week
NEWS WATCH: ROUNDUP — Keeping tabs on legislation, regulation and conversation:
Biden ends infrastructure talks with Senate GOP, turns attention to bipartisan group preparing own proposal. NYT says this is considered a "major setback" for Biden's top domestic priorities, which "had always faced long odds over the size, scope and financing of the package." Sen. Mitt Romney is leading the group of bipartisan senators. Earlier this year, he put forth his own proposal for childcare, though media aren’t covering how these talks will incorporate childcare…just yet. Advocacy groups aren’t waiting around. Axios reports some 90 groups are urging Biden and Democrats to turn to a partisan reconciliation process2 to push through as progressive of a package as possible.
White House Gender Policy Council co-chair Jennifer Klein tells the 19th she's not thinking about contingency plans yet if the bills don't pass. "I sort of keep echoing the president, who keeps saying and meaning that the only thing that is not acceptable is inaction."
BTW the 19th held a fantastic conference this week on the caregiving crisis, as the publication continues to outpace other media in its coverage. Here’s the list of speakers, sessions and link to watch the full “Building a Caregiving Economy For All.”3
The crisis facing working women means the Democratic Women's Caucus could "become a force on Capitol Hill," as Fortune says. The DWC, not as active as the Congressional Black Caucus or Hispanic Caucus, is staffing up. The 89 members pooled some of their budgets to hire their first ever staff: an executive director and communications director. Rep. Veronica Escober, caucus vice chair, from Texas, says they need staff for the caucus to be consistent, productive and have cohesive messaging.
“We’re screaming right now when it comes to childcare,” said Michigan Rep. Brenda Lawrence, a caucus co-chair.
Pressure builds on companies to focus on caregiving. Other countries have their acts together (Oh, Canada). Meanwhile, amid government in action (see above), consensus in the U.S. is building for companies to step in:
Time’s Up formed its Care Economy Business Council last month, started with 200-some companies and is now at over 270. Companies including PayPal, McDonald's, Edelman and more, are pledging to address issues in their workforces and push for change.
Companies are being urged to track the caregiving status of their employees, just as they would track other demographics. TendLab, which is building a coalition of parents, innovators, researchers, and business leaders, is launching the Tending to Care Pledge. The pledge asks employers to track caregiving status as it relates to hiring, retention, promotion and compensation. Co-founder and COO Kim Rohrer says: "What you measure matters, and you can't fix a problem you can't see." TendLab says 73% of employees report having caregiving responsibilities, but 52% of companies don't know the caregiving status of their own workers.
Researchers: companies must create environments that acknowledge the role of parents to keep them working. Harvard Business Review says employers should: offer flexible work arrangements, assess productivity expectations, fix the pay gap, implement time-off policies for homeschooling or other caregiving, and offer mental health days. Also include women in strategic management conversations, make women a central part of the team — starting at the top — and make changes together, researchers write.
Quote of the week: Ai-Jen Poo of the National Domestic Workers Alliance told KQED: "Every several generations, we have a moment to reset our democracy and our economy for the next era. It usually comes on the heels of crisis and I believe we're in one of those moments."
Bottom line: Biden’s original plans are likely to look different, but there is an awareness now and so many voices calling for change. We are in a crisis and we can reset. Companies, who are facing massive talent issues, need to step up to attract and keep workers with caregiving responsibilities. Which brings us to…
JOBS REPORT DEEP-DIVE — The U.S. economy added 559,000 workers in May, more than twice April's disappointing figure. Still, the number missed economist projections for 650,000 jobs (CNN). Unemployment improved to 5.8%.
Some 56% of the added jobs went to women, lower than April's 60% figure.
Women's overall unemployment rate was 5.6%, better than the total U.S. figure. But by demographic, the disparities we've seen emerging in the pandemic continue: Black women have the highest unemployment rate, at 8.2%, Latinas are at 7.4%. White women are at 4.8%. (the 19th)
::looks to door, braces herself:: Foremost economist Blanche Devereaux has some news.
Job openings have never been higher, she exclaims as she tugs on her clip-on earrings. Blanche, didn’t you tell us this last month? Wait, it’s a record on top of a record? Sheesh. Job openings reached a record 9.3 million in April, the highest since at least 2000. Thanks, Blanche! ::bids her adieu::
So, the jobs are there. What's holding workers back in this recovery? 🤔
Oh, that’s right! Lack of access to affordable childcare is preventing women (and some men) from being able to work, writes Misty L. Heggeness, a senior advisor and principal economist at the U.S. Census Bureau. She writes in The Hill that some economists (a notably male-dominated field) say women with small children make up just 12% of the U.S. workforce, so getting them childcare won’t be enough to get employment levels back where the economy needs them. She says other “wonks” argue like “scrooges” that removing heightened unemployment benefits will get people working but that’s wrong. (Another economist writes why in Bloomberg.) What about the parents who aren’t working outside the home because childcare is too expensive? She estimates there’d be at least 5.3 million more people (and perhaps double that) working if they had accessible and affordable childcare.
“To argue that child care will not help this recovery is a narrowly focused short-sighted view. Dispelling this myth now helps move us in the right direction to a full recovery,” Heggeness says.
Bottom line: This is a pattern now. Women, especially women of color, are not working as they once were. Companies are recruiting workers like crazy with everything from appetizers to tuition (NYT), cars (FT), or $10,000 if you want to go work in Santa Cruz at Jersey Mike’s subs (Insider). Radical thought: I love free mozz sticks as much as the next person. But…what about alleviating the burdens of your workers who struggle with…caregiving?
THE FINANCIAL TOLL ON WOMEN IS ENORMOUS —Newsweek looks at the costs of the pandemic/caregiving on women — income lost when they dropped out of the workforce, along with future income they'll miss out on, and reduced retirement benefits. A typical woman earning a median wage of $47,299, who is expected not to regain full unemployment until 2024 (McKinsey's forecast for when women's employment will hit pre-pandemic levels) is expected to lose out on some $600,000. As you can see by the chart below, the losses rise as education and income levels increase.
The effect of these workforce breaks on retirement savings (red rectangles above) are troubling, especially when you consider women live longer and need more money to live on, one expert told retirement trade pub Plansponsor. The experts ran a scenario looking at how breaks in full-time work hurt 401(k) accounts. They created a woman they called Jenny, who contributed $300 a month to her account starting at age 25. Check out the difference in values for her 401(k) at age 67 from taking breaks of either one or five years. A five-year break would lower her account almost 21%. At least she has an account. Imagine the people working who don’t have access to retirement benefits.
Bottom line: This is why I get so worried about this crisis. It's far more than the 'moms-are-fed up' scenario. We're facing significant problems in our later years because of the lack of caregiving infrastructure now. ::shakes fist at sky:: It's going to take everyone coming together to fix it.
FATHER’S FRIDAY: MORE THAN A NECKTIE — Turning back to dads to bookend today's issue, we wanted to talk a bit more about the role of fathers and the work of groups like Fathering Together.
Brian Anderson, co-founder of the group that became a nonprofit in 2019, said dads these days want to have active roles in their kids live. Sometimes, he says, dads need to be reminded they have the skills necessary to be involved in their kids' lives and to shoulder the load. The community, much of it online these days on Facebook, brings in experts and offers peer-to-peer support through active group posting. That dad who complained that the mother of his child was annoyed he was playing video games? Brian said the community of dads told him she was right and he should reconsider how his playing affects others. The dad, Brian said, "took it on the chin pretty well and accepted the harsh love."
Father's Friday, on June 18, will feature programming and focus around the message of #MoreThanANecktie to remind dads they can be more.
Bottom line: We’ll let Brian sum it up.
"We're really empowering dads to see themselves as part of the solution," he said. "If we aren't also helping dads when we're talking about women and children, then we're never going to help women and children."
Signing off
Thanks, as always, for reading. Please send feedback, articles, gifs, your stories. If you find value in this newsletter, please spread the word.
Caregiving Crisis is a newsletter written by Emily Fredrix Goodman. We aim to publish every other week but other things may get in the way.
My husband, bless him, has booked some sort of baby goat experience on Father’s Day. He didn’t mean to book it for that day. But it is happening. BABY GOATS!!!
Since the Senate is evenly split at 50-50 Democrats, Republicans — meaning Stalemate City — here's the TLDR on the reconciliation process in the Senate, courtesy of the Brookings Institution. Reconciliation = a way for Congress to enact legislation on taxes, spending, and the debt limit with only a majority of votes in the Senate. This allows them to avoid the threat of a filibuster, which takes 60 votes to overcome (and due to the split in the Senate, would likely never be overcome.) TLDR - Reconciliation is a way to try to get ANYTHING done. BTW, is there a Schoolhouse Rock version of reconciliation? I’ll try, to the tune of ‘Conjunction Junction’: Reconciliation, what’s your staaaation? Trying to get bills, approoooved by lawmakers.
You’re welcome:
I don’t think I’ve ever nested three bullets inside each other before on here (and we all know I love me some bullets). Had to do a footnote to mark this. And a mesmerizing gif.