The past year and a half has been a whirlwind for many working parents, with the Covid-19 crisis forcing remote work and remote school to take place in the same location. For many working moms, who carry the brunt of caregiving and household chores, balancing the demands of work life, home life and ongoing child-care responsibilities has seemed like a nearly impossible task.
In September 2020, one in four working women and one in three working mothers said they were considering downshifting their careers or dropping out of the labor force entirely due to added demands from the coronavirus pandemic, according to a Lean In and McKinsey & Company report. In addition to mothers feeling the need to downsize their careers because of the pandemic, many women were forced to leave the workforce due to their overrepresentation in hard-hit industries like the service-sector and child care, where jobs were either cut or employees left due to a lack of paid time off and flexibility.
“I’m a single mom of a 3-year-old,” Lauren Fine from Denver tells CNBC Make It. “So, losing my job at the height of the pandemic when I have an autoimmune illness is very scary, [and] the idea of going back out somewhere to work in person is not really an option.” Fine, 38, explains that since losing her job at a local non-profit in June 2020, she’s been working multiple remote part-time jobs to make ends meet. Thankfully, she says, “I have not felt like I was going to lose my house or not be able to feed my son.”
Looking for work
After losing her job, Fine says her initial plan was to start looking for another position immediately that would allow her to work remotely. But, she says, “being home with my child full-time without child care and trying to job hunt just felt almost comical honestly.”
“I remember having an interview in my parents’ basement, trying to close the door and my kid is yelling to come in,” she says. “At that moment, I was like ‘I don’t have a choice right now. This is it.’ The reality was that the other components of my life outweighed [a full-time job].”
In addition to feeling overwhelmed by the demands of child care and job searching, Fine, who also takes care of her elderly parents, says she found the interview process for many companies to be extremely stressful.
“There was a job where I made it to the fifth round interview and didn’t get the position,” she says. “And I was like do they even know how much time and energy and effort had to go into this? Like, to do a work sample and then be on multiple different interview calls to meet with their team, that was really hard as a single parent in the height of the pandemic.”
