Parental Responsibility for Health Care
I'm losing pay and increasing my guilt (for thinking it)
A Personal Note
How do I write about the weight that comes with a sick child? A weight that requires me to stay home from work and stop everything to give my all.
In a way it feels like we are preparing for battle; meals must be made, mental health tools must be sharpened. Our weekend plans to “go out” have turned into no social plans… and now an added solo excursion to the office this Sunday morning to cram in some work training. Plans to stay in and prepare our best for tomorrow.
Since January my daughter and I have had Covid twice, she has had croup while I was sick in May, I’ve recently had unexplained nerve problems, and now she has RSV. If getting sick was a 2022 resolution we would be hitting it with high marks in consistency and effort.
I often wonder how I could possibly manage this as we take on more in business. Aloud I say, “we will get to it as it comes,” but inwardly I am already overwhelmed.
I don’t mind being the primary caretaker. Motherhood is a privilege as much as it is a hard place to be in. At this point in my daughter’s life it makes sense, since we still breastfeed, but it’s also mixed with a tingling of guilt for wanting that journey to end. It’s hard to wean when a child is sick again and again. Nursing gives me a dose of oxytocin and anxiety simultaneously these days.
Mothers and fathers… Negotiating sleep, feeding, bathing, cleaning, and repetitive book-reading tasks in an endless cycle.
Who pays, who stays, who gets none?
For some of us with income-producing work, women may have paid sick-leave benefits they can use to take care of their sick children.
This is an option that leaves many lower-income or single mothers out of luck.
It’s also not an option for our family business and it’s throwing me back into an exhausting reminder of what it was like to have my husband go work the morning after we came home from Eliza’s birth. Let’s take a look at two more surveys on parental responsibility for family health care, below.
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Consider these two survey graphics provided by Kaiser Family Foundation in 2013 and 2020 regarding women’s roles in their children’s healthcare. Women are still those who are taking primary responsibility for their children’s health care decisions.
Another factor of concern here is the evidence that households with children have fared worse in the years of and since the pandemic.
This recent analysis from June 29-July 11, 2022 from KFF shows adults reporting in a survey that their confidence in providing for their families in basic necessities for housing, food, and usual expenses is getting lower with time.
Lastly, families are struggling to prepare in this time of inflation with expanded-pandemic resources coming to a close. SNAP benefits, expanded state WIC benefits, and student loan payment delays are looming over horizons lined with signs showing inflation prices for food and gas.
What’s Next?
Here is what I’m hoping to see improvements for in the coming times (generic, I know).
Expanded paid-leave benefits for caretakers, especially for part-time employees
More fresh-food benefits for families with children under 5, (WIC expansions)
Employers meeting more caretakers where they are at and expanding remote-work accommodations if possible
Increased wages, benefits, and support for childcare workers and teachers
A state-wide standard for childcare to “forgive” payments for days missed due to specific illness spreading (such as the coronavirus) that will remain in place for another year.
I realize this newsletter is probably disappointingly incomplete for readers looking to deep dive into more numbers and solutions. We haven’t even discussed the impacts on women’s career and education advancements that happen with unpaid or unaccommodated time away from the workplace.1 The improvements I wish to see culturally are coming from a place of personal struggle.2
So I ask of you potentially exhausted mothers, caretakers, and readers sitting down with Motherhood Minute today to put pressure on those who impact your daily lives. I ask this as a business owner and a tax-payer. I ask you to talk to your managers and representatives and make them deeply uncomfortable with the questions you present to them.
For more reading on this topic of caregiving and political change, I highly recommend the book, “Essential Labor: Mothering as Social Change” by Angela Garbes.
