Anneliese Lawton is a writer, editor, and mom of three.
For nearly two years, moms and dads across Canada have been parenting on the edge of our seats, raising our children with the rise and fall of the pandemic. Two years of not knowing if our kids will be in school. Two years of social isolation. Two years of “good enough” parenting – which for many us means throwing Cheerios at our kids like pigeons in the park while we try to get a few minutes of work done. I think I speak for all of us when I say: We can’t do it any more. We need help.
I’ve been a mom for five years now – and for a third of that, I’ve been mothering on autopilot as a sombre and defeated version of the mother I expected to be. I haven’t always been this way, though. Two years ago, ice cream was a treat, not a nightly coping ritual. My two boys and I filled our days with drop-in programs at our local library, sing-a-longs at our local café and morning walks at our local mall. We were free. Living life one day at a time.
This past summer refreshed us with freedom. A double-dosed Justin Trudeau said Canada was set to fully vaccinate all eligible citizens by the end of the season. COVID-19 numbers were dropping. I went to my first concert in two years. Life felt normal.
Now, a few months later, we’ve been humbled by Omicron. And just like that, parents are back to doing “good enough.” Just like that, parents and children are bound to their homes, thrown back into the blur of survival mode, split between conference calls and Cocomelon.
Parents can’t keep up with the ebb and flow of the pandemic. We’re beyond burnt out. What’s left of our mental health is on death’s doorstep. But many of us can’t ask for help.
I have a five-year-old son with the attention span of a fish who’s navigating online learning. I have an 18-month-old daughter who rips through my house like a tiny tornado. And, I have a four-year-old son who’s succumbed to his fate as a middle child. Right now, as I write this, I don’t even know where he is. Raising three young children is hard. Raising three young children during a pandemic feels impossible – and alas, here I am.
As a middle-class, stay-at-home mom (who freelances in her “spare” time), I get asked by friends why I don’t hire help. Why not just hire someone to come into my home and take control of what I can’t? I ask myself that, too. But then I fall back to reality.
For one – the current minimum wage in Ontario is $15 an hour. For parents who work a nine-to-five job, bringing someone into their home to pick up parental responsibilities (which now includes six hours of kindergarten tech support, in my case), would cost $600 a week – for a total of $2,400 a month. The median after-tax income of Canadian families is $5,241 monthly. The average monthly cost of living for a family of four is $5,158. Enlisting a caregiver, whether for eight hours a day or one, would put an average middle-income family in debt.
Then there’s the stigma that comes along with hiring help – especially for stay-at-home moms. We’re at home with our children. Shouldn’t we just carry on with the cooking and cleaning, and other associated responsibilities? It’s what they signed up for after all.
But it’s not what we signed on for at all.
Before the pandemic women in Canada performed a larger share of parental tasks and then, the pandemic created a child-care crisis. With minimal notice, children were sequestered to their homes – and parents, mostly mothers, thrown into the chaotic demands of parenting and teaching and managing a household in one fell swoop.
We can’t simply wave our white flag and ask for help – it’s a pandemic. Some of us have neurodiverse children who require special assistance and trained caregivers. Some of us are anxious about bringing a stranger into our home while others are immunocompromised and can’t risk exposure. Not just anyone can be a caregiver – and finding a qualified caregiver takes time. For some of us, it simply comes down to pride. Our world is hectic enough and we want to show up for our children – even if we’re showing up with the weight of the world on our backs.
During this pandemic, one thing has become very clear – hired help is acquired by those with privilege and those who are hiring out of necessity. In layman’s terms: upper-income families who have wanted help or needed help have been able to get it. While others, such as frontline and essential workers, some of whom are lower-income, have had to scramble to find child care. Which can mean everything from unpaid leave to paying out the ying-yang for last-minute care.
Then, there are the families like mine. The families that have no choice but to lean on the person who’s already home – but unlike before, there aren’t any visits to the library to break up our day. We’re parenting in isolation, completely alone.
In Ontario, where I live, students are expected to return to school on Jan. 17, but parents are holding their breath. Sure, the weight of virtual education will lift off of our shoulders – but one sniffle could send our children right back home. Rising and falling case numbers and ever-changing guidelines mean it’s just a matter of time before we’re at the mercy of the virus again. With so much uncertainty and so little reliability, help, no matter how much we need it, is only an additional stress we’d have to balance.
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