The Times Magazine 17expected to be made redundant, with 46 per
cent of those saying that a lack of childcare
provision played a role in their redundancy.
And over in the United States, where I live
and work, a staggering nearly 1 million
mothers left the workforce in 2020.
But what concerns me just as much as the
financial and workforce blows is the crisis
the pandemic has created for our mental
health – and the unsustainable strain it is
placing on women, who rather than having
it all, have it all to do.
Over the past year I’ve questioned why I
have felt so drained, and so betrayed, by what
has happened to women during the pandemic
- aside from the obvious enormity of our daily
“must get done” lists – and for me it’s been
coming to terms with the forcible end of my
luxurious ambivalence towards parenting. An
ambivalence, frankly, I cherished as a feminist
right, and one that men have not had to
sacrifice the way women have while Covid-
has raged.
I often think back to the minor storm
Justin Timberlake caused just weeks into
the pandemic when he got roasted on social
media for declaring in a radio interview that
“24-hour parenting is just not human”. While,
sadly, that is the very definition of parenting,
I think what he might have been trying to say
is that it’s not the parenting deal he (or any of
us) signed on for.
The truth is, when a lot of us had children
we didn’t ever intend for our lives to be so
wholly enmeshed with those of our offspring.
First, regardless of whether we work or not,
child rearing is meant to be a group effort- with, in an ideal situation, schools, friends,
family and endless excursions or activities,
offering parents a buffer, an opportunity to
disengage. But I have also always believed
that, much like generations upon generations
of men before us, women should have the
freedom to choose a career and the kind
of family life that suits us.
I want to be clear: it is not that when I got
pregnant I wasn’t interested in raising my
own children. But, and it was a very personal
decision, I never wanted to be fully consumed
by them, at least not 24 hours a day, 7 days a
week. I didn’t want it all; I wanted a career,
a space to retain my “me-ness”, and a joint
effort between my husband, me and paid and
family help to raise our children. I had the
luxury of that choice – one I was able to take
for granted – because of the women long
before me who had to fight with every fibre
of their being to get a seat at the table.
And so for years I have happily paid
nurseries and childcarers to deal with the bits
of parenting I don’t love or think I perform
very well (the list is looooong: bathtime is high
up on there and, God, I miss passing the baton
on that one). I have felt empowered by the
many people – my daughters’ caregivers, my
parents, my sisters, my parents-in-law – who
enabled my working life and offered bucket-
loads of selfless love to my children in my
weekday absence.
In return, my kids – who thrived with so
much tenderness from so many in their lives- had my undivided attention on weekends. I
was the very best version of my parenting self,
having spent at least 45 blissful hours of work
each week away from them. And I did all of
this guilt-free. As did, quite rightly, many of us.
What I had not understood, or at least
not until March 11 last year – the day the
pandemic was officially declared and the
world started going into lockdown – was that
my “freedom”, our freedom, was an artifice.
When the people I either relied on or paid to
replace me disappeared, there was only me left
to step back into the void – and arguably back
in time. Because it is now clear that society
still places more emphasis on mothering over
parenting, a nuanced but vital difference
I WAS THE PERFECT
MOTHER – WHEN I SPENT
45 BLISSFUL HOURS OF
WORK AWAY FROM THEM