Nope, you're wrong

A few months after I had my son, I went to coffee with another new mom, someone I like and respect a lot. I was already back at the office full-time. She wasn’t, and she was really worried about leaving her son. She asked how I was dealing with it and how hard it had been. I was honest. It hadn’t been hard. I was excited to get back to work, eager to go back to the office even. She looked at me and said “well sure, you’re the sort of person who wouldn’t be sad to leave her kid.” It stung, and it stuck with me. 

It wasn’t said in a mean way, and I had just openly said I hadn’t struggled with it, but the implicit judgement, the guilt I immediately felt, and my own interpretation - that I was somehow a bad mom or loved my son less weighed heavily on me for days after. It’s a small, benign example of the stress, judgement, and pressure moms put on ourselves and each other.

I’ve been thinking about that moment over the last few weeks as I hear from parents across the country wrestling with their choices about schools, daycares, care providers, work, and life in general with kids in the time of COVID. Leaving the house with your kid right now is riddled with worry and decision making: do we go to a park, how close to others can we get, did that person without a mask just cough, should we go back inside immediately? Thinking about schools, daycares, and childcare in general has become panic inducing for even the most zen parents among us. But it’s also become a landmine of judgement. 

There are no good options out there. Whatever each of us ends up deciding is right for our families is laced with compromises and a heavy dose of “making it work the best we can.” But it seems that even as we try to find the best option amongst the list of bad choices, we can’t do it right. Thinking of sending your kid back to school because your district is opening with safety measures? You’re a monster who clearly doesn’t care about their kid, teachers, or anyone else. Considering hiring a tutor or forming a micro-school/co-op? You’re obviously a self-entitled elitist. It doesn’t matter that we’ve all been thrust into this situation together. That the failures here are not ones of parents, but systemic, system wide collapses in an already weak system. Or that we have all been left stranded and scrambling for any patchwork of solutions. The blame doesn’t lie with parents, but parents can’t stop criticizing and judging the choices we’re all being forced to make. 

I’m exaggerating - a bit. Not every conversation is clouded with backlash and judgement. Within Kunik, we’ve seen a massive range of plans for the fall - from those taking off for a year-long road trip and homeschooling adventure to those who have already been in full-time summer camp and are about to start in-person school. Despite these varying choices, the community has remained open, curious, and supportive. I know there are other pockets of communal support like this. But these are the exceptions. Everywhere else, I am reading, seeing, and hearing about the vitriol and unfounded attacks parents are facing for their every choice. This aggressive criticism against every decision parents make helps no one. Do you think we’re not already feeling guilty no matter what choice we made? That we’re not staying up at night wondering what to do, if we made the right choice, how it’ll impact our family and our kids' future? Personally, I don’t think this is normal parent judgement - I think it’s anger and anxiety that has been completely displaced. 

And it doesn’t just apply to school and childcare choices, it applies to work choices too. I’ve had people who left their work tell me they felt shamed by strangers and close friends and family, while others who aren’t considering leaving say they’re made to feel guilty, selfish and career obsessed for not leaving to care for their kids. Damned if you, damned if you don’t. Not only can no one make a right choice, most of these choices are being made by moms. Sure, they might be talking it out with a partner, but the endless hours of research, the agonizing weighing of pros/cons, the anxiety and stress? That’s all moms. How many dads have you talked with lately who have lost sleep over whether to send a kid to daycare or whether they can safely bring a babysitter or tutor into their home? Given the data, we can safely assume they’re also not losing sleep about whether or not to take time off or go part time. Not only because the chances of them actually doing that are about as high as there being a functional, federal solution for parents this fall, but because even if they were to do it, the impact to their career would be minimal to non-existent. Hell, they might even get a career boost out of it. 

So here we are as working moms. Stretched so far beyond our limits we don’t even remember where the limits are. Attempting to maintain our careers, families, and relationships in the face of a global pandemic. Knowing that every day the odds that we’ll have to leave work are increasing, and that if we do, the chances of coming back in are low. Watching as we see rising infection rates, more data around kids getting sick, and no solutions coming our way. Terrified about how we’re going to keep our families safe and continue to function. Feeling the reality of the data that keeps reminding us how much more of the burden we’re bearing. All of that, and we can’t even make a painful, agonizing choice about work or childcare without being told we’re wrong. If we’re all wrong, if every choice one of us makes is subject to criticism, then who is right? And what are they doing? Because all I see is an entire segment of the population that has been abandoned to fend for themselves, and those who should understand and support us the most are the first to yell “you’re wrong!” It’s like that dream of being in front of everyone naked. We’re completely vulnerable and exposed. And no matter what we reach for to cover ourselves, everyone is going to tell us it’s the wrong thing to grab. 

In a situation where we’re all uniquely struggling, but universally facing the same challenges, support, compassion, and empathy should be at their peaks. So why aren’t they?