Yes, that little bit of housework, that little bit of childcare … The pandemic is forcing women back into the 1950s. And the state is watching. Parent blogger Patricia Cammarata explains how it works differently and how everyone benefits from it
Ms. Cammarata, how are you and your family?
We’re fine, thank you. We are quite robust as a couple, we have two children and have always shared care work, which is now our benefit in the pandemic. We were able to cope with the care work of the state, which suddenly collapsed, halfway well when the schools and daycare centers were closed. I know that it is more difficult for many other families than it is for us and that women in particular are at the end of their tether. The problem of the mental load, the mass of invisible planning tasks in care work, has increased in times of corona. However, I am more angry than exhausted.
What are you angry about?
It makes me angry that politics does so little for families. There was nothing more than the additional days of child sickness. And of course they are a fig leaf. It is common knowledge that child sick days are rarely taken, and that was the case even before Corona. And so it was, these additional days are almost not used – least of all by single parents. The fear of losing one’s job is too great.
What are the additional burdens for parents?
It is obvious that, as a result of the pandemic, even more mental load material has been added that must be permanently taken into account. Hygiene regulations, homeschooling while working from home at the same time, lockdown rules, the whole pandemic management and the constant weighing up of our personal limits in terms of security – none of this just runs alongside. But there is also another side.
Parents are caught in a total dilemma.
Which one is it?
Corona made all the invisible work visible. The fact that many men also work in the home office means that they learn more about the daily routines. The pandemic has therefore increased the burden of thought for everyone. Just what snacks my kids want on a homeschooling day like this is enormous. Snacks that need to be bought, prepared and served. While we’re actually in an important video conference. And that’s what mothers and fathers are currently experiencing.
What wears you down the most?
That there is no real end in sight. Everything is a single back and forth: schools open, schools closed, alternating classes, back closed, open again. It’s hopelessness that gets us down. I am angry and disappointed that this pandemic has shown once again that the concerns of families are only of interest if they serve the economy. Just the statement that children are “pandemic drivers”! Your own health is not important, the only problem is that as little virus spreaders they could infect adults who then fail to work. Just worrying about the children is an enormous mental burden. Children can also get Long-Covid, for example. Parents are caught in a total dilemma.
Patricia Cammarata on care work in the pandemic: “It’s a lose-lose situation.”
What are your options?
One always vacillates between worrying about the safety of children and worrying about their social, psychological and academic development. In Berlin, attendance is currently suspended, so parents have the choice of sending their children to alternate classes or leaving them at home entirely. But no matter which one you choose, it is a lose-lose situation, tensions rise in families because many of them hang out 24 hours a day, seven days a week. And then there was always the subliminal demand that families shouldn’t act like that just because the children are at home for a few weeks …
In your opinion, these burdens are not being seen enough?
Exactly. Such permanent on-call service would be rewarded separately in every profession. I work in the IT industry, so you get an extra charge for night duty, of course, even if nothing happens most of the time. But women in particular are completely in this constant on mode right now. And the rules are constantly changing – first it says that children also have to wear FFP2 masks, then you organize them somehow, even though they are hardly available. Later it is said that you don’t need any. Such things. And all of this leads to more inequality in relationships.
Mental load and the gender care gap are not individual problems.
Why?
Because in this pandemic, the classic high-income model is suddenly becoming attractive for couples who have actually always worked differently. Homeschooling and the lack of support from the state lead to the fact that, with a heavy heart, working hours are cut down or jobs are completely terminated. And then mostly women do that because their income is lower. It’s a vicious circle, and it doesn’t help at all to say: “Then equality demands it!” It’s not that simple. Mental load and the gender care gap are not individual problems.
It’s about the structures.
Exactly. Mental load is a structural problem, it was the same before the pandemic. When in doubt, men forego a close relationship with their children in favor of their careers, but at the same time they can rely on the children being lovingly cared for. But it is not the other way around. Women pursuing careers usually really have to worry about the work-life balance. You may have men who support your career aspirations, but in the very few cases that means that the men will really become househusband.
Is there still too little focus on care work? Why is that?
Care work had been inadequately organized for a long time. Too few day care and after-school care places, too few qualified staff, too few affordable places for sick and old relatives, too little everything. By and large, the problems of single parents have simply been ignored. It was their own fault if they had stayed with their partners. It’s your own fault, what do you children get if you just want to organize them away. It’s your own fault, your own fault, your own fault.
Mental load and care work in the pandemic: a special burden for parents.
In 2020 you wrote a highly acclaimed book entitled “Get out of the mental load trap”, and since 2008 you have been writing about family topics on your blog “das nuf”. When did you realize that things can’t go on as they are?
When I was personally on the verge of burnout, every morning on the way to work I had the feeling that I had to lie down on the asphalt. At that moment I thought, maybe we parents have to lie down on the floor together in front of the Reichstag building and scream. And everyone: r writes on the back how many hours of gainful employment will be lost in the economy if we are lost. Appeals to personal responsibility do not help at all. They are like slaps in the face, because despite all personal responsibility – there is no meaningful framework. We can leave the children at home on our own responsibility, but how should we then create our jobs, how should we teach the children, how should we preserve their mental health?
What exactly has gotten worse now?
That the life of parents slowly falls apart day after day, week after week, month after month, energies are dwindling, nerves are bare and everything is heading for burnout. And that’s why the call for personal responsibility is nonsense. It doesn’t help to pull yourself together as parents and simply accept your excessive demands in silence. On the contrary, the isolated moaning should unite to form a primal scream that cannot be ignored. Parents will not believe that care work is inadequately organized and does not even exist at the moment. No matter how fast they run in the hamster wheel. At some point the air is out.
What has to change in the world of work?
Fortunately, more and more companies are interested in the topic. I am often invited to give lectures. When the first inquiries came in a few years ago, I was amazed: Why is that? Why are companies interested in private mental load? The magic word is a shortage of skilled workers.
Patricia Cammarata on the challenges for families during the corona pandemic
Do companies now have to think along for the whole family?
Generally speaking, men can be employed. Women can work if they manage to organize the family and household in such a way that they have enough time and energy to do additional gainful employment. If you now relieve women of some of the care work, they have more time and energy to spare. Pretty simple calculation. Employers have taken advantage of this insight. They worry about how to attract qualified men and women and tell them, yes, we pay well, but we also enable you to be a father or mother. Part-time for men, management positions in part-time, increased parental allowance, parental leave in general for more than two months without discussion – all of these were and are increasingly good arguments, also for men, to choose an employer.
What exactly are the companies doing?
There are many examples. In the tech and IT sectors in particular, new ideas are emerging because there is a particularly strong shortage of skilled workers. Household-related services are offered – a cleaner, someone who picks up laundry and brings it back ironed, mobile hairdressers, caterers for rural regions where there is no after-school care for schoolchildren so that they get lunch, company kindergartens are set up, holiday care programs are organized, support is organized caring for loved ones. Hewlett Packard Enterprise, for example, has been offering mothers and fathers six-month parental leave with full pay when a child is born or adopted since 2019. SAP is also pioneering in the framework conditions for its employees: You can decide almost entirely freely when to work from where. The company also offers parent-child offices and special payments after the birth of a child. A SAP spokesman says the return rate of parents after parental leave is one hundred percent. Skilled workers who come back and stay for a long time are a huge saving, because acquiring and training new employees simply costs a lot of money.
Not entirely unselfish, the whole thing …
No, of course not, because where all the family things don’t have to be planned, there is more mental energy left for work.
What small changes could parents make to help themselves or each other?
We also need to correct the expectations of ourselves. Nobody has to bake a three-tier cake for a kindergarten party or attend every handicraft afternoon in elementary school. It saves important energy if you just dare to bring pretzels from the bakery or two bottles of orange juice that you have bought for the school festival. We shouldn’t be too strict with ourselves – and not with other parents either.
Interview: Anne Lemhöfer
