By Jordyn Forte
When 24-year-old Ashley Lafontaine gave birth to her first child in January, she had anticipated taking a few weeks away from her job at Dave’s Marketplace on maternity leave. She never anticipated those few weeks turning into nine months and counting because of the Coronavirus.
On January 28 when Lafontaine’s daughter, Rileigh, was born, the Coronavirus had not yet slammed the United States.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) had only confirmed the first Coronavirus case in the United States on January 21, a week before Lafontaine gave birth.
In the days and weeks following Rileigh’s birth, the number of Coronavirus cases in the United States continued to rise steadily, officially surpassing 100 confirmed cases in the U.S. on March 3.
As news about the severity of the Coronavirus emerged, Lafontaine said she decided to take more time out of work to spend with her then one-month-old infant. Due to childcare concerns, Lafontaine eventually left her job.
Data collected by the U.S. Census Bureau’s Household Pulse Survey revealed that nearly one in five (19.6%) adults are out of work as a direct result of disrupted childcare arrangements.
Of those who have retained their jobs during the pandemic, “mothers with young children reduced their work hours four to five times more than fathers,” another study published in Gender, Work, and Organization found.
In Lafontaine’s case, the decision to quit was a result of scheduling conflicts.
With Dave’s Marketplace having reduced its hours because of the pandemic, Lafontaine said that her schedule – which was opposite to her husband, Jeff’s – no longer aligned with her husband’s, making it impossible for her to work, as it would leave her daughter without a caretaker.
Lafontaine said the threat of the Coronavirus, especially where she now has an infant’s health to consider, also weighed in heavily on her decision not to return to work.
While her husband picked up extra hours at his job – transporting car parts and materials for auto repair shops and dealerships – to compensate for their temporary loss of income, Lafontaine also looked for new ways to contribute to her family’s finances.
“I wanted to find a way to help while also staying safe and being able to take care of Rileigh,” Lafontaine said.
To do so, Lafontaine now works as a Door Dash, Uber Eats, and Grubhub delivery driver when her husband is at home watching their daughter.
Lafontaine also works as an independent consultant for Pampered Chef when she is at home caring for her daughter.
“Working for Pampered Chef is great because I can work around Rileigh’s schedule, which is different every day,” Lafontaine said.
Though things have been a bit tumultuous for her family since the onset of the pandemic, Lafontaine said that she is still grateful to be in the situation in which she finds herself, as she believes others have been impacted by the pandemic far more greatly than she and her family have been.
“I’m grateful I don’t have school-aged children during this crazy time. School closings and shut downs have caused thousands, if not millions, of families to experience financial issues, which only places added stress onto mothers and fathers who are trying to provide for their families during the pandemic,” Lafontaine said.
As a working mother of three school-aged children, Meredith Davis, 41, said that she has felt the stress of the pandemic in her everyday life.
“This pandemic has caused all sorts of headaches for Ben and I,” Davis said.
Davis’ children, Dylan, 12, Rebecca, 9, and Meghan, 8, all attend public school in Cumberland, Rhode Island.
When Davis, who works at Amazon, and her husband, Ben, who works for EDENS, a retail real estate owner, operator, and developer, are busy with work obligations, they generally rely on a babysitter to watch their three children.
However, when Rhode Island Gov., Gina M. Raimondo closed all public schools on March 14, the Davis’ were initially left without any childcare.
As a result, Davis said she was forced to reduce her work hours.
Weeks into the pandemic, Davis said her husband, who normally commutes to and from Boston, began to work from home.
To accommodate this, Davis said she would stay home with the kids in the morning while her husband worked in his home office; the two of them would then reverse roles, with Davis going into work for a later, closing shift while her husband would stay with their children.
With her children’s education currently being delivered in a hybridized in-person and online format, Davis said that she and her husband are forced to keep juggling their schedules in a balancing act.
When their schedules do not line up and they need someone to watch the children, Davis said she reaches out to her father, who lives in Connecticut, as a last resort.
Like Davis’ father, there are a number of other grandparents who have been stepping in to assist with childcare roles during the pandemic.
Donna Laplume, 54, has always played an active role in her grandchildren’s lives, but she said that the circumstances surrounding the pandemic have made her more involved in her grandkids’ everyday lives than ever before.
Laplume lives with her 26-year-old son, Jordan, and his seven-year-old son, Hunter.
While her son works, Laplume watches her grandson.
Laplume’s grandson attends Flora S. Curtis Elementary School in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. Because of the pandemic, Laplume’s grandson is receiving his education remotely this fall.
As a result, Laplume said that she has taken on the role of a teacher for her grandson.
“I do distance learning with Hunter from nine o’clock in the morning until two-thirty in the afternoon,” Laplume said, “and I help Hunter [with his schoolwork] when he needs it. I also check to make sure his work is done.”
Though Laplume is able to aid her grandson, she said that she is sure there are many grandparents who don’t know how to work laptops or newer technology well enough to properly assist their grandkids.
Helping her grandson with his virtual learning in the morning has also caused Laplume, who works as a customer service representative at Bed Bath & Beyond, to have to change her availability at work.
Laplume said that she used to work opening shifts but has since adjusted her availability to closing shifts because of pandemic-imposed childcare concerns.
Though Laplume said she is still working the same number of hours as she did before adjusting her availability, she said that her new schedule is demanding.
“Having to change my hours has had a tremendous effect on me, my routine, and my personal life. I do distance learning with Hunter until two-thirty in the afternoon and I have to be to work for three – I really only have Sunday to do as much as I can, so it’s difficult for me to make appointments and complete errands,” Laplume said.
“I was fortunate that I was able to change my hours at work,” Laplume said, “many people can’t, and if I hadn’t, I would have to rely on my 75-year-old mother, who has asthma and other health issues, for help – that would worry me.”
“This pandemic has really turned everyone’s lives upside down,” Laplume said.
Also disproportionately affected by the pandemic are those working on the frontline.
According to data produced by the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR), women account for 64.4% of the workforce in all frontline industries, and they comprise 76.8% of the global healthcare workforce.
Kristen Scott, 42, a Registered Nurse at Morton Hospital in Taunton, Massachusetts, said that the pandemic has affected her emotionally, mentally, and physically.
“I’ve watched too many patients lose their lives to the Coronavirus, most of them dying alone with no family by their side. My coworkers and I have had to serve as these patients’ family members, staying by their bedside and holding their hands as they take their last breaths,” Scott said.
“Caring for those infected by the virus is also stressful,” Scott said, “because I have myself and my loved ones to worry about too – my mother is 67 and I don’t want her getting sick.”
Scott’s concerns are shared by many others, as demonstrated by data collected by the American Nurses Association (ANA), which found that, “87% of nurses [who responded to the survey] fear going to work.”
With the pandemic consuming the entirety of both her home and work lives, Scott said she feels burnt out and exhausted, so much to the point in which she had to take a stress leave from work from July to September.
Multiple studies have found that depression, burnout, and suicide are generally more prominent in individuals working in the medical field than in other individuals.
According to the National Academy of Medicine, “Studies found that the risk for suicide among male physicians was 40% higher than for men in the general population, [and] for female physicians, that risk was 130% higher.”
“Sadly, this pandemic will have lasting effects on many,” Scott said, “as the Coronavirus does not discriminate.”
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