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Guest post by Carrie Wolinetz, Ph.D., NIH Associate Director for Science Policy, originally released on the Under the Poliscope blog
Associate Director for Science Policy, NIH
Next week marks the one-year anniversary of NIH shifting to maximum telework in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Like employers and employees across the country, overnight we needed to adapt our entire enterprise and reinvent our jobs in the virtual workplace. Coincidentally, next week is also when with a deep breath and a big hug, I send my six year old back to school in person, masked up and excited to meet his 1st grade teacher in person for the first time. So it seems like a good time to reflect on what the past year has been like, juggling the demands of serving in the leadership of a government agency square in the middle of COVID response with the needs of two young children during this nationwide experiment in virtual schooling.
Over the past year, I have gotten expert at the hand-over-the-mouth side conversations with my kids while muted on videoconference. There are good days and there are bad days. Like when my already prone-to-anxiety fifth grader gets hysterical because there are technology glitches and is panicked he’s missed something. Or when my first grader breaks down into tears because he’s had to sit in front of a computer for hours and is confused by something being asked of him. Inevitably, these moments occur when I’m in the middle of a critical meeting. I’ve accidentally come off mute while in the middle of alternately yelling at and bribing my children to behave so I can just pay attention to this conversation. I long for five minutes to just pay sole attention to the work I am doing and not have to think about snack time or lunch options or whether trombone is starting to whether a Chromebook is charged. I struggle to feel smart and competent as either a mother or as a professional when the unrelenting demands of one are constantly competing with the other.
Much to the entertainment of my colleagues, I have found my six year old does best when I am working nearby, which means he is constantly in the background of my WebEx or Zoom – fidgeting, coloring, doing jumping jacks – as I try to provide intelligent advice on agency policy with a song about counting frogs in one ear. I have been caught frozen in moments of indecision, as my children come running up in hysterical tears for help with one thing or another, but I have an upcoming item on the agenda to speak to. And that’s the curated account – not delving into the darker moments when I break down in tears or lose my temper because I reached the limits of my emotional wherewithal and snap at my kids in a voice I barely recognize as my own. Or those days when I have trouble caring about what’s going on at work or just turn my children over to electronic devices for a moment of peace. I worry all the time that having my children continually visible in my workspace, demonstrating my constant state of distraction, will cause my (primarily older and male) colleagues to take me less seriously.
The media has offered extensive coverage of how truly difficult this balancing act has been, the disproportionate effect it is having on women or individuals whose jobs do not support telework, such as healthcare workers or front-line service providers, and the agonizing choice faced by many parents struggling with impossible dilemmas of keeping themselves or their loved ones safe from a deadly disease while trying to do what’s best for their child’s well-being and education. The wrench the pandemic has thrown into the everyday tension of work-life balance just doesn’t affect women, of course. In my own household, my husband has taken on more childcare responsibilities than ever, as the pandemic has increased my workload, and a recent Pew study seems to indicate this is happening all over the country1. But evidence has long shown that women bear a disproportionate burden of household and dependent care responsibilities2, and the early data on the negative impact of the pandemic on the productivity of women in science is truly alarming3. There is recognition across the biomedical enterprise that the long-term impact of the pandemic could entail a devastating setback for women and others with dependent care responsibilities, and there are a lot of discussions of strategies to minimize that risk.
In a world currently experiencing staggering loss of life and economic misfortune due to COVID-19, my challenges pale by comparison. My family has been able to stay safe, we are healthy, we are employed… and yet still it is a struggle. Even as it feels like hope is on the horizon, in the form of vaccine and falling hospitalization rates and opening of schools, we must recognize not just the toll the past year has taken on working women and parents, but also not lose sight of the bright light the pandemic has cast on this balancing act. The challenge of balancing work and caregiving doesn’t go away just because it isn’t visible on Zoom. We need to create an environment that feels safe for caregivers, particularly women, to talk about their real-world dilemmas and ask for help or just feel empathy from their peers, without feeling like revealing this diminishes us as professionals. I thought long and hard about writing such a personal blog post, but I worry that by not talking candidly and honestly about how difficult juggling this all is, I am serving as a bad role model. The working mom dilemma exists in the best of time, as author Amy Westfield describes it “We expect women to work like they don’t have children, and raise children as if they don’t work.”
I am not going to end this blog post with a pithy solution that diminishes the complexity of the problem or suggests I personally have this all figured out. The next few years will undoubtedly be dominated by a “lessons learned” conversation about COVID 19, and I plan to use my seat at the table of scientific leadership to make sure we haven’t squandered a crisis for women in science. I hope other leaders, both men and women, will do the same.
1 https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/10/22/fewer-mothers-and-fathers-in-u-s-are-working-due-to-covid-19-downturn-those-at-work-have-cut-hours/
2 https://www.forbes.com/sites/maggiegermano/2019/03/27/women-are-working-more-than-ever-but-they-still-take-on-most-household-responsibilities/?sh=71bbae5e52e9
3 https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/women-in-science-may-suffer-lasting-career-damage-from-covid-19/
Carrie, thank you. Just, thank you.
Thank you! This is an important discussion, and I think everyone-women, men, beginning scientists, senior scientists, and staff–anyone can relate to the struggles this pandemic has brought.
Unfortunately, I do not think everyone can relate. I was speaking to a father on the playground recently, who said that a senior researcher in his department gives him blank looks whenever he tries to explain why his grant submissions have plummeted since the pandemic started. He is the one primarily responsible for watching the children during the week.
Thank you for your candor and relatability.
Exactly
Thank you Carrie for your honesty and thought provoking reality to these difficult times.
Thank you for this beautiful, incisive, and courageous post.
Thank you for this incredibly honest and important post. By sharing this you help countless others process their own struggles and find resilience. It is nice to know one is not alone during these times.
Thank you for sharing, Carrie. So important to talk about!
Spoken for all those who went through these situations .
Thank you! You essentially described perfectly my experiences of the past year as a working mother in science academia. The stories are common. What we are missing are solutions and the ending of your post gave me great hope!
I SO needed to hear this. Thank you for taking the time and precious energy to write this. You are doing a great job!
Thank you for cutting to the heart of the matter with so much inclusivity for the breadth of experiences women and families are facing. I’m in tears, as seeing this in print in this forum has let me release just a bit of what I’ve been carrying. Some days are better than others, and we’ve had a lot of “pandemic wins” in my family. But the small daily struggles and the really bad days are hard to recover from. Blessing to you and your family.
Thank you for your honesty about the difficulties of working with small children at home. This sentence really hit home for me: “I struggle to feel smart and competent as either a mother or as a professional when the unrelenting demands of one are constantly competing with the other.” I hope our struggles can lead to some improvements to the challenges working parents face.
Thank you for sharing. Your story brought tears to my eyes, because I too can relate to it all. It is a reminder that we are not alone, and it helps start the conversation. This was a challenging year, and we do need to have the conversation about lessons learned, and what can we do to make things better.
This struck so close to home I even cried a little. Thank you for sharing and fighting for us working moms!
Your struggles are so familiar! Just naming them is a help to all of us who are struggling to hold it together.
Thank you for sharing publicly. The fact that so many of us are in tears (myself included) simply hearing that another woman faces the same surface-level daily struggles speaks to the fact that the relentless nature of doing this day-in and day-out is taking an emotional toll that is simply indescribable. I hope the next conversation is about how we recover.
I got emotional reading this as it hit so close to home. Thanks so much for sharing. Knowing that we aren’t alone in our struggles that leave us feeling so alienated during COVID times is huge.
This has not only been an issue for those of us caring for children. Much of this is also true for those of us caring for our elderly parents during this time.
Thank you SO much for sharing this! I, too, struggle even though we are doing well in the grand scheme of things during the pandemic. My husband and I are (both Hispanic medicinal chemists, so already unicorns on that front) are still employed with work-from-home flexibility and are able to have our kids attend school from the safety of our own home. Whereas I used to have at least some separation of work and family time and kids’ activities, now work is vacation is school is “me time”…and it feels like I’m not doing any of them justice. I want to go back to being at work regularly, but also don’t necessarily feel safe doing that yet as kids can’t be vaccinated. Here’s to hoping we can all hang on just a bit longer!
Thank you Carrie for opening your heart up to the world. I completely resonate with your experience. In India, our ancient Hindu text says ‘Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam’, which means “the world is one family”. Probably, for the first time, the world is experiencing a single pattern of living i.e. work from home. I can get the feel of complete oneness in India with your experience in the U.S. Everything happens for a purpose. This time shall also pass…….. soon.