Working Mothers: Welcome to the 98 Hour Work Week

Working Moms: Welcome to the 98 Hour Work Week

If it feels like you’re working three jobs? You are, basically. Running down the results of a recent study, Working Mother reports that “four in 10 say they feel like their lives are a never-ending series of tasks all week.” You don’t say?

“Welch’s recently commissioned a study of 2,000 American mothers with children ages 5 to 12. It aimed to discover the useful tools, resources and techniques moms use to keep their lives and their family’s lives afloat. Their most astounding finding: the average working mom clocks in a 98-hour work week, with her day typically starting at 6:23 a.m. She doesn’t end up finishing her work or family duties until 8:31 p.m., meaning she works 14 hours per day.” [Working Mother]

Listen Up: The Feds Just Changed the Way You’re Supposed To Clean Your Breast Pump

A newborn baby died after her mom’s breast pump was contaminated by bacteria from a sink drain. Now the Centers for Disease Control [CDC] is recommending changes, including refrigerators, bag labeling, and disinfectant wipes (see our rundown for more). But how are we supposed to make it work when we’re in the car?

According to Dr. Underwood, the CDC and FDA create guidelines like those this case sparked to protect the largest number of babies from the worst possible outcomes—but not all babies require extreme levels of sanitation.

Dr. Underwood explained following the CDC guidelines is prudent for mothers pumping for premature babies or those with immune deficiencies, but other moms can relax. He said, “If she is pumping for a healthy term infant this level of detail to cleaning and sterilizing equipment may not be helpful.” [Mother.ly]

This is why mothers are conspicuously absent from America’s newsrooms.

Katherine Goldstein was a top digital editor at one of the country’s most prestigious magazines. Then she had her first child—and her child needed surgery. What happened next changed the way she thought about her industry, and why there are hardly any mothers in today’s newsrooms. “If news organizations want to attract and retain millennial journalists,” she notes, “newsrooms will have to do a better job of meeting the needs of parents with young children—and create better work-life balance for everyone.”

Case in point? This startling anecdote from Goldstein’s report, which shows that even allegedly progressive outlets like NPR have a long way to go:

While an understanding boss helps create a good work environment for all employees, especially mothers, it’s hardly a retention strategy. Women who are met with a lack of understanding about family realities and have been refused flexibility often leave the industry. Anne Hawke was a producer on NPR’s “Morning Edition” when it was announced that every three months, producers would be required to rotate their shifts to nights, evenings, or weekends. As the single mother of an 18-month-old, this was untenable. Her requests for flexibility or a job change were not accommodated. When the company announced buyouts the next month, she leaped at the chance. “It was very bittersweet because I really wanted to stay,” she says. “I loved the place and thought I’d spend my whole career there, but I had to find the exit door.” She now works in communications for a nonprofit.

Asked to comment on Hawke’s story, NPR released a statement that pointed out the demands of 24/7 breaking news and defended the rotating shift schedule as a good solution so tough shifts are shouldered more fairly by the whole “Morning Edition” staff. The statement says, “NPR is committed to retaining talented staff before and after they have children: we offer maternity/paternity leave, rollover vacations and sick days, and a leave-sharing program.” It also mentions that NPR offers a number of other employee well-being initiatives, including assistance with childcare. [Nieman Reports]

New Study: Child Care Expenses Push Many Families Into Poverty.

We know child care costs are rising. But how often are child care costs responsible for actually pushing families into poverty? That’s the question asked by researchers Beth Mattingly and Christopher T. Wimer in a new study from the Casey School of Public Policy at the University of New Hampshire. Their findings? “Roughly one third of…poor families are pushed into poverty by child care expenses.” One. Third. From the study:

Among families with young children who pay for child care, those with three or more children, those headed by a single parent, those with black or Hispanic household heads, and those headed by someone with less than a high school degree or by someone who does not work full time are most often pushed into poverty by child care expenses. Notably, these are also the families that tend to have the highest rates of poverty. [Casey School of Public Policy]

For context, here’s a snippet from Time magazine not long ago: “If the costs are a drain for the middle class, they are often an impossibility for the poor. The typical cost of a full-time nanny tops $28,000, which for a minimum-wage worker is 188% of income, according to analysis from New America and Care.com.”

New Poll: 81 percent of Republicans, Democrats, and independents support a child care tax credit.

Americans, it sometimes seems if you’re watching cable news these days disagree on just about everything. Except, that is, this:

A new poll from the First Five Years Fund finds that 81 percent of Republican, independent, and Democratic voters support providing a tax credit to help parents better afford quality childcare and early education, with low- and middle-income parents who need more help getting a larger credit. This broad bipartisan support is further proof that Americans, no matter their political identity, recognize the importance of high-quality early childhood education. [Miami Herald]

The White House’s first-ever Spokesmom just said something important.

Here’s the money quote from Sarah Huckabee Sanders: “Every little girl in America should grow up in a country that…incentivizes women to work and raise children.” Huckabee, mom of three, is the first working mom to hold the White House’s prized press-secretary gig. Why is what she said so radical?

It shouldn’t be: There’s broad bipartisan support for family leave (see, among other things, the study above). But not all Republicans agree that the federal government should, as Sanders says, incentivize women to work — Paul Ryan, among others, has opposed federally-mandated family leave policies. That’s one reason why political observers have been skeptical that — even with Ivanka Trump leading the way — President Trump will be able to push meaningful a family-leave policy through Congress as part of his upcoming tax reform plan.

Of course, as Business Insider points out, Trump’s other plans aren’t exactly good news for working moms:

Repealing or repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act, for instance, could raise the uninsured rate among mothers. That rate had fallen to 13.6% from 17.4% in 2014 under the law, commonly called Obamacare, and had a particularly significant effect in states that opted for the Medicaid expansion, according to a 2016 Urban Institute study. [Business Insider]

Is there a looming child care crisis in America?

In a word, yes. Child care deserts are on the rise, and so are costs. “We have a child-care crisis in Boulder County and throughout the United States,” writes Colorado columnist Jim Martin, “adding another financial squeeze on America’s shrinking middle class, the poor and young adults.”

Child care is one of the most difficult and expensive decisions that a parent will have to make.

It has three problem areas: a shortage of child-care openings, especially for infants; the low quality of some child-care facilities; and the sometimes ridiculously high costs (for example, the average total cost of infant care in Boulder County is over $15,100 per year). [Daily Camera]

MEANWHILE…

Illinois: Child care workers show up — with children — at Governor’s house, to protest new regulations that could cut 40,000 children from state-funded child care programs.
Michigan: Announces increases in reimbursement rates, and expands family eligibility for child care subsidies.
New York City: Teen babysitter rates might surprise you.

**Everybody’s still talking about Care.com’s 2017 Cost of Care Survey.**

In case you missed it, we released our annual Cost of Care survey, the definitive guide to what child care costs across America — and what parents are thinking about when they think about child care. The big shocker? One third of families report spending 20% of their annual income on child care — a number that’s up from 2016. Here are the takeaways from COC that got the rest of the media buzzing: