Speaker 1: Right now, we're all parenting in isolation. That is not
Speaker 1: the way that you're supposed to parents. I've spoken to
Speaker 1: a lot of single moms and they are hanging on
Speaker 1: by a thread. And that's literally how one mom put
Speaker 1: it on, hanging on by a thread, like so many
Speaker 1: parents across the country, especially brown parents, I'm in crisis mood.
Speaker 1: If you told me a year ago that my family
Speaker 1: and I would have to transform our lives within a
Speaker 1: matter of weeks, I'm talking remote learning, zoom meetings, hosting
Speaker 1: my news broadcast in a room above my garage. If
Speaker 1: you told me a year ago that motherhood was going
Speaker 1: to get more stressful, harder, and more time consuming, there
Speaker 1: is no way I would have believed you. And I
Speaker 1: say that as a mom with all sorts of support
Speaker 1: and privilege. But the truth is right now, lots and
Speaker 1: lots of parents, specifically moms, are really truly struggling. On
Speaker 1: this podcast, we want to get straight to the point
Speaker 1: and leave you with some time to think. So in
Speaker 1: this episode, we're talking about what it's really been like
Speaker 1: for moms during COVID and what it reveals about the
Speaker 1: reality of motherhood in America. I'm Stephanie Rule, MSNBC anchor,
Speaker 1: NBC News Senior correspondent, And this is Modern Rules, a
Speaker 1: podcast from NBC Think and I Heart Radio. I can't
Speaker 1: think of many times, at least in my lifetime as
Speaker 1: a mother, that other events have tested us more than
Speaker 1: COVID has. So we're trying to ask the question on
Speaker 1: this episode of Modern Rules, how is this pandemic raising
Speaker 1: the stakes from mom? I want to begin this conversation
Speaker 1: by bringing in a guest. I'm very excited to introduce
Speaker 1: you to Danielle Campamore. She's a contributor to NBC's opinion
Speaker 1: and analysis site Think. She's a mom herself with a
Speaker 1: one year old and a six year old. That's quite
Speaker 1: a split, and in her piece, she looks at how
Speaker 1: moms have responded to this pandemic in a very specific way,
Speaker 1: and that way is drinking. Danielle, thank you so much
Speaker 1: for writing this. Thank you for being here. I want
Speaker 1: you to share with us why you wrote this piece. Really,
Speaker 1: I wrote this piece because it was a personal one
Speaker 1: and I realized how much my drinking had increased as
Speaker 1: a result of the pandemic. My partners and a a central
Speaker 1: worker who works at a Amazon facility out in Staten Island.
Speaker 1: So I was managing my son's school, my one year old.
Speaker 1: I was working, and I was taking care of breakfast, lunch,
Speaker 1: and dinner and managing our home while he was gone.
Speaker 1: You know, he's still working twelve hours a day at
Speaker 1: warehouse and having to take his clothes off before he
Speaker 1: even comes in to the house and shower before he
Speaker 1: touches me or the kids. And it got to be
Speaker 1: so overwhelming. My mental health was declining an alarming rate,
Speaker 1: and to cope, I was drinking. And then I was
Speaker 1: drinking more and more and earlier and earlier, and eventually
Speaker 1: looked around was that this is not sustainable, This isn't healthy.
Speaker 1: But right now, when you think about a day in
Speaker 1: our lives during COVID, you're preparing three meals and snacks
Speaker 1: and then figuring out how are you getting to the store.
Speaker 1: You're actually going to school with your child, and you're
Speaker 1: doing your job. So can you just speak to us
Speaker 1: about what that day looks like in order to get
Speaker 1: everything done. You know, you're waking up at four o'clock
Speaker 1: in the morning and trying to start your work day
Speaker 1: before your children wake up, and you have to do
Speaker 1: breakfast and then that's one load of dishes, you know,
Speaker 1: and then it's it's zoom, it's zoom meetings for you,
Speaker 1: zoom meetings for your kid changing diapers. There's no one
Speaker 1: except myself to really acknowledge all the work that is
Speaker 1: being done. And I think the thanklessness on top of
Speaker 1: everything else plays a huge role in why moms are
Speaker 1: exhausted and depressed. And then I realized I wasn't alone,
Speaker 1: and so many of my friends who are mothers said
Speaker 1: that they're drinking was increasing. I was seeing that, you know,
Speaker 1: talked about on message boards and Facebook groups, and suddenly realized,
Speaker 1: this is something that's happening right under our noses, and
Speaker 1: I mean to talk about it. Can you speak to
Speaker 1: this actual underbelly about this drinking, because it's not celebratory drinking.
Speaker 1: It's not a funny ha ha, it's not Oh, this
Speaker 1: is motherhood self care. You know, glass of wine turns
Speaker 1: into a bottle of wine, whoops. It's a real issue
Speaker 1: where moms are drinking and unhealthy ways, at unhealthy levels.
Speaker 1: It's easy for us to say that this is a
Speaker 1: COVID nineteen pandemic problem, but the mommy wine culture has
Speaker 1: been around for a very long time, as has our
Speaker 1: lack of systemic support for moms. In more and more
Speaker 1: American families, both parents work, oftentimes women are the primary breadwinners,
Speaker 1: and then in other families there's only a single parent.
Speaker 1: But the American mom carries the weight of the children
Speaker 1: and put me in the luckiest girl category. I'm racing
Speaker 1: inside to a lunches that they don't want to eat,
Speaker 1: and even if it's the most basic lunch, and and
Speaker 1: an outsider could be like, yo, you just have to
Speaker 1: make your kids lunch. Y know, just making your kids
Speaker 1: lunch still takes thirty five minutes. And so you did
Speaker 1: allows the job at it, you weren't good at work,
Speaker 1: and you just feel like this blows. I thought everything
Speaker 1: was supposed to get better. Exactly that gets reinforced with
Speaker 1: this idea that as moms, we can't complain because this
Speaker 1: is what we signed up for. This is not what
Speaker 1: I signed up for when I became a mother, though
Speaker 1: this was not on the ticket. It was like some
Speaker 1: silence and some independent time where I can focus on
Speaker 1: any other aspect of my life that isn't tied to motherhood.
Speaker 1: And it's an impossible ask right now. So I don't.
Speaker 1: I don't know when that will change. My partner considers
Speaker 1: themself to be a feminist. I'm a feminist, and I
Speaker 1: honestly thought that we had a pretty decent division of labor,
Speaker 1: but we didn't, and we had to really base that.
Speaker 1: But it hasn't been and easy, and it's been born
Speaker 1: out of a lot of really tough conversations and us
Speaker 1: really having to face the inequities that were existing prior
Speaker 1: to COVID in our own relationship. We'll be back after
Speaker 1: the break. Everyone has experienced some level of loss, but
Speaker 1: hasn't only exacerbated the fact that those who have more
Speaker 1: it's easier for them to see the silver linings. And
Speaker 1: because many people who can say that are in a
Speaker 1: very privileged situation. Absolutely, I mean that coronavirus was impacting
Speaker 1: black and Latin X community is at higher rates anyways.
Speaker 1: Tack on that with just the huge wage gap between
Speaker 1: black and brown women and white women, tack on the
Speaker 1: majority of essential workers are black and brown people. Even
Speaker 1: in my own experiences as a Puerto Rican woman who's
Speaker 1: extremely white, passing the benefits from that privilege exponentially, I've
Speaker 1: literally stopped and been like, have I not only harmed
Speaker 1: the quality of my life. Have I harmed my career
Speaker 1: to such a point that there's no going back? And
Speaker 1: have I actually harmed my children because I haven't been
Speaker 1: able to set them up the way that affluent white
Speaker 1: parents have been able to set up their kids with
Speaker 1: tutors and child and the nanny and all this stuff.
Speaker 1: And now, I mean, who knows when this will end?
Speaker 1: Is my one year old soon to be two year
Speaker 1: old going to even know how to interact with other children?
Speaker 1: I mean, parents always worry, but the worries that parents
Speaker 1: are facing now it's on a whole another level. There's
Speaker 1: been moments, as much as I love my children, where
Speaker 1: I just think about how healthier I would be mentally
Speaker 1: and physically, um, perhaps how healthier my relationship would be
Speaker 1: if I wasn't totally responsible for the care of two
Speaker 1: human beings. This has been extra complicated because we can't
Speaker 1: rely on friends or neighbors or our moms because the
Speaker 1: health risks. But even the mom's support network is other
Speaker 1: moms were just burying ourselves. Is there somewhere else in
Speaker 1: society they could say, we need to sound the alarm
Speaker 1: if we want our families to thrive some to how
Speaker 1: we hold a motherhood in this country. We have associated
Speaker 1: it with martyrdom. The more you give up, the better
Speaker 1: mom you are. All of these mixed messages that we've
Speaker 1: been forced to choke down as moms since forever I've
Speaker 1: been bubbling him. Now, when that speaks to a lack
Speaker 1: of understanding and tangible gratefulness for motherhood and parenting in general,
Speaker 1: then let's talk about implications. We saw moms taking on homeschooling, housework,
Speaker 1: all sorts of job stressed that they hadn't before pre COVID.
Speaker 1: It did feel, at least from a branding perspective, like
Speaker 1: we were closing various gender gaps. Were we actually closing
Speaker 1: the gender gap or were we just putting lipstick on
Speaker 1: this and celebrating big corporate diversity conferences and take your
Speaker 1: kids to work day, But at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: was never actually getting better. We've never valued the unpaid
Speaker 1: labor of mothers, whether they're working outside the home or
Speaker 1: in the home, working moms worth managing the majority of
Speaker 1: childrearing and household responsibilities prior to COVID, even though more
Speaker 1: of us are working outside the home and now during COVID,
Speaker 1: while we are working and managing even more of the
Speaker 1: child care and responsibilities. Dads are three times more likely
Speaker 1: to actually get promoted during this time than we are.
Speaker 1: Eight hundred and sixty five thousand women were forced out
Speaker 1: of the workforce just last month because we don't have
Speaker 1: access to childcare. We cannot manage both, and so women
Speaker 1: are making the difficult decision. They're choosing their children and
Speaker 1: their families, and they're leaving their careers behind. And this
Speaker 1: is all because we value motherhood insofar as it is martyrdom.
Speaker 1: The more you sacrifice, the better mom you are. Think
Speaker 1: about the way it's even reported women have chosen to
Speaker 1: leave the workforce. How much does affordable child care play
Speaker 1: a role in this? Care is a huge issue. It's
Speaker 1: the reason why we have these non choices and get
Speaker 1: forced out of, you know, our career trajectories and the workforce.
Speaker 1: Just this year, assemblywoman in California was denied the chance
Speaker 1: to vote by proxy, so she brought her newborn to
Speaker 1: the assembly floor to cast a vote, and we covered
Speaker 1: it as look at everything moms can do. Moms are
Speaker 1: so incredible, so strong. No, that was not the story.
Speaker 1: The story was that this was ridiculous and that we
Speaker 1: should have allowed this mother to vote by proxy in
Speaker 1: the middle of a pandemic and not have to bring
Speaker 1: her newborn to work. But we don't treat moms the
Speaker 1: way that they should be treated, which is autonomous human
Speaker 1: beings who have needs and who deserves support. It's not
Speaker 1: necessarily a choice to leave the workforce, right when when
Speaker 1: you think about the way corporate structure was designed, whether
Speaker 1: it's business or government, it was designed in a way
Speaker 1: that as you moved up the ladder, there was another
Speaker 1: human in your life, a wife, a mother, who took
Speaker 1: care of everything else, and you just had to go
Speaker 1: to work. Moms have said that they don't feel valued.
Speaker 1: Do you think it's worse now? If we really valued
Speaker 1: moms here, then we would pay them equal wages for
Speaker 1: equal work, and we'd have mandatory paid family leave, and
Speaker 1: we would have access to affordable childcare, and you know,
Speaker 1: we would do something about the maternal mortality rate. But
Speaker 1: we do none of those things. Instead, we just give
Speaker 1: moms a patent of back, say oh, you're such a
Speaker 1: good mom for sacrifice and so much. Here's a bottle
Speaker 1: of wine. And that's all that we do for moms.
Speaker 1: Put all of this aside, there is no at least
Speaker 1: for me, I'm going to say, there is no greater
Speaker 1: joy than motherhood. But kind of can you blame a
Speaker 1: lot of millennial women right now who are saying, hold
Speaker 1: on a second, I'm seeing the impact this is having
Speaker 1: on mother's lives, on their careers, on their well being,
Speaker 1: their happiness. Maybe I don't want to have kids. Do
Speaker 1: you think that's a momentary thing or that could actually last.
Speaker 1: Pre COVID, you didn't have to look very hard to
Speaker 1: see how little working moms were supporting how difficult it
Speaker 1: is to be a working um. We saw there were
Speaker 1: studies that were showing, you know, the millennial women were
Speaker 1: putting in any plans to have a family on hold
Speaker 1: so that they could establish their careers. I definitely can't
Speaker 1: blame them. Now, then did COVID just show us and
Speaker 1: then that moms were never really valued? That makes me
Speaker 1: personally feel like I've failed, and you know, to be
Speaker 1: quite frank, and I think this is something a lot
Speaker 1: of parents are feeling, and moms particularly but are so
Speaker 1: terrified to say, a lot of moms just don't have
Speaker 1: access to any other type of support that allows them
Speaker 1: to explore other identities other than just being a mom,
Speaker 1: and that is not what motherhood is about. How unhealthy
Speaker 1: is that women? Right now it's outside of their control,
Speaker 1: but they feel like complete failures. Is that what makes
Speaker 1: you know? Quote this time different in normal times? Like
Speaker 1: the truth is real time parenting is never that fun.
Speaker 1: This is so much more than that because you are
Speaker 1: carrying this weight, right, I mean, it's an elongated period
Speaker 1: that we don't have an end date for. So we
Speaker 1: are in crisis mode and in triage mode. I have
Speaker 1: to worry about the right here and the right now
Speaker 1: and how I get from day to day to day.
Speaker 1: I think that if I was really valued as a mother,
Speaker 1: the shallow congratulatory you're doing great, I can't believe you
Speaker 1: are doing at all. I don't know how you do it.
Speaker 1: That would all stop, and so how we really do that?
Speaker 1: All the hallmark card congratulations in the world aren't going
Speaker 1: to make us feel any more valued or any more supported.
Speaker 1: But I also simultaneously do see a light because I
Speaker 1: was able to write a piece like this. Working mothers,
Speaker 1: mothers who worked in and outside of the home, who
Speaker 1: are working from home now, as well as other people
Speaker 1: who aren't moms, are looking around at what is happening
Speaker 1: and saying this is not right, this is not sustainable,
Speaker 1: this is unhealthy, and we need to change it. So
Speaker 1: when you write about this, you take the shame away,
Speaker 1: and I really appreciate you sharing this difficult time in
Speaker 1: your life, sharing what's happening to so many other moms
Speaker 1: out there, because it's got to start with a conversation.
Speaker 1: M This is such a hugely stressful time for families.
Speaker 1: We can't give a to anything, and we feel like
Speaker 1: we're failing at everything. We don't know who to turn
Speaker 1: to because everyone's feeling loss. As stressful as this time is,
Speaker 1: the ability to just be in this moment and appreciate
Speaker 1: what we have has never been more clear. In this podcast,
Speaker 1: we're trying to get straight to the point and leave
Speaker 1: you with some time to think. Something Danielle left me
Speaker 1: thinking about is this motherhood, like almost everything else in life,
Speaker 1: isn't one thing. It's not a bucket you can just
Speaker 1: put someone in and set aside. If we gave moms
Speaker 1: back a quarter of what they give an unpaid labor,
Speaker 1: what would that look like and what does a more
Speaker 1: sustainable view of parenting and motherhood look like? Tomorrow. If
Speaker 1: COVID is a mirror, do we really like the vision
Speaker 1: of motherhood that it's showing us? And if we don't,
Speaker 1: what do we want to see instead? Modern Rules is
Speaker 1: a production of MSNBC and I Heart Radio. The podcast
Speaker 1: is hosted by me Stephanie Rule and executive produced by
Speaker 1: Mike Fiett and Katrina Norvell. Meredith Bennett Smith is Senior
Speaker 1: editor for NBC Think and our editorial Lead. The podcast
Speaker 1: is engineered and edited by Josh Fisher and special thanks
Speaker 1: to Katherine kim, Our Global head of Digital News. Right
Speaker 1: here at NBC News and MSNBC