HOME TUTORING A BURDEN WITH REWARDS
Dad finds perils, joys of remote learning, thanks to limited family leave
It was over 100 degrees again at our house in Southeast San Diego, and I could feel myself losing composure. My 5- and 7-yearold sons were staging their latest rebellion against remote learning.
Their platform: Trash the worksheets. Raid the candy jar. Unlimited Netf lix for all.
“Why can’t we just get through one day without me threatening to cancel all the fun?” I thought, fighting back the urge to yell.
That was September. Last week, I wrapped up three months as a stay-at-home dad and tutor — an experience as frustrating as it was rewarding.
The opportunity was made possible by a temporary federal program that has allowed parents and legal guardians to take
up to 12 weeks of emergency family leave to help kids with distance learning during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Families First Coronavirus Response Act directed businesses with fewer than 500 employees to cover that time off at two-thirds pay. Under the law, employers can recoup those wages with a dollar-for-dollar tax write-off.
Unfortunately, time is running out for parents to take advantage of the family leave program. Like so many other pandemic relief programs, from emergency unemployment benefits to eviction moratoriums, extended family leave expires at the end of 2020.
The program hasn’t been a panacea for all working parents. Advocates point out that many people, even with the time off, are not equipped to ensure their children succeed in a distance-learning environment, especially those for whom English is their second language. And for many single-parent and low-income households, the pay cut just isn’t practical.
The law excluded about half of the U.S. workforce by exempting large companies and allowing those with fewer than 50 employees to opt out of the program with few questions asked,
said Vicki Shabo, a lawyer and policy exper t on paid family leave at the Washington, D.C.-based think tank New America.
“While it was historic and transformative to have the federal government guarantee some type of paid family leave for the first time ever, the law itself was quite limited,” she said.
It will be par ticularly hard on mothers if the program is not renewed, Shabo said.
“Women have borne the brunt of careg iving challenges that have arisen (during the pandemic) and taken on the bulk of overseeing vir tual school,” she said. “The deep concern is that the gender inequities that have occurred up to this point will be exacerbated and magnified if the law is not extended.”
For my wife and I, the program was a godsend.
Like so many parents, our hear ts skipped a beat when we learned our school would be closed for in-person learning this fall. How would we work and watch the kids? Who would oversee their remote learning?
Emergency family leave answered those questions, albeit temporarily.
While the experience of teaching my children to read, write and do basic math has, at times, tested the limits of my patience, it’s also been a joy to watch them learn. In fact, it seems to me, they both made progress far beyond what they would have in a traditional school setting.
Not only did my boys seemingly benef it from the one-on-one attention I was able to provide, they also found out just how seriously Dad takes education.
After two months, we settled into a productive rhythm. I learned to effectively use the stick of nixing screen time to dissuade insubordination and, whenever possible, the carrot of rebranding academic tasks as engaging games.
Developing that intimate knowledge of what motivates a student is a key component of being a successful teacher, Alison Wishard Guerra, a professor at UC San Diego’s Department of Education Studies, recently explained to me.
“As a parent, you know your child better than anyone else,” she said. “You know what they’re excited about. You know what makes them tick, and so you’re able to build on that insider knowledge to help them connect to an academic subject.”
Congress is now debating whether to dispatch another raft of relief packages before Christmas. However, even if they do, it’s not clear whether family leave will be included.
The situation has raised significant concerns for advocates of working families, such as Andrew Stettner, senior fellow at The Century Foundation based in Washington, D.C.
“It’s a key moment to make the right investments,” he said. “We can get through this together, or we can exacerbate the situation with lasting damage that people won’t recover from anytime soon.”
Those with resources, of course, are better able to adjust. With our three months of help winding down, my wife and I have hired a tutor to take over our kids’ education, and so far, we’re cautiously optimistic.
It’s hard for me to express how grateful I am to have had access to this crucial lifeline. Exper ts have warned that the pandemic is causing many children to fall behind in school, especially those whose families cannot afford to pay for tutors and other outside help.
Without the leave program, I fear my children would’ve suffered academically. Instead, they got a full-time private tutor — me — and thrived.
While draining, the job was incredibly gratifying. There are few memories I cherish more than listening to my 7-year-old read me a book beyond his grade level and knowing I had some small part in his progress.