I’m back, baby! Flexible work options give parents confidence but worries continue
With her two daughters in the backseat, Rhonda Brand is on her way to work. The 32-year-old accountant has been working extra hours because of tax season and she says she’s been extra lucky to have found additional childcare options to cover her extra hours. “I work from home and the
girls are three and five, and even though I can handle them most of the year, it gets really hectic in April and March, so I’m glad I can get some help,” says Brand, who lives outside Atlanta. “My sister is watching them today so I can drop them off, go home and get some serious work done.”
Brand says she’s starting to “get her legs back” in terms of parenting but still has concerns about her job, her family and her future. And she’s not alone. A recent survey from KinderCare Learning Companies and The Harris Poll show that after a downswing in parental confidence during the pandemic, moms and dads say things are looking up. In fact, 86 percent of parents now report they feel confident on a typical day. At the same time, stress levels have reached an all-time high at 59 percent, making the state of parenting more complex than ever.
Key findings from this year’s report include:
● Childcare needs are driving the future of work. Parents are at the forefront of reimagining work and are making career modifications to be more available for their children. Forty percent of parents are open to or actively seeking new jobs right now, and roughly 60 percent have or have considered taking a career break due to childcare needs. Working parents prefer employer-provided childcare assistance, either through subsidized tuition or in a center, over employers
setting “off hours” where parents are unplugged and unreachable.
● Hybrid work could shape the future of childcare. Sixty-nine percent of parents believe that “hybrid work has or will change my childcare needs.” Working parents are looking for flexible, employer-sponsored care to support them. Outside of family and friends who can help, the biggest needs for hybrid workers are co-working and play centers (39 percent), multiple locations for childcare (37 percent) and on-demand care options (36 percent).
● Uncertainty around childcare is a key factor in parents’ stress. Many
parents have spent more time with their children these past two years than ever before, likely contributing to parenting confidence. In fact, more working parents are leveraging work flexibility to be present in their children’s lives (69 percent), an increase of 10 percentage points from February 2020. At the same time, many of the reasons for this increased time together are also some of the main causes of stress: Nearly half of parents said the uncertainty around the safety of sending their children to school and childcare has complicated their ability to confidently navigate parenting (44 percent), followed by uncertainty around school/childcare closures (36 percent). – Marco Buscaglia