 | | Clockwise from top right, Joy Meulenberg, Da'Chante Bowers, Marina Bonilla, Jenna Lecce Streit, Joy Stallworth, Marisa Smith, Reyna Frias, Lola Keyes Wood, Ana Recinos, Delia Hauser.Photographs by Bethany Mollenkof for The New York Times |
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"I don't know what I'm going to do with my life anymore besides be a mom." |
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Leah Duenas Torres was proud to be the family breadwinner, after growing up in poverty. Then, in the pandemic, she lost her sales job and spent her days overseeing remote school: "It's crazy overwhelming." |
 | | Leah Duenas TorresBethany Mollenkof for The New York Times |
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April Williams had just gotten the promotion, to supply chain director, that she had worked toward for 16 years: "Boom, I had finally made it." Then her son's school closed. Soon after, she was laid off. |
 | | April WilliamsBethany Mollenkof for The New York Times |
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Jennifer Park Zerkel followed a dream of starting a tutoring business, but has hit pause to stay home with her two children. "This is my baby, and it may just close," she said. |
 | | Bethany Mollenkof for The New York Times |
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When schools and child care centers shut down last spring, 5.1 million American mothers stopped working for pay. Today, 1.3 million of them remain out of work. |
This generation of women had achieved what no other had. They were part of a monumental shift in the roles women could play in American society that began in the late 1970s and continues today — "the quiet revolution," the economist Claudia Goldin calls it. |
In 1955, women were one-third of the American labor force — they were unlikely to attend college, and if they worked, they were mostly limited to certain jobs, like teacher or secretary. That share slowly expanded until, in January 2019, women achieved a milestone: They made up more of the work force than men. |
The pandemic erased that status in a matter of weeks. And just as it took decades to achieve, it could take years to regain. Now, 56 percent of American women are working for pay, the lowest level since 1986. |
When the pandemic created a child-care crisis, mothers became the default solution. Even as society starts to reopen, many feel forgotten and shunted to the sidelines. Child care, school and other parts of daily life remain disrupted because young children cannot yet be vaccinated, and government paid-leave programs have expired. |
For mothers who have had to stop working, it has been more than the loss of a paycheck. It's a loss of self-determination, of self-reliance, of complex selves. No matter the jobs they held, the education they had or the backgrounds they came from, they described a loss of identity apart from being a mother. |
"Men who are out of work are still presumed to be workers, but women aren't, because we frame work for women as a choice," said Sarah Damaske, a sociologist at Pennsylvania State, whose book, "The Tolls of Uncertainty," published this month, is about how unemployed Americans' experiences are shaped by gender and class. "So when they unexpectedly lose a job in a society in which their working was in question all the time, it really throws how they're thinking about who they are into question." |
What's happened to America's working mothers in the last year is not the old story about the tiny subset of women who have the financial choice to work for pay or not. Instead, it's about what happens when any choices mothers once had disappear. |
"It's not: 'I had to make a choice.' The choice was made for me and a million other people," said Joy Meulenberg, 37, after her dog-walking business and acting auditions dwindled, and her daughter's school closed. |
 | | Joy MeulenbergBethany Mollenkof for The New York Times |
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Ms. Torres, 37, who lost her sales job, had been the first in her family to go to college. She earned a master's degree and supported her family as her husband attended medical school. She went from being the "fun mom" to "the enforcer," helping Santino, who is 7 and has autism, and Phoenix, 5, attend online school. |
"I wasn't a stay-at-home mom, and now I'm not a breadwinner," said Ms. Torres, who is expecting a baby this spring. "I haven't even said out loud any aspirations. I don't know what I'm going to do with my life anymore besides be a mom. |
Marina Bonilla, 40, lost her job as a hotel housekeeper when the pandemic began. A single mother, she immigrated to the United States from El Salvador to find a better life for her daughter, Genesis, 4. Central to that was earning a living: "I was used to going to work and making money to buy the necessities for me and my daughter," she said. "I wanted to cry." |
 | | Marina BonillaBethany Mollenkof for The New York Times |
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She was grateful for having more time with Genesis, since she didn't have to take three buses home from work each day. But this spring, when she found a job as a hospital housekeeper, it felt like relief: "I thank God that he gave me the strength to go on." |
Women on the opposite end of the income spectrum also grieved their loss of agency. |
One month before the world shut down, Jenna Lecce Streit, 48, an acupuncturist, found a space to open her own practice. |
"It was time for me to be my own independent person, to really dive into my career," she said. "It was like, oh my gosh, I'm finally there. I'm 48 years old and I'm finally there." |
Now, she's overseeing Sidney's remote school from their vacation home in Mazatlán, Mexico. Her husband regularly travels for work as a reality TV producer, and has become a Covid compliance officer for film sets, so his career has "blossomed," she said. |
"I guess what I'm missing is that thing that's mine, and what that is is the little piece of my identity that's my career." |
We interviewed 15 mothers in Los Angeles County. Their conversations with The Times reveal an economic loss, a loss of identity, and the costs when society relies on mothers to be the backup plan. |
Here are three articles from The Times you may have missed. |
 | | Dozens of Afghan girls and their families fled Taliban-controlled areas to attend schools like this one in Sheberghan.Kiana Hayeri for The New York Times |
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- "So then I was at home, just helping my mother with the housework." Two districts in Afghanistan's northwest offer a glimpse into life under the Taliban, which has completely cut off education for teenage girls. [Read the story]
- "A little bit armored." Liz Cheney embodies a different kind of Republican female power player tradition. [Read the story]
- "Alarm bells are ringing loudly." The Supreme Court will hear an abortion case challenging Roe v. Wade. It arises from a Mississippi law that bans most abortions after 15 weeks. [Read the story]
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In Her Words is edited by Francesca Donner. Our art director is Catherine Gilmore-Barnes, and our photo editor is Judith Levitt. |
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