Leaving / Cutting Down on Work to Handle COVID Life
I'm collecting stories of people who've recently made the decision to take a step back from work or quit altogether in order to deal with COVID/pandemic-related life, especially your kids' care and education. I'll collect answers, edit them slightly for clarity and length, and put them together in a piece like this: https://annehelen.substack.com/p/between-fked-and-a-hard-place 

If I have questions about any of your answers, I'll email you. If you have questions about the project, please feel to reach out: annehelenpetersen@gmail.com. Your answers, full name, and email address will remain private; I am the only person with access to this document.

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What's your full name — just so I can Google and make sure you're a real person — and what's a first name that you'd like to use? [Can be your real name or a pseudonym]
Where do you live? (If you'd rather be vague here, like "North Idaho," that's fine)
Tell me about yourself (age, job) and your family (partnered/non-partnered, how many kids and approximate ages, and your family's class status — you can go into fine gradations here, like "Two well-paying jobs but massive childcare bills and student debt" or "Barely making ends meet and too reliant on child support," whatever)
How would you describe how you and your family were making life work before? How stable did it feel?
How has your family's life, just generally speaking, felt since the beginning of the pandemic? Feel free to be as specific or graphic as you'd like here.
What convinced you that something needed to shift in your family in order to survive the year to come? How did you decide that the move would be stepping back from work or quitting altogether?
If you've already cut your hours or quit: how does your life and your family's life feel different?
Do you feel ambivalence, sadness, or anger that the pandemic has forced this shift? Or does it feel like a relief, or a move that's been a long time coming?
Do you have plans to return to the workplace after the pandemic (whenever the hell that might be) — or does this feel like a more longterm shift?
Most — but certainly not all — of the people making these decisions are women. Many feminists are concerned that the pandemic as a whole has forced a massive regression in terms of gender equality in the workplace and in the home. If you have thoughts along those lines, I'd love to hear them. If you disagree, I'd love to hear that too.
Are there any workplace shifts, programs, government assistance, whatever that could've alleviated the stress on your family? How, in other words, could all of this be different? And what should we advocate for if a similar situation ever happens in the future?
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