Today is my first official day as a tenured associate professor of law - cause for celebration and immense gratitude. In fact, I will spend today wavering between anger and despair about how to keep doing the job I love without a real plan for childcare 1/ https://www.todaysparent.com/kids/school-age/ontario-school-reopening-plan/

In the past few days multiple friends (all women) have told me they are leaving their jobs, indefinitely, to care for their children who have no summer camps, no daycare, and at best part time school in the fall. I have cried, having watched them work to be where they are now /2

Many of us have long known that this was coming and have asked employers, policy makers: what will be the plan for the fall when we have no full-time childcare? It has been taken under advisement, we’ve been told “it’s a good question.” But no plan. No answers. 3/

Now we have a “plan” from the Ontario government that requires parents, and it seems clear it will largely be women, to not only care for our children while they are out of school 2-3 days/week but also facilitate “online learning” both synchronous (how? What?) & asynchronous 4/

Daycares like schools will have to limit spaces. In a city where there is already a desperate shortage for the unaffordable spots that existed pre-pandemic. We may not know for weeks which model the TDSB here in Toronto will adopt - 2/week? Alternating weeks? 5/

So even informal neighbourhood and friend-based solidarity and mutual aid feels impossible to organize until it is too late to ensure we can keep working as usual. So for many it feels like the only thing to do is to take this on alone. And this is a profound systemic failure /6

And that does not even begin to cover the sever inequities many children and families will face trying to keep “managing” with inadequate supports from employers and governments. Most of us are not managing at all and it is going to get worse. 7/

Where are the emergency funds to throw at creative solutions many smarter than me have proposed - outdoor education, using community spaces for smaller classes, hiring all the teacher and ECE candidates? Why are these not the most important “shovel worthy” projects right now? 8/

Because we are counting on women to figure it out for “free”, which is in fact at a profound cost, to us, to our children, to our families, our colleagues, our communities. Thank you to friends and colleagues who keep reminding me that we should NOT try to figure this out alone.

So fellow academics, parents, what are we asking for? Is anyone doing this right, anywhere? Academics, how do we specifically deal with the impact on pre-tenure colleagues? This is not just about moving the tenure clock. What should we make possible?