By Erica and Karen

While our children were in school, we were made aware that mothers were the backup plan. Their schools would call the mother when a child was ill. They would call her if no-one showed up for pickup. They expected her to go on the field trips and to bake the cookies for the bake sales and homemake something for pot luck dinners. If she did not volunteer to serve on various committees and boards she felt the opprobrium.

Fathers are not totally absent from these responsibilities, but those who participate are lauded. Mothers, on the other hand, are expected to do what is needed whether they have full time demanding jobs inside or outside of the home, or not. Indeed, schools, which haven’t changed much in the last century, are structured to depend upon mothers. Just as schools are structured to depend upon teachers, about seventy-seven per cent of whom are women. They too are expected to deal with whatever emergency comes up—like being forced to teach remotely without warning—despite a lack of status, and pay that is not consistent with the importance of their work.

The pandemic has demonstrated that mothers are still foundational elements of the school ecosystem. When schools closed, mothers were expected to pick up the slack. On the surface, it seems obvious. Everyone knows the father makes more money, right? Everyone knows the mother is better with children, right? And mothers are reliable. We can count on them. Well then, of course mothers need to woman the front lines when disaster strikes.

The result of women being the backup plan is that women have taken a giant step out of the workforce. It is really difficult to have a career outside the home, and a job inside the home, as a chief cook and bottle washer, and also to be a teacher. And the next time something like this happens, it will make sense for mothers to be the backup plan if fewer of them are in the workforce. For those that do work, it might seem logical that any income disparity will continue to dictate who should deal with children being out of school—but it will probably be the mother even when the mother actually makes more than the father. All the while children will internalize these assumptions. The structure will be maintained.

The other result of mothers being the backup plan is that mothers’ multiple obligations cause them to be burdened by guilt no matter what they do. A mother is always in the wrong place at the wrong time. We certainly felt that.

Of course, we are not arguing that women should not do their part in a national emergency, and we are certainly not arguing that mothers should have no responsibility for their children’s education and welfare. We, like most women, understood well that parents must be involved. But we are arguing that structural sexism will persist unless we make intentional efforts to change the assumptions.

Schooling, which is a critical part of a child’s life and a nation’s welfare, does impose burdens on parents. Those burdens should be examined to make sure they are necessary. And they should be shared. Schools should presume that both parents are available.

The assumption that mothers should be the school backup plan is simply archaic. Women, men and schools need to rethink how schools and parents interact in the twenty-first century. We can help.