Colleges Closing: University Outbreaks and Parental Angst

K-12 parents brace for chaos

A vast majority of parents have resigned themselves to going it alone in the pandemic school year, according to a new survey for The New York Times.

Just one in seven parents said their children would be returning to school full time this fall.

Four in five parents said they would have no in-person help educating and caring for them, whether from relatives, neighbors, nannies or tutors, according to the survey.

Eighty percent of parents who are both working remotely during the pandemic will also be handling child care and education.

“All the choices stink,” Kate Averett, a sociologist at the University at Albany who has been interviewing parents nationwide since the spring, told The Times.

In families where both parents need to work outside the home, there are obvious logistical challenges. Three-fourths of these parents say they will also be overseeing their children’s education.

“As parents, we’re all feeling it individually, and because of the nature of this pandemic, it can start to feel like we’re in it alone,” our colleague Claire Cain Miller, who wrote about the survey, told us. “But everyone’s feeling it, across all demographic lines.”

The survey found very few differences based on demographic characteristics like race, location, or the age of children. Mothers, though, are doing most of the planning, and spending the most time caring for and educating the children. And parents with more resources had more options, like taking an unpaid leave or hiring a private teacher or nanny.