Millions of mothers are struggling to keep their head above water during the coronavirus pandemic .
With schools closed and a lack of daycare options, many have had to juggle working at home with taking care of their children.
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Heidi Lewis, a mother of two from Silver Spring, Maryland, knows all about this. Come see her viral photo , which has been sparking change.
According to the National Women’s Law Center, more than 2 million women left the workforce in 2020.
Schools turning to remote learning was to blame, as was a lack of daycare options.
Half of the childcare providers shut down during the start of COVID-19 while others ran at lower capacities.
While you can hear about the difficult impact this made on mothers, why not see it?
Heidi Lewis is a mother of two from Silver Spring, Maryland. She answered the call when The Washington City Paper asked readers to submit photos that summed up their pandemic life .
This picture, taken by her husband, shows her work setup in a bathtub while her 1-year-old daughter is playing with a water table toy.
While the message of the picture was pretty clear, Heidi gave some context. “It tells the story of my year because I’ve had to perform in a job that actually expanded during the pandemic,” she wrote.
“While working from home and taking care of two small children with my husband,” she continued.
“No one asked parents if we would homeschool our children, but we stepped up and did it—for the safety of our community, for the health of teachers and staff, and for our country.”
“But you cannot underestimate the enormous toll this has taken on people in a primary caregiving role that were stretched thin to begin with.”
Lewis’s picture was so relatable to millions of working mothers around the world.
It perfectly displayed the struggle between balancing a career while childcare since daycare centers and schools are closed.
She has since tweeted about the picture as a way to advocate for a #MarshallPlanForMoms.
“Bc ‘motherhood isn’t a favor and it’s not a luxury; it’s a job,'” she wrote.
Lewis’s picture has since started an important conversation on Twitter after Reshma Saujani, the founder and CEO of Girls Who Code and a mom of two, retweeted it.
She is the one leading the “Marshall Plan for Moms,” which is an initiative to bring mothers back to the workplace and pay them for their hard work at home.
“If you look at our labor participation, women are back to where we were in 1989,” she tweeted on Feb. 1.
“This is a national crisis, and Black women and other women of color have it the worst.”
Lewis spoke to *Good Morning America* about the difficulties of juggling motherhood while working from home.
“I think a typical day was chaos, crying and tons of snacks,” Lewis said .
“The hardest part about having both of them home was they both had wildly different needs.”
She also spoke about the photo’s impact.
“It took on a life of its own from there,” she said.
“We’re all showing each other how burned out and exhausted we are, but what’s being done? I don’t want a Hallmark card, I want a policy change.”
Lewis and Saujani are doing all they can to advocate for working moms.
Saujani and her nonprofit created a New York Times ad to urge political leaders to back the Marshall Plan effort, which would provide a means-tested $2,400 monthly payment to moms.
There would also be workplace benefits, such as parental leave, affordable child care, and pay equity.
The women got what they were hoping for when President Joe Biden released his $1.8 trillion American Families Plan on April 28.
It plans to invest the funds in child care, education, and the country’s economic future.
“I’m thrilled that President Biden and Vice President [Kamala] Harris are centering working families and promising much-needed support for child care in this country,” Lewis said.
Saujani also took to Instagram after the plan was announced, writing,
“It’s a huge deal. Investing in education is ALSO a win for women and moms.”
