The Pandemic’s Crushing Toll on Working Moms

“The juggle is real.”

That wordplay is probably the only part of a new report on how the pandemic has affected working moms that can put a smirk on your face. Entering year three of COVID, the millions of U.S. women who’ve had to balance work and home duties have never not faced a very real struggle. But this new survey affixes some alarming statistics to the question of exactly what that toll has been.

It’s a collaborative effort of three “mom-led” companies (Kuli Kuli, Sylvatex, Uncommon Cacao) and researchers from four universities (UC San Francisco, UC Berkeley, UCLA, Northeastern). They spoke with 1,048 working mothers, and while the “supermom” archetype has rightly drawn a new round of criticism during the pandemic, their findings suggest that being a working mom in America these past months would certainly have benefited from having some amount of superhuman strength.