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The letter to Globe Santa is from a single mother of “two beautiful children” and a career railroad conductor.
Or she was a conductor, maintaining the delicate balance of life responsibilities required of mothers who are also employed elsewhere — until the pandemic tipped it.
“The public schools and daycares closed, and I stayed home in order to home school my daughter and care for my son, ultimately losing the career I had for the past 25 years,” she told Globe Santa. “I am the sole provider for my children and without the stability of that paycheck, these past two years have been very difficult.”
Her children are 4 and 9 now. “I hope next year I will be in a better place financially,” she said, but help now “would truly be a blessing.”
There was a moment, in early 2020, when more women than men were employed in the United States. As COVID-19 spread and schools closed, it was mostly mothers who took time off, went part time, or quit altogether, to care for their children and oversee their sudden leap into home schooling.
The pandemic took a toll on everyone, but it has been especially costly, financially and emotionally, for working mothers, even more so for Black, Hispanic, and single mothers.
One mother told Globe Santa of the unexpected end of her 25-year career in retail.
She was a senior executive for a large retailer when the shutdowns started. Her son was only 4, “so I stayed home with him,” she said. “Two years go by, unemployment ended, my son started kindergarten, and his dad moved out, and I became a single mom with no job.”
She couldn’t afford child care, so her only employment options lay in the school system, she said. She is now “a lunch lady,” making $13 an hour — less than the state’s minimum wage
She took on a second job. “Working two part-time jobs I am barely making the mortgage payments, but I am/we are surviving,” she said. “But with Christmas coming, I am terrified as to how I am going to make this Christmas as special as they have always been in the past.”
Globe Santa’s help, she said, “couldn’t have come at a better time. I am thankful that programs like this exist.”
The old 1950s-era paradigm, one parent as breadwinner and the other as primary caretaker, has long shifted. More than 70 percent of mothers are employed outside the home. In 41 percent of households with children, women are the sole or primary breadwinner. Yet they’re still more likely to take time off or reduce their hours because of care-giving responsibilities.
They’re still paying the “motherhood penalty,” earning 70 cents or less for every dollar earned by fathers — the penalty is more, and the pay less, for mothers of color.
Employers still rarely offer benefits like paid family leave or flexible scheduling, that would allow for a more equitable work life balance. Child care for many is simply not an option. Massachusetts ranks number one in the United States in the cost of its child care; the price tag on a year of infant care rivals that of tuition, room, and board at one of the Commonwealth’s public universities.
“I was forced to make the difficult decision to resign from my job due to COVID concerns and difficulty with childcare,” a mother of three told Globe Santa.
Their three children have autism, she said. Their girls, 4 and 10, are in school, but their 3-year-old boy cannot be left in day care or with a sitter. “He still has difficulty communicating and struggles socially,” she said. “I spend my days in therapy sessions for him (ABA, speech, OT, early intervention, formal playgroup). Even with all of this, I’m trying to find part-time employment, in the evenings, just to stay afloat.”
A letter from the single mother of an 8-year-old girl is a story of frustrated efforts just to find a job that pays a living wage.
“I lost my job in January,” she wrote. She found another, but the pay is poverty level. She is two months behind on rent.
“I keep getting leads and then getting let down. It’s a never-ending cycle no matter how positive I stay,” she said.
“I have always been able to support and take care of my family,” she said. But now, “barely living paycheck to paycheck, it is hard even to think of Christmas, what that will look like this year.”
So, she wrote to Globe Santa. “I am trying to do the best I can, and just want to be able to make my daughter smile,” she said. “Thank you for your help, if possible.”
Ellen Bartlett can be reached at ellen.bartlett@globe.com.