The privilege of childcare: an intersectional analysis of the COVID-19 U.S. childcare crisis and its implications for CAM research

Abstract

With daycare centers and schools closed due to social distancing mandates enacted to control the spread of COVID-19, most children have been home for the pandemic. The closure of schools has tasked parents with the unenviable job of balancing work and childcare duties; a burden that inequitably fell on mothers, single parents, poorer families, and people of color. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, CAM researchers found that parents and caregivers used media to supplement childcare (Evans, Jordan, & Horner, 2011). Because the pandemic catalyzed increases in children’s media use, a better understanding of the structural factors shaping childcare during the COVID-19 pandemic is warranted. Intersectional theory describes how distinct, yet interlocking systems of inequity (e.g., racism, classism, sexism, etc.) work simultaneously to render people at the junction of multiple-marginalized identities (e.g., poor Black women) disparately vulnerable to inequality (Collins, 2020). By applying intersectional theory as a critical lens, this commentary seeks to better understand how structural inequity shapes childcare and children’s media use during the COVID-19 pandemic. Media play numerous roles in childcare. Parents were found to have used media to occupy children so they can complete chores or have downtime (Evans et al., 2011). Caregivers, even those in professional daycare settings, used media to pacify children so care is more manageable (Christakis & Garrison, 2009; Evans et al., 2011). Media are even used to fill gaps in care, occupying children left home alone while parents are running errands (Evans et al., 2011). Individual-level factors like parental attitudes towards media (Beyens & Eggermont, 2014) and household-level factors like background television use, when television is left on without active viewers (Evans et al., 2011), impact how media are used in childcare. However, structural factors also have an influence. Pre-COVID research found a lack of family and community resources like time, energy, money for childcare, access to affordable afterschool programs, and reliable transportation contributed to the use of media babysitters (Evans et al., 2011). Black, low-income, and single parents relied on media babysitting most heavily, because of limited access to support for childcare (Christakis & Garrison, 2009). Childcare facilities serving low-income families used television as part of care more than facilities serving more affluent families (Christakis & Garrison, 2009). What these pre-COVID studies of media use and childcare demonstrated is that in the inequitable absence of childcare resources like media fill the