Child Care Is Broken. WFH Won’t Fix It.
It’s tough to get anything done while watching the kids, but shaming caregivers doesn’t help, either.
Competing priorities.
Photographer: Halfpoint Images/Moment RF/Getty Images
It seems we can go hardly a week without a viral video clip from a virtual all-hands meeting. In one of the most recent, James Clarke, CEO of Clearlink, is trying to justify a return-to-office mandate at the digital marketing and technology company when he suddenly suffers an acute case of rapid-onset foot-in-mouth syndrome.
In the section of the video that has ruffled the most feathers, Clarke seems to be speaking to employees who want to continue to work remotely because they have been unable to find child care. “Only the rarest of full-time caregivers can also be a productive and full-time employee at the same time,” he says.