Tag: taking

Taking Care Of Kids Makes Balancing Work And Life Harder — Particularly For Moms, Poll Finds
SELF, WORK

Taking Care Of Kids Makes Balancing Work And Life Harder — Particularly For Moms, Poll Finds

At 4 a.m. each day, Pamela Hines wakes up to pack lunches for her two older sons, who are 9 and 7, and make sure their homework is in their backpacks. She gets breakfast for them and her youngest son, 2, as well as her husband. Kids in tow, she drives her husband to his workplace in Pennsylvania, 30 minutes from their home in Morgantown, W.Va., then takes the two older kids to school. Her husband lost his job at the start of the pandemic and is thrilled to be back at work now. He works from 5:45 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. each day, installing drainage systems and doing other manual work. After dropping the kids off, Hines cares for her 2-year-old while running the nonprofit she started to connect Americans who have extra travel miles with Ukrainian mothers and children who want to leave the countr...
How Women Are Taking Over The Labor Movement ‘This Is Our Time’
IN OTHER NEWS

How Women Are Taking Over The Labor Movement ‘This Is Our Time’

As she considered striking at the grocery store where she had worked for a decade, the dozens of moments that had pushed Ashley Manning to that point flooded back. She vividly recalled the indignities she endured throughout the pandemic, starting with child care. When schools shut down, no one could watch her 12-year-old daughter. She wouldn’t allow her elderly grandmother, Ruby, to do it, fearing she would get sick. And her store, a Ralphs in San Pedro, California, where she is the manager of the floral department, refused to work with her schedule, she said. No one can cover you, she said they told her. Your contract is for six days a week, we need you six days a week. Unable to work and care for her daughter, she burned through three months of unpaid leave at the end of 2020 as she w...
Taking A Bite Out Of Its Food Insecurity In The US – Here’s One Way To Scrap The Problem Altogether
IN OTHER NEWS

Taking A Bite Out Of Its Food Insecurity In The US – Here’s One Way To Scrap The Problem Altogether

HEALTH Craig Gundersen, Baylor University The U.S. Department of Agriculture is set to permanently increase the value of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits by 25% above pre-pandemic levels in October 2021. It’s the biggest change since 1979 to this anti-hunger program, commonly known as SNAP, which currently helps over 40 million Americans. I’m a scholar who analyzes the causes and consequences of food insecurity, the technical term for when people can’t obtain the food they need for a balanced diet. I believe ramping up SNAP is sure to reduce the number of Americans experiencing food insecurity– a projected 45 million in 2020. Previous research I conducted with other experts suggests that the planned increase, from US$121 to $157 per person for a family of four, could...
Chess is taking over the online video game world – and both are changing from this unlikely pairing
GAMING

Chess is taking over the online video game world – and both are changing from this unlikely pairing

As a global pandemic continues to determine a new normal, tens of thousands of viewers have been tuning in to watch people play chess on a livestreaming website called Twitch.tv. An American chess grandmaster, Hikaru Nakamura, along with a number of celebrities of the video game world, is leading a renaissance in the ancient game. While viewers eagerly await Nakamura’s streams to begin, they are treated to a slideshow of memes involving Nakamura’s face superimposed into scenes from pop culture. First a reference to a well-known Japanese animation, next a famous upside-down kiss with Spiderman and finally, Nakamura’s characteristic grin is edited onto the Mona Lisa herself. From Aug. 21 to Sept. 6, Twitch and Chess.com are hosting a tournament, called Pogchamps, where some of the most pop...
More than 1 in 5 Americans are taking care of their elderly, ill and disabled relatives and friends
SOCIETY

More than 1 in 5 Americans are taking care of their elderly, ill and disabled relatives and friends

I’m studying how the COVID-19 pandemic is changing caregiving. Immunocompromised people, seniors with dementia and anyone with a chronic disease are more likely to experience the most severe COVID-19 symptoms. Caregivers face new worries due to the coronavirus, including whether they can they still assist their vulnerable relatives and friends and what they should do if they themselves or someone they live with gets sick. This quandary affects about 21.3% of Americans. The total number of Americans doing this unpaid work has reached an estimated 53 million in 2019, according to the latest data collected by the National Alliance for Caregiving, an advocacy and research organization, and AARP. That number, which excludes people caring for children without disabilities, is up from 43.5 mill...