ST. LOUIS PARK, Minn. — Okay parents. What are you doing with your kids this summer? Some daycare centers and camps are still closed or maybe you just don't feel comfortable sending them there yet. Either way, it's creating a summer scramble.
"We had our plans for the summer set in February and early March and really all of it went out the window,” says Steph Anderson.
Steph has three kiddos, and she and her husband both work, so now what?
“We landed somewhere we feel comfortable with but it's chaos for sure,” says Anderson.
If this all sounds familiar…well then you must be a parent. Some daycare centers and camps have reopened, but not everyone is on board with jumping back in just yet. That's left a care giving hole that has some parents scrambling, cobbling together coverage to try and keep kids home.
“We have a babysitter that we did have lined up pre-COVID, who just graduated from high school,” says Anderson. “And then we were able to have my son's teacher from school, who was furloughed, to watch after COVID hit, and so we're keeping her a couple days this summer.”
And some parents, of course, still work outside of the home, or don't have an option for other care. So, Steph says, it’s all relative, and important to remember that.
“Ultimately it’s a really good problem to have. We still have our jobs, and we really appreciate that, and we know that it could be that we could lose our jobs in our future, and we want to work as long as we can, so we appreciate the problem of trying to find childcare, but it doesn't mean it's easy,” she says.