‘No mute button for a toddler.’ How thousands of parents juggle remote work and parenting

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Alisha Horton said her best work gets done at 5:30 each morning, while her baby and toddler are still sleeping. 

When 11-month-old Octavia and 3-year-old Matthew wake up between 7 a.m. and 8 a.m., Horton feeds them breakfast and prepares for her morning meeting. Hopefully Octavia is back to sleep by then, Horton said, and Matthew is occupied with a quiet activity like Play-Doh or coloring. 

But “toddlers are toddlers,” she said, and it doesn’t always go the way she plans. As a work-from-home parent of two, Horton said virtual meetings are her biggest challenge. 

“I’m trying to have a conversation with an adult about something at work, and he’s kind of tugging on my arm. ‘Mommy, can I do this? Mommy, can I do that?’” Horton, a consultant for an insurance company, said. “He’s used to having me available to him at all times.” 

Horton, who lives near Nashville, is one of thousands of parents who work from home without traditional childcare. With childcare costs skyrocketing at nearly twice the pace of inflation – and childcare for two kids outpricing rent in all 50 states, according to a 2023 report by the nonprofit Child Care Aware of America – many families are staying afloat financially by keeping their kids at home during remote work.

In a series of surveys by the U.S. Census Bureau in 2024, about 1 in 10 adults with kids said their household did not have childcare because options were “closed, unavailable, unaffordable” or unsafe. Of those parents, nearly one-third said they supervised their kids while working. This includes people who work at home and those who take their kids to work with them. On any given day, that’s true for an estimated 2.3 million American workers.

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Some parents say juggling work and kids have made them master multitaskers and even believe that their commitment to their jobs makes them better parents in the end. But what’s best for young kids?  

“Young children aren’t really designed to sit aside you while you do an hour Zoom call with other adults,” Chad Dunkley, CEO of New Horizon Academy, said. New Horizon has childcare facilities in Minnesota, Idaho, Iowa, Colorado and Kansas. Dunkley is particularly worried about parents who distract their little ones at home with electronic devices. 

Even so, Dunkley said he understands that many families can’t afford childcare, and that some parents who can afford it simply prefer to have their kids at home.

Susan Wood, a mortgage loan officer in York, Pennsylvania, said she was making just $18 an hour when she gave birth to her daughter in 2023. A single mother at the time, she debated taking an office job with slightly higher pay. But no amount of money, Wood said, would have been worth the time she got to spend at home with her newborn. 

“I wanted her here with me,” Wood said.

Working while parenting: A juggle and a luxury

Horton always saw herself being a stay-at-home mom. But that’s “just not doable” in today’s economy, she said, especially with the student loans she and her husband are still paying off. She likes her work and keeps her job to help support her family. But even with a childcare discount through her employer, she and her husband found it would cost about half of her salary to send their son to daycare. 

And anyways, Horton would rather be near her kids. She’s there when Matthew completes a new puzzle for the first time, and when he learns how to write a new letter. These days, she’s watching Octavia learn to walk. 

“I get to watch them grow and learn in real time,” Horton said. “And I think a lot of moms miss out on that when they’re working.”

This juggle − while exhausting − is a luxury. Remote work “isn’t really a possibility” for a lot of low-wage workers, Katherine Gallagher Robbins, senior research fellow for the National Partnership for Women & Families, said.

People in the food and service industry, for instance, can’t work from home. And on top of earning low wages, these parents have the burden of finding and often paying for childcare. These jobs typically don’t come with paid leave, either.

In the U.S. Census Bureau surveys, the parents who supervised kids while working because they found childcare unattainable were mostly white, and the majority had a household income of $75,000 or more.

Remote work led more women to enter the workforce, Robbins said. But women in the U.S. still trail behind peer countries like Canada and Germany in terms of workforce participation.

“The research shows that people would like to work at home more than they are able to do,” Robbins said.

‘I feel like my son is missing out’ by staying at home

Not all parents who work remotely want their kids to stay home with them.

Rebecca Hernandez is a single mother who works remotely from her South Florida home while caring for her 2-year-old son, Anthony.

There are “a lot of distractions throughout the day,” she said. She’s often coordinating changing Anthony’s diaper and logging onto a meeting on time. Her family lives out of state and she doesn’t have a strong support system nearby. If she could, Hernandez said she would send her son to a childcare facility at least a few days a week. But childcare is expensive, and her salary is just over the threshold to qualify for Florida’s childcare assistance program.

“I don’t make enough, and I make too much,” Hernandez said.

She feeds Anthony on her breaks and tries to get him out to the park when she can. She finds moments throughout her work day to teach him about colors, shapes, numbers and letters.

But she’s worried that her son isn’t getting what he needs, educationally or socially. She wishes the government would look at individual family’s situations to determine who gets childcare assistance.

“I feel like my son is missing out on so much,” she said.

Childcare costs are only going up, Dunkley said.

“We kind of have a ‘your kids are your problem’ approach,” Dunkley said. “But in reality, society is better off when children are thriving.”

‘Why are we asking parents to deprioritize their children?’

Many parents who were able to work from home during the pandemic are being asked to return to the office, even though nearly half of remote workers say they’d leave their job if they had to go back to fully in-person work, according to a recent Pew Research Center survey. Some employers worry that too much flexibility could impact productivity, while others believe workers should be able to rearrange their schedule to fit their lifestyle.

“The pandemic taught us that we trust our people,” said Amy Bouque, chief people officer for Kelly, a human resources consulting company. Kelly offered remote work options for low-wage workers long before the pandemic through its call center, which employs about 3,000 fully remote workers. The company prides itself on creating workplace options for women. 

When expectations are clear and employees hit their goals, they don’t need to be “bound to a clock,” Bouque said. Flexible work hours aren’t just helpful for parents working remotely – they’re a necessity.

Michael Perry, who lives in Santa Barbara, California, was an executive at Shopify when his first son was born. Of the first four months of his son’s life, Perry said he was gone for two of them.

Perry realized that working parents don’t have close to enough support culturally, in the private sector or through government policies. He left his job and developed an app, Maple, that he hopes can alleviate at least some of the stresses that working parents face each day. Maple is an organization tool that helps parents manage schedules and household chores. 

It’s about much more than a business venture for Perry, though. Through Maple, he is on a mission to change the way society talks about working and parenting. He doesn’t want to just normalize the integration of work and family life – he’s advocating for government and industry leaders to help make life easier for working parents.

“Why are we asking parents to deprioritize their children?” Perry said. He suggests managers use the money set aside for company happy hours and coffee runs to send their workers lunch at home. Workers shouldn’t feel awkward sitting with their child on their lap during a work meeting, he said. And people should be able to step away from a work call to care for their kids, without guilt.

Parents who work remotely don’t end up working less, Perry stressed. Instead, they spread their work hours outside of the traditional 9 to 5.

“The work will always be there,” Perry said.

Lauren Ezzell, head of family experience for Maple, said working from home has made her a better parent. She’s more focused and productive during her “on” time for work, and more present when she has dedicated time with their children. Still, it isn’t easy.

“There is no mute button for a toddler throwing a tantrum while you’re on a client call,” she said.

Madeline Mitchell’s role covering women and the caregiving economy at USA TODAY is funded by a grant from Pivotal Ventures. Pivotal Ventures does not provide editorial input. Reach Madeline at [email protected] and @maddiemitch_ on X.