‘Incredibly Scary’: Single Moms Fear Falling Through Holes In Pandemic Safety Net

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Nellie Riether, whose kids are 13 and 15, has to decide whether to start spending her retirement savings or uproot her family from the house they’re renting and move in with her sister.

Sarah Riether

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Sarah Riether

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A lot of people need help in the pandemic, but especially single mothers. There are approximately 13.6 million single parents in the U.S., raising 22.4 million children. Eighty percent of those single parents are moms. Women have lost more jobs than men during the recession, and others are quitting their jobs in frustration from the demands of child care. However, quitting is just not an option for most single parents.

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For Riether, not having a partner to share the financial burden is just part of her predicament. There’s no partner to talk to. And it’s difficult to bring up with friends what she’s going through.

«I mean, I don’t want to burden other people with, ‘Well, I’m going to lose my home and be homeless,’ Riether says.

«I might make a joke about it, but it is very heavy and it weighs a lot. The future is uncertain and it’s incredibly scary. It’s just incredibly scary, she says.

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Ellen Griffin is a single mom with two kids in Birmingham, Ala.

Tamika Moore for NPR

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Griffin and her oldest son, Griffin Shade, 13, make Halloween treats outside their home.

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For single moms who are working, many feel fortunate to have a job, but between juggling remote school and housework, there’s never enough time. «I’m always kind of half-awake, says Ellen Griffin, with an exhausted-sounding laugh. «Last night I think it was 2 before I fell asleep, and then [I was] up at 6.

Griffin is a single mom in Birmingham, Ala., where she works at a public library. She has two kids, 10 and 13. Before she gets to work at 8 a.m., she needs to get her older son set up for remote school at her father’s house. He’s 90 years old.

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Ellen Griffin sits with her oldest son outside her home.

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Ellen Griffin sits with her oldest son outside her home.

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Her younger son, Drake, needs more attention because of his autism. She shuttles him to school every morning. Then there’s speech therapy in another location. At the library, more than half the staff has been furloughed, so she’s doing extra work — running books in bags out for curbside pickup, while wearing a mask.

«It’s like Tetris, she says, «trying to fix all the pieces so everything is covered.