vox--2020-12-08--Mysterious monoliths are appearing across the world. Here’s what we know.

Into the fiery , plague-ridden nightmare-scape of 2020 , like a gift from some benevolent higher being , has come a source of true wonder and delight : the wandering monoliths of Utah , Romania , California , and New Mexico .
The monoliths are long vertical slabs of metal , each 10 to 12 feet tall .
They appear with no warning and disappear just as quickly : First , one in the Utah desert , which emerged on November 18 and vanished on November 27 .
Second , one outside the Romanian city of Piatra Neamt , which @ @ @ @ @ @ @ December 2 .
Third , one at the top of Pine Mountain in Atascadero , California , which appeared on December 2 , was taken down on December 3 , and reappeared on December 4 .
And fourth , one in Albuquerque , New Mexico , which appeared on December 7 and was taken down the same day .
They look like alien artifacts .
In part , that ’ s because they are heavily reminiscent of the monoliths of Stanley Kubrick ’ s sci-fi classic 2001 : A Space Odyssey , where @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to guide human beings from one stage of evolution to the next .
Kubrick or no Kubrick , all four of these real-life monoliths are eerie , solitary objects .
No one knows whether another will suddenly appear , or whether it , too , will vanish into the night .
We know very little about these monoliths at all , in fact , and that seems to be part of their point .
They are a beautifully inexplicable phenomenon , and proof that the world still contains marvels .
Here ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ — and why we keep talking about them .
The first monolith was discovered in November in a remote desert canyon in Utah ’ s Red Rock Country .
A helicopter crew counting bighorn sheep noticed a flash of metal looming up from the ground and flew down to investigate , and there it was : deeply embedded in the red rock of the canyon floor , an enormous smooth metal triangular prism , just standing there .
“ What the heck is that ?
” one of the workers mutters in a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Public Safety .
“ Okay , the intrepid explorers go down to investigate the alien life form , ” another cracks .
The canyon is remote and inaccessible without a helicopter , Utah ’ s Division of Wildlife Services told the New York Times .
“ It ’ s a tough place to get to on vehicle and on foot , ” a spokesperson said .
Officials for the Department of Public Safety added that they had no idea how long the monolith had been there , although Reddit sleuths used Google Maps @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was installed sometime between August 2015 and October 2016 .
The Utah Department of Public Safety announced the “ unusual find ” on Facebook , with a cheeky alien emoji appended , and the story took off inexorably from there .
A mysterious artifact that is an art project but also maybe from aliens , discovered out of nowhere in the middle of the desert , here in the grinding misery of a plague year — what ’ s not to love about that ?
Plenty , argued BASE jumper Andy Lewis and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ themselves removing the monolith from the desert on November 27 .
They say they did so for environmental reasons .
“ This land wasn ’ t physically prepared for the population shift , ” they declared in a joint statement .
The statement goes on to say that the rapid descent of masses of monolith-gawkers into the pristine desert landscape , with no infrastructure set up to support them , caused permanent damage to the delicate ecosystem .
“ Let ’ s be clear : The dismantling of the Utah Monolith is tragic @ @ @ @ @ @ @ re proud— we ’ re not , ” they wrote .
“ We ’ re disappointed .
Furthermore , we were too late.
” But the very day the Utah monolith would disappear , a new monolith surfaced .
On November 27 , Romanian newspapers reported finding another monolith outside the city of Piatra Neamt , on the plateau of Bâtca Doamnei , near an archaeological site .
Like the Utah monolith , the Romanian monolith is a vast triangular prism , 10 to 12 feet tall .
But where the Utah monolith @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Romanian monolith is covered in looping lines , and there ’ s a welded seam near its base .
In a statement published to Facebook , Piatra Neamt Mayor Andrei Carabelea quipped , “ My guess is that some alien , cheeky and terrible teenagers left home with their parents ’ UFO and started planting metal monoliths around the world .
First in Utah and then at Piatra Neamt .
I am honored that they chose our city.
” ( The English translation is courtesy of the Independent . )
But unlike @ @ @ @ @ @ @ seem to harbor any worries about what monolith-based tourism would do to the natural landscape of the area .
On the contrary ; he said he hopes the monolith will attract more tourists .
But four days after it arrived , the Romanian monolith vanished overnight .
Its disappearance so far remains a mystery .
And on the same day the Romanian monolith vanished , a new monolith appeared in California , at the top of a mountain off a hiking path .
According to local news reports , the California monolith is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and about 18 inches wide : around the same height as the Utah and Romanian monoliths , but a little narrower .
Like the Utah monolith , it has a smooth surface .
It appears to be made out of stainless steel .
Unlike the Utah monolith , it hasn ’ t been embedded into the ground .
A hard push could topple it over .
On December 3 , it got that push .
A group of young men who apparently drove five hours to San Luis Obispo County livestreamed themselves destroying @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Dressed in camo gear , night-vision goggles , and Trump paraphernalia , the group chanted “ America First ” and “ Christ is king ” as they rocked the monolith back and forth .
“ Christ is king in this country .
We don ’ t want illegal aliens from Mexico or outer space , ” a man in the video says .
“ So let ’ s tear this bitch down.
” Once they ’ d brought the monolith to the ground , they put up a wooden cross in its @ @ @ @ @ @ @ down the mountain .
“ It was fine , because it was funny , ” a man says toward the end of the stream .
Unlike the Utah and Romania monoliths , we do actually know who is responsible for the California monolith .
It was built by Atascadero residents Travis Kenney , his father Randall Kenney , Wade McKenzie , and Jared Riddle .
They ’ re local metal artists , and they were inspired by the appearance of the two other monoliths .
Figuring that there are three monoliths in 2001 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to complete the trilogy themselves .
And after it was torn down , they decided to bring it back .
“ It was meant to be something fun , a change of pace from the kind of conversations 2020 has been plagued with — so much negativity and separation among the people in our country , ” Travis Kenney said in a statement .
On December 7 , a fourth monolith appeared in Albuquerque , New Mexico , this time in the parking lot of an REI .
And on the same day @ @ @ @ @ @ @ down .
In videos circulating social media , a group of people can be seen bearing it to the ground , and witnesses say that before that , they were beating it with sledgehammers .
There are a lot of theories about the monoliths .
Here are the big ones .
So where are all these monoliths coming from ?
They don ’ t seem to be coming from the same source .
It now seems apparent that the Utah monolith was the work of one person , and the monoliths that have @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Kenney , following in its example .
Are they some sort of cynical guerrilla ad campaign ?
Considering that the Utah monolith dates back to 2015 , that seems unlikely : It would be a hell of a slow burn of a marketing push .
One popular theory notes that the Utah monolith site is close to some of the 2015 shooting locations for the HBO drama Westworld , and suggests that it might be a leftover prop , or a prank by a member of the Westworld crew .
Another theory suggests @ @ @ @ @ @ @ installation , with the Utah monolith created by one original artist and then a series of copycats following .
And in that case , the most pressing question becomes : Who is the artist ?
The prankster art collective The Most Famous Artist has taken credit for both the Utah and California monoliths on social media .
The group is even offering an “ authentic alien monolith ” for sale on its website for $ 45,000 .
But shortly after the Most Famous Artist made its claim , Travis Kenney and his group @ @ @ @ @ @ @ posting images of them constructing the monolith to social media to prove it was them .
It ’ s still possible The Most Famous Artist was behind the Utah monolith , but this development casts severe doubt on its claim over the California one .
( There ’ s still a monolith for sale on its website , though . )
A strong early contender for the original artist behind the Utah monolith was the minimalist sculptor John McCracken , who died in 2011 .
McCracken ’ s signature works were his “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ he would lean against a wall .
McCracken himself used to say he believed his planks influenced the designer of the monoliths in 2001 : A Space Odyssey .
He believed in aliens , and he wanted his work to resemble alien artifacts .
“ Even before I did concerted studies of U.F.O.s , ” he once said , “ it helped me maintain my focus to think I was trying to do the kind of work that could have been brought here by a U.F.O.
” Art Newspaper noted shortly after the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ striking resemblance to one of McCracken ’ s planks .
And McCracken ’ s son Patrick McCracken told the New York Times that his father had once envisioned setting up art installations in remote places for viewers to stumble upon in the wild .
“ He was inspired by the idea of alien visitors leaving objects that resembled his work , or that his work resembled , ” Patrick said .
“ This discovery of a monolith piece — that ’ s very much in line with his artistic vision.
” Finally , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Zwirner Gallery , which represents McCracken ’ s estate , told the New York Times he believed the Utah monolith to be a genuine McCracken .
Everything seemed to be lining up to indicate that John McCracken sculpted the Utah monolith , at the very least , and maybe the Romanian monolith , too , and left secret instructions to a team to reveal them after his death .
But the tide has turned against the McCracken theory .
Upon reviewing photos of the Utah monolith more closely , Zwirner has retracted his @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that McCracken , who preferred to make his sculptures by hand , would not have built the machine-made Utah monolith .
“ I love the idea of this being John ’ s work , but when you look closely at the photos of the Utah monolith , you will see rivets and screws that are not consistent with how John wanted his work to be constructed .
He was a perfectionist , ” Zwirner said in an emailed statement to Vox .
“ While I know that this is not John ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ would have enjoyed the Utah location and would have greatly appreciated the mystery surrounding this work .
We all think it is a wonderful homage.
” Evidence seems to be mounting now that the monoliths are the work of one or more artists heavily inspired by the work of John McCracken .
But who could the mystery artist ( s ) be ?
The monoliths might be the work of an art wizard .
If not , it is still fun to think about art wizardry .
The performance artist Zardulu describes herself @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as modern mythmaking .
Zardulu likes to stage stunts and happenings that seem to exist right at the edge of our sense of what is plausible , and that then take off as viral news stories : a three-eyed fish in the Gowanus Canal ; a raccoon riding an alligator in Florida .
She ’ s also claimed credit for New York ’ s iconic Pizza Rat .
She has a savvy sense of what a watching news audience is likely to find overwhelmingly delightful , and her goal is to weave unexpected @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fabric of everyday life .
“ I take my fantasy and present it as reality to an unknowing audience , ” she told me when I interviewed her in 2017 .
“ Thus creating a true surreality.
” I DMed Zardulu on Twitter to get her take on the monoliths , because she seemed likely to have thoughts on how they function as modern myths .
“ I think they ’ ll find that the Utah one was installed at the height of my productivity , in late 2015 , ” she wrote @ @ @ @ @ @ @ If you look back , you ’ ll notice we talked a lot about my work in Romania , Bulgaria and Macedonia.
” I asked her if she was taking credit for the monoliths .
“ No , ” she said .
Shortly afterward , she elaborated , “ Most of my projects aren ’ t intended to have an immediate effect .
I often leave things as objects to be found .
Sometimes it ’ s faux documentation in the research section of a library , sometimes it ’ s an installation @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that takes days , sometimes it takes five years.
” It is in a sense Zardulu ’ s life ’ s work to plant false stories in the press , so I would take the suggestion that she is responsible for the monoliths with a hefty heaping of salt .
Nonetheless , it remains true that Zardulu was extremely active in 2015 ( that was the Pizza Rat year ) , and that Reddit sleuths seem to have dated the monolith ’ s arrival in Utah to sometime between April 2015 and October @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in 2017 , Zardulu sent me a link to a story about the discovery of a werewolf-like skull in Macedonia with the note , “ Was just reminiscing about my trip to Eastern Europe ; ) ” ( The skull was a coyote , she says . )
The monoliths might not be intentional art .
They still matter .
Regardless of who created and installed the monoliths and why , they matter now .
They ’ ve reiterated themselves across our landscape like a living meme .
They are all over the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ They are maybe , no matter who made them , art .
“ The phenomenon of public interest in the object is more important to me than whether we call it art or not , ” said Pedro Lasch , an artist , Duke professor , and creator of the public art course ART of the MOOC : Public Art & Pedagogy .
“ People can end up going down a rabbit hole in these discussions of whether something is art or not , but ultimately I think they can distract us from @ @ @ @ @ @ @ so fascinating.
” Lasch notes that the monoliths reiterate many existing tropes in both minimalism and land art , especially the work of Robert Smithson , who incorporated natural landscapes into works like “ Spiral Jetty ” and who was fascinated by aliens and science fiction .
The design and characteristics of the monoliths aren ’ t particularly new , he says — but the way they have traveled across social media suggests they speak to this moment .
“ Part of me wonders whether it ’ s related to how desperately we @ @ @ @ @ @ @ nothing to do with the drastic state of our political affairs , ” he says .
“ And minimalism and a shiny metal surface is as far as it gets.
” The monoliths may or may not be genuine Zardulu works , but they strike me as Zardulist in spirit as much as they are clearly inspired by both McCracken and Smithson : a piece of something otherworldly and strange , dropped into this exhausting and mundane world .
Something to take us out of our day-to-day lives in a year defined by @ @ @ @ @ @ @ realm where eerie and uncanny things can happen without explanation .
Something we can use to think through our largest preoccupations — what we ’ re doing to the environment , how we welcome immigrants , or whether we are alone in the universe .
The monoliths are works of art doing the purest thing that art can do , which is to push us beyond the boundaries of our selves .
Or maybe it was aliens !
Update : This article was originally published on December 4 .
It has been updated @ @ @ @ @ @ @ monolith , the reappearance of the California monolith , and the competing credit claims from The Most Famous Artist and Travis Kenney .

Into the fiery, plague-ridden nightmare-scape of 2020, like a gift from some benevolent higher being, has come a source of true wonder and delight: the wandering monoliths of Utah, Romania, California, and New Mexico.
The monoliths are long vertical slabs of metal, each 10 to 12 feet tall. They appear with no warning and disappear just as quickly: First, one in the Utah desert, which emerged on November 18 and vanished on November 27. Second, one outside the Romanian city of Piatra Neamt, which appeared on November 27 and disappeared on December 2. Third, one at the top of Pine Mountain in Atascadero, California, which appeared on December 2, was taken down on December 3, and reappeared on December 4. And fourth, one in Albuquerque, New Mexico, which appeared on December 7 and was taken down the same day.
They look like alien artifacts. In part, that’s because they are heavily reminiscent of the monoliths of Stanley Kubrick’s sci-fi classic 2001: A Space Odyssey, where vast black monoliths are deposited by aliens to guide human beings from one stage of evolution to the next.
Kubrick or no Kubrick, all four of these real-life monoliths are eerie, solitary objects. No one knows whether another will suddenly appear, or whether it, too, will vanish into the night.
We know very little about these monoliths at all, in fact, and that seems to be part of their point. They are a beautifully inexplicable phenomenon, and proof that the world still contains marvels.
Here’s what we do know about the monoliths — and why we keep talking about them.
A monolith timeline
The first monolith was discovered in November in a remote desert canyon in Utah’s Red Rock Country. A helicopter crew counting bighorn sheep noticed a flash of metal looming up from the ground and flew down to investigate, and there it was: deeply embedded in the red rock of the canyon floor, an enormous smooth metal triangular prism, just standing there.
“What the heck is that?” one of the workers mutters in a video released by the Utah Department of Public Safety. “Okay, the intrepid explorers go down to investigate the alien life form,” another cracks.
The canyon is remote and inaccessible without a helicopter, Utah’s Division of Wildlife Services told the New York Times. “It’s a tough place to get to on vehicle and on foot,” a spokesperson said. Officials for the Department of Public Safety added that they had no idea how long the monolith had been there, although Reddit sleuths used Google Maps Earth View to work out that it was installed sometime between August 2015 and October 2016.
The Utah Department of Public Safety announced the “unusual find” on Facebook, with a cheeky alien emoji appended, and the story took off inexorably from there. A mysterious artifact that is an art project but also maybe from aliens, discovered out of nowhere in the middle of the desert, here in the grinding misery of a plague year — what’s not to love about that?
Plenty, argued BASE jumper Andy Lewis and adventure guide Sylvan Christensen, who filmed themselves removing the monolith from the desert on November 27. They say they did so for environmental reasons. “This land wasn’t physically prepared for the population shift,” they declared in a joint statement. The statement goes on to say that the rapid descent of masses of monolith-gawkers into the pristine desert landscape, with no infrastructure set up to support them, caused permanent damage to the delicate ecosystem.
“Let’s be clear: The dismantling of the Utah Monolith is tragic — and if you think we’re proud— we’re not,” they wrote. “We’re disappointed. Furthermore, we were too late.”
But the very day the Utah monolith would disappear, a new monolith surfaced. On November 27, Romanian newspapers reported finding another monolith outside the city of Piatra Neamt, on the plateau of Bâtca Doamnei, near an archaeological site.
Like the Utah monolith, the Romanian monolith is a vast triangular prism, 10 to 12 feet tall. But where the Utah monolith had a flat, reflective surface, the Romanian monolith is covered in looping lines, and there’s a welded seam near its base.
Universul a ales: Zilele acestea orașul nostru este din nou în atenția lumii, și de data aceasta nu e nimic de... Posted by Andrei Carabelea on Saturday, November 28, 2020
In a statement published to Facebook, Piatra Neamt Mayor Andrei Carabelea quipped, “My guess is that some alien, cheeky and terrible teenagers left home with their parents’ UFO and started planting metal monoliths around the world. First in Utah and then at Piatra Neamt. I am honored that they chose our city.” (The English translation is courtesy of the Independent.)
But unlike Lewis and Christensen, Carabelea did not seem to harbor any worries about what monolith-based tourism would do to the natural landscape of the area. On the contrary; he said he hopes the monolith will attract more tourists.
But four days after it arrived, the Romanian monolith vanished overnight. Its disappearance so far remains a mystery.
And on the same day the Romanian monolith vanished, a new monolith appeared in California, at the top of a mountain off a hiking path. According to local news reports, the California monolith is another triangular prism, 10 feet tall and about 18 inches wide: around the same height as the Utah and Romanian monoliths, but a little narrower. Like the Utah monolith, it has a smooth surface. It appears to be made out of stainless steel. Unlike the Utah monolith, it hasn’t been embedded into the ground. A hard push could topple it over.
BREAKING NEWS
There is currently a monolith at the top of Pine Mountain in Atascadero!!
(Photos by @Atownreporter) pic.twitter.com/0vPhEWYkeY — Connor Allen (@ConnorCAllen) December 2, 2020
On December 3, it got that push. A group of young men who apparently drove five hours to San Luis Obispo County livestreamed themselves destroying the monolith on the blockchain site DLive. Dressed in camo gear, night-vision goggles, and Trump paraphernalia, the group chanted “America First” and “Christ is king” as they rocked the monolith back and forth.
“Christ is king in this country. We don’t want illegal aliens from Mexico or outer space,” a man in the video says. “So let’s tear this bitch down.”
Once they’d brought the monolith to the ground, they put up a wooden cross in its place, and then dragged the monolith down the mountain. “It was fine, because it was funny,” a man says toward the end of the stream.
On December 4, the California monolith returned.
Unlike the Utah and Romania monoliths, we do actually know who is responsible for the California monolith. It was built by Atascadero residents Travis Kenney, his father Randall Kenney, Wade McKenzie, and Jared Riddle. They’re local metal artists, and they were inspired by the appearance of the two other monoliths. Figuring that there are three monoliths in 2001: A Space Odyssey, they decided to complete the trilogy themselves. And after it was torn down, they decided to bring it back.
“It was meant to be something fun, a change of pace from the kind of conversations 2020 has been plagued with — so much negativity and separation among the people in our country,” Travis Kenney said in a statement.
On December 7, a fourth monolith appeared in Albuquerque, New Mexico, this time in the parking lot of an REI. And on the same day, it, too, was torn down. In videos circulating social media, a group of people can be seen bearing it to the ground, and witnesses say that before that, they were beating it with sledgehammers.
There are a lot of theories about the monoliths. Here are the big ones.
So where are all these monoliths coming from?
They don’t seem to be coming from the same source. It now seems apparent that the Utah monolith was the work of one person, and the monoliths that have followed are copycats from people like Travis Kenney, following in its example.
Are they some sort of cynical guerrilla ad campaign? Considering that the Utah monolith dates back to 2015, that seems unlikely: It would be a hell of a slow burn of a marketing push.
One popular theory notes that the Utah monolith site is close to some of the 2015 shooting locations for the HBO drama Westworld, and suggests that it might be a leftover prop, or a prank by a member of the Westworld crew.
Another theory suggests that the monoliths are an anonymous art installation, with the Utah monolith created by one original artist and then a series of copycats following.
And in that case, the most pressing question becomes: Who is the artist?
The prankster art collective The Most Famous Artist has taken credit for both the Utah and California monoliths on social media. The group is even offering an “authentic alien monolith” for sale on its website for $45,000. But shortly after the Most Famous Artist made its claim, Travis Kenney and his group took credit for the California monolith, posting images of them constructing the monolith to social media to prove it was them. It’s still possible The Most Famous Artist was behind the Utah monolith, but this development casts severe doubt on its claim over the California one. (There’s still a monolith for sale on its website, though.)
A strong early contender for the original artist behind the Utah monolith was the minimalist sculptor John McCracken, who died in 2011. McCracken’s signature works were his “planks”: freestanding slabs of metal he would lean against a wall. McCracken himself used to say he believed his planks influenced the designer of the monoliths in 2001: A Space Odyssey. He believed in aliens, and he wanted his work to resemble alien artifacts. “Even before I did concerted studies of U.F.O.s,” he once said, “it helped me maintain my focus to think I was trying to do the kind of work that could have been brought here by a U.F.O.”
Art Newspaper noted shortly after the Utah monolith appeared that it bore a striking resemblance to one of McCracken’s planks. And McCracken’s son Patrick McCracken told the New York Times that his father had once envisioned setting up art installations in remote places for viewers to stumble upon in the wild.
“He was inspired by the idea of alien visitors leaving objects that resembled his work, or that his work resembled,” Patrick said. “This discovery of a monolith piece — that’s very much in line with his artistic vision.”
Finally, David Zwirner, owner of the David Zwirner Gallery, which represents McCracken’s estate, told the New York Times he believed the Utah monolith to be a genuine McCracken. Everything seemed to be lining up to indicate that John McCracken sculpted the Utah monolith, at the very least, and maybe the Romanian monolith, too, and left secret instructions to a team to reveal them after his death.
But the tide has turned against the McCracken theory. Upon reviewing photos of the Utah monolith more closely, Zwirner has retracted his original statement to the Times and concluded that McCracken, who preferred to make his sculptures by hand, would not have built the machine-made Utah monolith.
“I love the idea of this being John’s work, but when you look closely at the photos of the Utah monolith, you will see rivets and screws that are not consistent with how John wanted his work to be constructed. He was a perfectionist,” Zwirner said in an emailed statement to Vox. “While I know that this is not John’s work, I also know that he would have enjoyed the Utah location and would have greatly appreciated the mystery surrounding this work. We all think it is a wonderful homage.”
Evidence seems to be mounting now that the monoliths are the work of one or more artists heavily inspired by the work of John McCracken. But who could the mystery artist(s) be?
The monoliths might be the work of an art wizard. If not, it is still fun to think about art wizardry.
The performance artist Zardulu describes herself as a wizard, and her work as modern mythmaking. Zardulu likes to stage stunts and happenings that seem to exist right at the edge of our sense of what is plausible, and that then take off as viral news stories: a three-eyed fish in the Gowanus Canal; a raccoon riding an alligator in Florida. She’s also claimed credit for New York’s iconic Pizza Rat. She has a savvy sense of what a watching news audience is likely to find overwhelmingly delightful, and her goal is to weave unexpected pockets of wonder and delight into the fabric of everyday life.
“I take my fantasy and present it as reality to an unknowing audience,” she told me when I interviewed her in 2017. “Thus creating a true surreality.”
I DMed Zardulu on Twitter to get her take on the monoliths, because she seemed likely to have thoughts on how they function as modern myths.
“I think they’ll find that the Utah one was installed at the height of my productivity, in late 2015,” she wrote back immediately. She added, “If you look back, you’ll notice we talked a lot about my work in Romania, Bulgaria and Macedonia.”
I asked her if she was taking credit for the monoliths.
“No,” she said. Shortly afterward, she elaborated, “Most of my projects aren’t intended to have an immediate effect. I often leave things as objects to be found. Sometimes it’s faux documentation in the research section of a library, sometimes it’s an installation waiting for an unknowing audience. Sometimes that takes days, sometimes it takes five years.”
It is in a sense Zardulu’s life’s work to plant false stories in the press, so I would take the suggestion that she is responsible for the monoliths with a hefty heaping of salt. Nonetheless, it remains true that Zardulu was extremely active in 2015 (that was the Pizza Rat year), and that Reddit sleuths seem to have dated the monolith’s arrival in Utah to sometime between April 2015 and October 2016.
It is also true that in 2017, Zardulu sent me a link to a story about the discovery of a werewolf-like skull in Macedonia with the note, “Was just reminiscing about my trip to Eastern Europe ;)” (The skull was a coyote, she says.)
The monoliths might not be intentional art. They still matter.
Regardless of who created and installed the monoliths and why, they matter now. They’ve reiterated themselves across our landscape like a living meme. They are all over the internet. They are a myth. They are maybe, no matter who made them, art.
“The phenomenon of public interest in the object is more important to me than whether we call it art or not,” said Pedro Lasch, an artist, Duke professor, and creator of the public art course ART of the MOOC: Public Art & Pedagogy. “People can end up going down a rabbit hole in these discussions of whether something is art or not, but ultimately I think they can distract us from a conversation about why we find something so fascinating.”
Lasch notes that the monoliths reiterate many existing tropes in both minimalism and land art, especially the work of Robert Smithson, who incorporated natural landscapes into works like “Spiral Jetty” and who was fascinated by aliens and science fiction. The design and characteristics of the monoliths aren’t particularly new, he says — but the way they have traveled across social media suggests they speak to this moment.
“Part of me wonders whether it’s related to how desperately we need social media and news that have nothing to do with the drastic state of our political affairs,” he says. “And minimalism and a shiny metal surface is as far as it gets.”
The monoliths may or may not be genuine Zardulu works, but they strike me as Zardulist in spirit as much as they are clearly inspired by both McCracken and Smithson: a piece of something otherworldly and strange, dropped into this exhausting and mundane world. Something to take us out of our day-to-day lives in a year defined by quarantine and strife, and into a realm where eerie and uncanny things can happen without explanation. Something we can use to think through our largest preoccupations — what we’re doing to the environment, how we welcome immigrants, or whether we are alone in the universe.
The monoliths are works of art doing the purest thing that art can do, which is to push us beyond the boundaries of our selves.
Or maybe it was aliens!
Update: This article was originally published on December 4. It has been updated to include the appearance of the Albuquerque monolith, the reappearance of the California monolith, and the competing credit claims from The Most Famous Artist and Travis Kenney.


vox--2020-12-08--The parental burnout crisis has reached a tipping point

The past few weeks have been an especially hard part of an already hard year for Alison Wathen .
There was a Covid-19 outbreak at her twins ’ day care center , meaning her 11-month-old son and daughter were home — and needing all the undivided attention a baby needs , times two — while she and her husband traded off working .
But now her husband ’ s company wants employees to come back to work in person and she doesn ’ t know when — or what precautions they ’ ll take to keep them safe .
On @ @ @ @ @ @ @ her uncles and her 91-year-old grandmother have been hospitalized with Covid-19 .
Wathen , like many parents around the country , is trying to hang in there while struggling with the isolation , uncertainty , and sadness that are practically the definition of parenting in 2020 .
But she — again , like so many — has been scrambling to find fixes to whatever crisis comes next , pushing through day care shutdowns , scheduling nightmares , and family illnesses for nine months now , with little relief in sight .
When the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ less than 4 months old and she was still dealing with postpartum depression .
She and her husband uprooted their family from their home outside Chicago to live with her parents in Michigan , so they could help with child care .
Now they ’ re back in Illinois , and the kids are back in day care .
But Wathen and her husband have used up all of their paid time off , so if the twins need to come out of day care again due to rising Covid-19 rates , the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Michigan yet again .
While her postpartum depression has since cleared , “ it ’ s just normal depression now , ” she says .
“ It ’ s been a long-ass road.
” Millions of parents were already burned out by the demands of pandemic child-rearing in April .
Summer , with school out and many camps closed , brought no relief .
Then came fall , with many parents juggling the ins and outs of remote learning — and a staggering 865,000 women , many of them moms , dropping out @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s December , and parents are still in the same situation they were thrust into nine months ago : trying to balance work , child care , education , and keeping their families safe as a pandemic rages virtually unchecked around them .
“ I don ’ t know anyone that is not struggling , ” Susannah Lago , a mom , business owner , and founder of the group Working Moms of Milwaukee , told Vox .
While some parents , like Wathen and her husband , have been able to get @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s often come at a cost of greater uncertainty — how long will the school stay open ?
Is it safe ?
What are the pros and cons of keeping a child at home ?
“ It ’ s like there ’ s no right decision you can make , ” Lago said .
The ever-shifting demands of parenting in a pandemic are leading to stress , anxiety , and depression , not to mention economic hardship for those forced to leave their jobs to care for kids .
And while some parents @ @ @ @ @ @ @ burden , many say what ’ s needed are systemic changes to work , education , and child care in America .
But that ’ s unlikely to happen in the next few months .
And so many parents have been left to fend for themselves , with their reserves of strength , energy , positivity — and sleep — long tapped out .
In the spring , millions of parents became teachers overnight Beginning in March , schools and day cares in all 50 states closed their doors in an effort to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ result : Parents around the country were suddenly forced to care for their children full time , and often supervise their online learning , all while continuing to do their own jobs in the midst of a deadly pandemic .
Then they just kept doing it for nine more months .
To say parents are struggling is an understatement .
Sixty-three percent say the pandemic made the 2019-2020 school year extremely stressful for them , according to an August survey conducted by Harris Poll on behalf of the American Psychological Association .
In @ @ @ @ @ @ @ parents of 8- to 12-year-olds said that uncertainty about the 2020-2021 school year was causing them stress .
And that was before the school year even started .
Now , many parents are watching arrangements they once hoped were temporary — caring for kids during the day and working late into the night , splitting up work shifts with partners , moving in with grandparents in order to get child care — stretch through the winter and beyond .
“ The longer all this goes on , the harder it is , ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ has worked with the APA on its stress surveys , told Vox .
On top of it all , parents have had to contend with the stress of continual school closures and reopenings this fall as districts try to navigate rising cases in their communities and quarantine of students and staff exposed to the virus .
For example , over the course of three weeks , New York City shut down all of its schools , reconsidered , and has now reopened most but not all elementary schools .
All the changes are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and a lot of confusion ” for parents , Linda Citlali Halgunseth , a parenting researcher and professor at the University of Connecticut , told Vox .
“ There ’ s just a lot on their plate.
” “ If I was to think of one word , I would say guilt , ” says Dawn Demps , a doctoral student at Arizona State University who ’ s finishing her dissertation while homeschooling her 16-year-old son and helping her 8-year-old daughter with remote elementary school .
“ You feel like you ’ re @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Demps regrets that her kids aren ’ t able to spend time with other kids or go to the playground — since she has multiple sclerosis , her family has to be especially careful about Covid-19 precautions .
“ You have to understand , Mommy could get sick , ” Demps tells her 8-year-old .
But for her , as a mom , there ’ s “ a lot of guilt in that.
” While some families did find relief when the weather warmed and kids and parents alike were able to socialize @ @ @ @ @ @ @ even this outlet difficult , and parents ’ mental health is suffering .
“ I ’ ve definitely seen a drop in mood in terms of sadness , more isolation , and more family tension , ” Alvord said .
The isolation is taking its toll on Wathen and her family .
Now “ instead of arguing with my mother ” like she did when they were living with her parents , “ I ’ m arguing with my husband , ” she said .
Being unable to see anyone outside the family @ @ @ @ @ @ @ level of exhaustion , ” she said .
Not being able to introduce their babies to extended family has been especially hard .
When they Skype with relatives , her daughter “ keeps trying to hug her grandparents and great-grandparents through the screen.
” Parents are caring for kids full time while trying to do their jobs .
It ’ s taking its toll .
As they try to manage their children ’ s education and questions about when they will see loved ones again , many parents are also trying to work @ @ @ @ @ @ @ any easier since the pandemic began .
In fact , research shows Americans have actually worked more hours per week since March .
For Lago , whose two children have been at home since the spring , pandemic working parenthood means being “ the primary person in terms of the schooling assistance , and then at the same time trying to manage my business and getting back to clients.
” Nine months in , there are some things she doesn ’ t spend time worrying about anymore , like whether her son is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ figures he ’ s learning a lot by spending time with his family anyway .
Other things , though , have stayed just as hard .
It ’ s “ the managing everything , ” Lago says , even down to domestic duties like laundry .
“ You kind of decide what ’ s important in the moment and you can focus on that and do a good job with that , but something else has got to give , and something else will.
” For parents working on the front lines of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are combined with the daily fear of contracting Covid-19 .
Tierney Konitzer ’ s partner , a critical care nurse , had to live apart from her and their 3-year-old daughter for several weeks during the spring surge in their part of Wisconsin .
It was “ terrifying ” for her and hard on their daughter — “ we had huge behavioral issues with her because she didn ’ t understand why she couldn ’ t see her daddy , why she couldn ’ t hug her daddy.
” The family is back @ @ @ @ @ @ @ partner , who works weekends , is able to care for their daughter for much of the week .
But with cases climbing to record levels around the country , Konitzer fears another separation is coming soon .
And even now , it ’ s not easy .
Getting work done at home with her daughter doing remote preschool in the basement is a challenge , to say the least .
“ It ’ s hard to get the work done just because mom instinct kicks in , ” Konitzer said .
“ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” “ I feel guilty that she wants me and I have to say no over and over and over again , and I feel guilty that I ’ m distracted from my work and not feeling like I ’ m giving 100 percent of myself to my job , ” she added .
Meanwhile , balancing the demands of work and family has simply become untenable for some families — or their employers have made it so .
Kari McCracken , for example , told Vox ’ s Bryce Covert earlier this @ @ @ @ @ @ @ her job at a bottling company in June after being furloughed but couldn ’ t find child care for her kids .
As a result , the company let her go .
“ It crushed me , ” she said .
Lack of child care is likely a big reason more than 850,000 women dropped out of the workforce in September — more than in any other month on record except for this April , Covert reports .
Overall , moms have borne a bigger share of the pandemic parenting burden than dads @ @ @ @ @ @ @ kids under 12 saying they are responsible for the majority of distance learning in their homes in one April survey .
And single moms have been the hardest-hit of all : The share of unpartnered moms in the workforce dropped from 76.1 percent in September 2019 to 67.4 percent in September 2020 , a significantly larger drop than those seen among partnered parents or single dads , according to a Pew analysis .
For some parents , leaving the workforce means being pushed into poverty , with Black and Latinx families at disproportionate @ @ @ @ @ @ @ gaps .
“ A lot of Black children are in households where there ’ s just mom working or there are two parents both working in order to make ends meet , ” Jessica Fulton , the vice president of the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies , told the New York Times in June .
Even if parents are able to keep their jobs and pay the bills , there ’ s a mental and emotional toll that comes with month after month of raising kids during a pandemic .
One @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 40.7 percent had depressive symptoms , compared to 15 percent before the pandemic , and 72 percent experienced anxiety , a 43 percent increase from before .
And dealing with stress and anxiety is made all the harder by the fact that there ’ s no time for parents to recharge .
When it comes to self-care , it ’ s telling that many tips for parents in 2020 are things that take little to no time , like spending a tiny bit longer in the shower .
Downtime on nights and weekends @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
“ Night is the time when I can catch up on a lot of stuff , ” Lago said .
“ I will work after kids go to bed.
” Nor can parents easily de-stress by spending time with friends — especially now that the weather is getting cold and the virus is running rampant .
“ I have definitely struggled because I ’ m a social person , ” Konitzer said .
“ I am not able to recharge my battery by being in the office or by being able to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ long months that all run together — “ I don ’ t even realize that it ’ s December , ” she says — the isolation has been draining for the whole family .
“ We are all , I think , sick of each other.
” Parents are finding ways to make things work , but they need support There have been a few bright spots for parents amid the darkness of 2020 .
Now that she ’ s homeschooling her son , Demps has seen him starting to love school for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ may be thanks to the curriculum that Demps , who studies education and the school-to-prison pipeline , has tailor-made for him .
She ’ s teaching him about Black history , global economic issues , and , because he wants to become a chef , culinary science .
“ He actually bugs me , like , Mama , did you put up my work ?
” Demps said .
And around the country , many Black parents are reporting that having their children home during this time allows them to shelter them to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Halgunseth said .
It also allows Black parents to provide kids with “ positive messages about their history ” and other “ information that they don ’ t feel is being covered in the school , ” Halgunseth added .
Parents are also finding ways to create special moments even when everything looks different .
Liz Henkel-Lorenz , a New Jersey mom of two , says when her wife ’ s family came to visit in early November , they knew it might be the last time for many months .
So they @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Year ’ s Eve — all in one week .
“ Tuesday was Thanksgiving , and then Friday was Christmas Eve , and Saturday morning we opened presents , ” Henkel-Lorenz said .
Other families are coming together to help each other out with school .
Andréa Michel and her husband , for example , are sharing remote-school duties with two other families in their Mount Pleasant , Wisconsin , neighborhood .
She supervises her two children plus four more every Wednesday , and while she sometimes has to take a few minutes @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , “ this way has worked out much better than when everything first shut down , ” she says .
“ I was a terrible teacher and a terrible administrator.
” But even though individual families are finding ways to make pandemic child-rearing a little easier , parents and experts alike agree they need more support than they ’ re getting .
School and district administrators need to be more proactive in reaching out to parents , especially parents of color , to make sure they ’ re included in decisions that affect @ @ @ @ @ @ @ They need to be empowered at the table , and what they say needs to matter.
” “ Will we remain unchanged , insisting on detached , top-down learning in the face of human tragedy ?
” Demps and a group of mothers and education scholars wrote in an open letter in May .
“ Or will we seize this time as a unique opportunity to truly pause and reflect , to reach out to families and really get to know them , and to rethink the meaning of education so that we @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Parents and child care workers ( who often have children of their own ) would benefit from greater investment in child care infrastructure in this country , to make care more available and affordable for parents and to ensure that care workers , who often make less than $ 11 an hour , actually get a living wage .
“ As a nation , we really need to look at child care and elevating the providers and the educators , ” Alvord said .
Many child care experts have called for a $ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ industry , both to carry it through the pandemic and to strengthen it for the future .
And President-elect Joe Biden has proposed a caregiving plan that would lift the wages of child care workers while subsidizing care for families , with the goal of not just restoring America ’ s pre-pandemic child care infrastructure but improving it .
Employers , too , need to allow more flexibility in recognition of the extraordinary situation parents find themselves in , Halgunseth said .
Right now , many are trying to balance being a “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ their full-time job , ” she said .
“ Something needs to give.
” And while flexible hours are important , many say there just isn ’ t enough time in the day for everything that ’ s being asked of parents .
“ I think we need a shift in hours , ” Konitzer said .
She ’ d like to see “ even a 30-hour workweek , just to have a couple extra hours to balance this stuff all out.
” But that would require a large-scale shift in American work @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ t really happened .
Instead , it ’ s falling to parents — especially moms — to make an impossible situation work , with only the most uncertain of ends in sight .
Working in health care , Wathen understands what a medical breakthrough the vaccines are .
But mentally , the prospect of a vaccine “ has actually made it worse because now there is a horizon to look toward , ” she said .
“ I don ’ t want the hope right now .
I just want stability .
@

The past few weeks have been an especially hard part of an already hard year for Alison Wathen. There was a Covid-19 outbreak at her twins’ day care center, meaning her 11-month-old son and daughter were home — and needing all the undivided attention a baby needs, times two — while she and her husband traded off working. But now her husband’s company wants employees to come back to work in person and she doesn’t know when — or what precautions they’ll take to keep them safe. On top of it all, two of her uncles and her 91-year-old grandmother have been hospitalized with Covid-19.
Wathen, like many parents around the country, is trying to hang in there while struggling with the isolation, uncertainty, and sadness that are practically the definition of parenting in 2020. But she — again, like so many — has been scrambling to find fixes to whatever crisis comes next, pushing through day care shutdowns, scheduling nightmares, and family illnesses for nine months now, with little relief in sight.
When the pandemic first hit, her twins were less than 4 months old and she was still dealing with postpartum depression. She and her husband uprooted their family from their home outside Chicago to live with her parents in Michigan, so they could help with child care. Now they’re back in Illinois, and the kids are back in day care. But Wathen and her husband have used up all of their paid time off, so if the twins need to come out of day care again due to rising Covid-19 rates, the family may have to go back to Michigan yet again.
While her postpartum depression has since cleared, “it’s just normal depression now,” she says. “It’s been a long-ass road.”
Millions of parents were already burned out by the demands of pandemic child-rearing in April. Summer, with school out and many camps closed, brought no relief. Then came fall, with many parents juggling the ins and outs of remote learning — and a staggering 865,000 women, many of them moms, dropping out of the workforce. Now it’s December, and parents are still in the same situation they were thrust into nine months ago: trying to balance work, child care, education, and keeping their families safe as a pandemic rages virtually unchecked around them.
“I don’t know anyone that is not struggling,” Susannah Lago, a mom, business owner, and founder of the group Working Moms of Milwaukee, told Vox.
While some parents, like Wathen and her husband, have been able to get help with child care, that’s often come at a cost of greater uncertainty — how long will the school stay open? Is it safe? What are the pros and cons of keeping a child at home?
“It’s like there’s no right decision you can make,” Lago said.
The ever-shifting demands of parenting in a pandemic are leading to stress, anxiety, and depression, not to mention economic hardship for those forced to leave their jobs to care for kids. And while some parents are figuring out ways to lighten their burden, many say what’s needed are systemic changes to work, education, and child care in America.
But that’s unlikely to happen in the next few months. And so many parents have been left to fend for themselves, with their reserves of strength, energy, positivity — and sleep — long tapped out.
In the spring, millions of parents became teachers overnight
Beginning in March, schools and day cares in all 50 states closed their doors in an effort to stem the spread of Covid-19. The result: Parents around the country were suddenly forced to care for their children full time, and often supervise their online learning, all while continuing to do their own jobs in the midst of a deadly pandemic.
Then they just kept doing it for nine more months.
To say parents are struggling is an understatement. Sixty-three percent say the pandemic made the 2019-2020 school year extremely stressful for them, according to an August survey conducted by Harris Poll on behalf of the American Psychological Association. In the same survey, 77 percent of parents of 8- to 12-year-olds said that uncertainty about the 2020-2021 school year was causing them stress.
And that was before the school year even started. Now, many parents are watching arrangements they once hoped were temporary — caring for kids during the day and working late into the night, splitting up work shifts with partners, moving in with grandparents in order to get child care — stretch through the winter and beyond. “The longer all this goes on, the harder it is,” Mary Alvord, a DC-area psychologist who has worked with the APA on its stress surveys, told Vox.
On top of it all, parents have had to contend with the stress of continual school closures and reopenings this fall as districts try to navigate rising cases in their communities and quarantine of students and staff exposed to the virus. For example, over the course of three weeks, New York City shut down all of its schools, reconsidered, and has now reopened most but not all elementary schools.
All the changes are leading to “a lot of disruption and a lot of confusion” for parents, Linda Citlali Halgunseth, a parenting researcher and professor at the University of Connecticut, told Vox. “There’s just a lot on their plate.”
“If I was to think of one word, I would say guilt,” says Dawn Demps, a doctoral student at Arizona State University who’s finishing her dissertation while homeschooling her 16-year-old son and helping her 8-year-old daughter with remote elementary school. “You feel like you’re not doing enough.”
In particular, Demps regrets that her kids aren’t able to spend time with other kids or go to the playground — since she has multiple sclerosis, her family has to be especially careful about Covid-19 precautions. “You have to understand, Mommy could get sick,” Demps tells her 8-year-old. But for her, as a mom, there’s “a lot of guilt in that.”
While some families did find relief when the weather warmed and kids and parents alike were able to socialize outdoors, colder temperatures now are making even this outlet difficult, and parents’ mental health is suffering. “I’ve definitely seen a drop in mood in terms of sadness, more isolation, and more family tension,” Alvord said.
The isolation is taking its toll on Wathen and her family. Now “instead of arguing with my mother” like she did when they were living with her parents, “I’m arguing with my husband,” she said. Being unable to see anyone outside the family, “we’ve reached a level of exhaustion,” she said.
Not being able to introduce their babies to extended family has been especially hard. When they Skype with relatives, her daughter “keeps trying to hug her grandparents and great-grandparents through the screen.”
Parents are caring for kids full time while trying to do their jobs. It’s taking its toll.
As they try to manage their children’s education and questions about when they will see loved ones again, many parents are also trying to work, something that hasn’t gotten any easier since the pandemic began. In fact, research shows Americans have actually worked more hours per week since March.
For Lago, whose two children have been at home since the spring, pandemic working parenthood means being “the primary person in terms of the schooling assistance, and then at the same time trying to manage my business and getting back to clients.” Nine months in, there are some things she doesn’t spend time worrying about anymore, like whether her son is falling behind in remote school — she figures he’s learning a lot by spending time with his family anyway.
Other things, though, have stayed just as hard. It’s “the managing everything,” Lago says, even down to domestic duties like laundry. “You kind of decide what’s important in the moment and you can focus on that and do a good job with that, but something else has got to give, and something else will.”
For parents working on the front lines of the pandemic, meanwhile, household stresses are combined with the daily fear of contracting Covid-19. Tierney Konitzer’s partner, a critical care nurse, had to live apart from her and their 3-year-old daughter for several weeks during the spring surge in their part of Wisconsin. It was “terrifying” for her and hard on their daughter — “we had huge behavioral issues with her because she didn’t understand why she couldn’t see her daddy, why she couldn’t hug her daddy.”
The family is back living together, and Konitzer’s partner, who works weekends, is able to care for their daughter for much of the week. But with cases climbing to record levels around the country, Konitzer fears another separation is coming soon.
And even now, it’s not easy. Getting work done at home with her daughter doing remote preschool in the basement is a challenge, to say the least. “It’s hard to get the work done just because mom instinct kicks in,” Konitzer said. “Also, it’s just loud.”
“I feel guilty that she wants me and I have to say no over and over and over again, and I feel guilty that I’m distracted from my work and not feeling like I’m giving 100 percent of myself to my job,” she added.
Meanwhile, balancing the demands of work and family has simply become untenable for some families — or their employers have made it so. Kari McCracken, for example, told Vox’s Bryce Covert earlier this fall that she was called back to her job at a bottling company in June after being furloughed but couldn’t find child care for her kids. As a result, the company let her go. “It crushed me,” she said.
Lack of child care is likely a big reason more than 850,000 women dropped out of the workforce in September — more than in any other month on record except for this April, Covert reports. Overall, moms have borne a bigger share of the pandemic parenting burden than dads, with 80 percent of mothers of kids under 12 saying they are responsible for the majority of distance learning in their homes in one April survey. And single moms have been the hardest-hit of all: The share of unpartnered moms in the workforce dropped from 76.1 percent in September 2019 to 67.4 percent in September 2020, a significantly larger drop than those seen among partnered parents or single dads, according to a Pew analysis.
For some parents, leaving the workforce means being pushed into poverty, with Black and Latinx families at disproportionate risk due to racial pay and wealth gaps. “A lot of Black children are in households where there’s just mom working or there are two parents both working in order to make ends meet,” Jessica Fulton, the vice president of the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, told the New York Times in June.
Even if parents are able to keep their jobs and pay the bills, there’s a mental and emotional toll that comes with month after month of raising kids during a pandemic. One Canadian study of new moms found that 40.7 percent had depressive symptoms, compared to 15 percent before the pandemic, and 72 percent experienced anxiety, a 43 percent increase from before.
And dealing with stress and anxiety is made all the harder by the fact that there’s no time for parents to recharge. When it comes to self-care, it’s telling that many tips for parents in 2020 are things that take little to no time, like spending a tiny bit longer in the shower. Downtime on nights and weekends is mostly a thing of the past. “Night is the time when I can catch up on a lot of stuff,” Lago said. “I will work after kids go to bed.”
Nor can parents easily de-stress by spending time with friends — especially now that the weather is getting cold and the virus is running rampant. “I have definitely struggled because I’m a social person,” Konitzer said. “I am not able to recharge my battery by being in the office or by being able to go out with friends.”
Over these long months that all run together — “I don’t even realize that it’s December,” she says — the isolation has been draining for the whole family. “We are all, I think, sick of each other.”
Parents are finding ways to make things work, but they need support
There have been a few bright spots for parents amid the darkness of 2020. Now that she’s homeschooling her son, Demps has seen him starting to love school for the first time. Some of that may be thanks to the curriculum that Demps, who studies education and the school-to-prison pipeline, has tailor-made for him. She’s teaching him about Black history, global economic issues, and, because he wants to become a chef, culinary science. “He actually bugs me, like, Mama, did you put up my work?” Demps said.
And around the country, many Black parents are reporting that having their children home during this time allows them to shelter them to some degree from racism in schools, Halgunseth said. It also allows Black parents to provide kids with “positive messages about their history” and other “information that they don’t feel is being covered in the school,” Halgunseth added.
Parents are also finding ways to create special moments even when everything looks different. Liz Henkel-Lorenz, a New Jersey mom of two, says when her wife’s family came to visit in early November, they knew it might be the last time for many months. So they celebrated Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s Eve — all in one week. “Tuesday was Thanksgiving, and then Friday was Christmas Eve, and Saturday morning we opened presents,” Henkel-Lorenz said.
Other families are coming together to help each other out with school. Andréa Michel and her husband, for example, are sharing remote-school duties with two other families in their Mount Pleasant, Wisconsin, neighborhood. She supervises her two children plus four more every Wednesday, and while she sometimes has to take a few minutes away from the chaos just to breathe, “this way has worked out much better than when everything first shut down,” she says. “I was a terrible teacher and a terrible administrator.”
But even though individual families are finding ways to make pandemic child-rearing a little easier, parents and experts alike agree they need more support than they’re getting. School and district administrators need to be more proactive in reaching out to parents, especially parents of color, to make sure they’re included in decisions that affect their kids, Demps said. “They need to be empowered at the table, and what they say needs to matter.”
“Will we remain unchanged, insisting on detached, top-down learning in the face of human tragedy?” Demps and a group of mothers and education scholars wrote in an open letter in May. “Or will we seize this time as a unique opportunity to truly pause and reflect, to reach out to families and really get to know them, and to rethink the meaning of education so that we can co-create a new way?”
Parents and child care workers (who often have children of their own) would benefit from greater investment in child care infrastructure in this country, to make care more available and affordable for parents and to ensure that care workers, who often make less than $11 an hour, actually get a living wage. “As a nation, we really need to look at child care and elevating the providers and the educators,” Alvord said.
Many child care experts have called for a $50 billion bailout of the child care industry, both to carry it through the pandemic and to strengthen it for the future. And President-elect Joe Biden has proposed a caregiving plan that would lift the wages of child care workers while subsidizing care for families, with the goal of not just restoring America’s pre-pandemic child care infrastructure but improving it.
Employers, too, need to allow more flexibility in recognition of the extraordinary situation parents find themselves in, Halgunseth said. Right now, many are trying to balance being a “full-time parent, full-time teacher, and their full-time job,” she said. “Something needs to give.”
And while flexible hours are important, many say there just isn’t enough time in the day for everything that’s being asked of parents. “I think we need a shift in hours,” Konitzer said. She’d like to see “even a 30-hour workweek, just to have a couple extra hours to balance this stuff all out.”
But that would require a large-scale shift in American work culture. So far, that hasn’t really happened. Instead, it’s falling to parents — especially moms — to make an impossible situation work, with only the most uncertain of ends in sight. Working in health care, Wathen understands what a medical breakthrough the vaccines are. But mentally, the prospect of a vaccine “has actually made it worse because now there is a horizon to look toward,” she said. “I don’t want the hope right now. I just want stability.”