TIME

COVID-19 creates a childcare catch-22

TAMELA CROUCH NEVER THOUGHT SHE’D have to worry about childcare again. But when her adult daughter died from complications of a heart infection in 2014, Crouch moved to Montana to help raise her toddler granddaughters with each of their dads. Suddenly, nearing 50, Crouch was plunged back into a world of car seats, cartoons and parenting logistics. Eventually, the multihousehold family mastered a schedule that allowed all three adults to take care of the kids and keep working.

When COVID-19 hit and the girls’ day care closed, the family

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