Burnout, depression stalk

Vietnamese mothers coping with

pandemic stress
By Long Nguyen   February 24, 2021 | 11:13 am GMT+7
Increased financial insecurity and even heavier domestic burdens are stressing
out Vietnamese mothers as they struggle with the fallout of Covid-19.
Le Thi Phuong, an hourly wage worker at a textile firm in Hanoi’s Long Bien
District, starts her 90-minute lunch break at noon by rushing home to feed her
children, whose school and kindergarten have been closed due to the new
Covid-19 wave.

After lunch is done, she cleans the dishes, helps the children sleep, and returns
to the factory, "sometimes after screaming and yelling at my babies."

"Sometimes I wonder why I have to carry such a burden. I cannot lose the job
or let my children stay at home all day without any care," said Phuong, whose
husband works at the same factory, "but is next to helpless when it comes to
housework."

Given the widespread and deep impacts that the pandemic has had, 35-year-
old Phuong is not the only mother bearing their brunt.

Millions of Vietnamese mothers are waging a daily struggle with taking care of
their children and trying to earn a stable income. Their children not going to
school yet again has complicated their situations.
A mother who has lost her job, takes her son, suffering from leukemia, to their hometown in central
Thanh Hoa Province after the boy was discharged from the Hanoi-based National Institute of
Hematology and Blood Transfusion, July 2020. Photo by VnExpress/Thanh Hue.
Since early February, Nguyen Thanh Quynh has found it very difficult to work
with her six-year-old son at home.

The owner of an online clothing store has to spend hours responding to her
patrons’ messages and orders, "but none of this can be done if my son is
around."

On a Monday morning in February, Quynh was sitting in the kitchen while her
son was having an online lesson with his teacher on Zoom.

"Mother Quynh, please help your son turn off the microphone when I am
speaking," the teacher said as the boy interrupted her lessons by screaming
and dancing on his chair.

After a while, the rambunctious boy complained he could not see his teacher
due to the weak Wi-Fi network and demanded to watch videos on YouTube.

"I cannot do any work or talk to anyone, I just need silence to run the business
and make some money, and it has become such a luxury," Quynh said, adding
the three-month break from February to May last year had been a nightmare.
Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, she had to close her store last May and operate
one online to contribute much needed income for the family. Her husband, an
office worker, is away from home during the day, and she has to handle her
business and her son by herself.

"I know it’s my son, but staying at home all day with him makes me and my
wallet shrink. Sometimes, I do not want to wake up in the morning anymore,"
said Quynh, adding that she had no time to have her hair cut and her nails
done for the Lunar New Year holiday.

Mental issues
In Ho Chi Minh City, Nguyen Thi Hoa, 38, felt tired all the time, got angry at
her children and cried in the middle of the night. When she visited Nguyen Tri
Phuong hospital last September, she was told that she had depression.

One of the reasons was that her working hours at a Binh Tan District company
were cut, so she stayed at home and took care of her children even as she tried
to find more jobs. She was stressed out.

In a 27,000-member Facebook group of people with depression, many women

have shared stories of their mental breakdown because of several factors
related to the pandemic, including job loss, overwhelming housework and
indolent husbands.

Doctor Le Nguyen Thuy Phuong from the Geriatric and Psychiatric

Department of the Nguyen Tri Phuong Hospital in Saigon warns that women
are two times more likely to suffer from depression than men.

The risk is exacerbated when Covid-19 forces people to stay at home and cuts
off social connections, she added.

The pandemic has set up a perfect storm for women, beginning with financial
security and the feeling of worthlessness that it brings, compounded by
increased dependency on husbands, worsening the pressures and blame that
are foisted on them in an overwhelmingly patriarchal society.

In 2020, Vietnam saw a 10-year record high unemployment rate of 2.48

percent, up 0.31 percentage points over the previous year, according to the
General Statistics Office of Vietnam (GSO).

The nation’s labor force shrank by 1.3 million workers to 53.4 million last year.
Among the unemployed, 51.6 percent were women.
 "I came home and burst into tears when my company told me they would not
hire me anymore. How useless and weak I was!" Le Thi Yen, a delivery woman,
summed up her experience and feelings last June when her employers in
Saigon’s District 9 sacked her.

A mother takes her six-month-old daughter to the Hanoi Center for Employee Service in Cau Giay
District to apply for unemployment benefits, June 2020. Data from the center shows that women
account for 65 percent of people applying for unemployment benefits. Photo by VnExpress/Ngoc
Thanh.
Vietnam’s long-standing domestic inequality worsens the problem.
While taking care of families and their children, a large number of women also
take up positions in the labor market, work longer hours and earn more than
ever before, instead of staying home and being completely dependent on their
husbands who are highly unlikely to get involved in housework.

A survey by the Institute of Labor Science and Social Affairs and the United
Nations University World Institute for Development Economics Research
revealed only 3 percent of surveyed husbands wash dishes at home, with only
0.5 percent offering to do so all the time.

"I have one head and two arms, just like my husband, but he does not want to
share the responsibilities equally," Yen said, adding they’ve had several
arguments on doing household chores.
The impacts of domestic imbalance amid the pandemic hitting women the
hardest is borne out by a recent research by the Vietnam National University of
Agriculture and the National Economics University.

"When your child is sick, they will blame the mother. I am unable to sleep
when I think about how I can protect my family from the pandemic and keep
my job at the same time," Hoa said.

According to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), when the country
began its social distancing campaign last April, reports of domestic abuse to
the hotline of Vietnam Women’s Union increased by 50 percent, and the
number of people that needed protection at the Peace House, a shelter for
survivors of violence against women that is managed by the union, increased
80 percent year-on-year.

Some women stressed out by the Covid-19 pandemic have leaned on their
larger families, especially in caring for the children.

Yen sent her four-year-old son to her mother in the southern province of Tien
Giang, and picked up her husband’s mother from Long An, also in the south, to
take care of her 10-year-old daughter in Saigon.

"That is the best choice I can make, having the grandmothers take care of my
children when I am busy working," she said, adding it was just a temporary
option "until the grandmothers also get stressed out in taking care of the kids."

Mothers like Yen know that they have to be strong to sail their family through
the Covid-19 storm.

"What if my children get sick? What if I lose my job? What if the schools
remain closed and I must maintain this situation?" Phuong mused as she fed
her three-year-old daughter against the sounds of a YouTube video for
children, before returning to work at 1:30 p.m.

"We will make it through this, the problem is when."