For the kids, it's summer. For working parents? Not so much.

June 22, 2026

Here's what you Need to Know about summer "break" for working parents:

Summer is a logistics crisis for working parents. A record 52% of two-parent families now have both parents working full-time, and the 10-12-week gap between the school calendar and the work calendar falls almost entirely on them to close. The data on what that costs – in sleep, focus, PTO, and career momentum – is stark. So is the business case for employers who choose to do something about it.

A record 52% of two-parent families now have both parents working full-time, up from 31% in 1975—and summer exposes every crack in a system built around a different set of assumptions
90% of working parents lose sleep over summer childcare planning; 67% say they feel a growing sense of dread as summer approaches
60% burn up to two weeks of PTO because of school and childcare closures—and 70% of them say they feel less refreshed when they return
In dual full-time households, 48% say mom would take time off when unexpected childcare comes up vs. 22% for dad—and 70% say it comes down to who has more flexibility at work
79% of working parents want employer help navigating childcare; 20% have already left a job because it wasn't there

The dual full-time family is now the norm.

Two-income households didn't used to be the default. Now they are, and summer exposes every crack in a system built around a different set of assumptions.

A record 52% of two-parent families now have both parents working full-time, up from 46% a decade ago and 31% in 1975, according to a new Pew Research Center report. The share of couples where the dad works full-time and the mom is not employed has fallen from 42% in 1975 to 23% today. College-educated mothers are driving much of the shift—about 7 in 10 moms with a postgraduate degree are now in dual full-time households, up significantly from 25 years ago. Overall, 73% of U.S. parents with children under 18 work full-time, including 89% of dads and 59% of moms.

Read more via Pew Research Center, Bloomberg

Summer is a scheduling crisis, not a vacation.

The U.S. school year runs about 180 days. The summer break that follows runs 10 to 12 weeks. Working parents spend months trying to close that gap—and most years, they don't fully succeed.

90% of working parents lose sleep over planning summer childcare and schedules, compared with 70% of parents who aren't employed. 67% say they feel a growing sense of dread as summer approaches. 87% report work interruptions, distraction, and worry about their children's schedules during the summer months, and 76% say their ability to focus at work is directly tied to how reliable their children's summer schedule is. 68% of employed parents of children ages 0–12 say finding short-term summer childcare is extremely difficult—and registration for the most sought-after programs opens in January, with many filling within hours. 60% of working parents burn up to two weeks of PTO because of school and childcare closures; 70% of them say they feel less refreshed when they return.

The mental load falls unevenly.

In dual full-time households, both parents are working the same hours. The second shift at home is a different story.

In families where both parents work full-time, 52% say the mom handles more day-to-day parenting tasks, while only 10% say the dad does more. 43% say the mom does more household chores in those same households, while 17% say the dad does more. The perception gap is significant: 63% of mothers say they handle the lion's share of parenting and household tasks, while among fathers, only 4 in 10 say women do more parenting and only a quarter say women do more household chores.

When unexpected childcare comes up, 48% of dual full-time couples say the mom would take time off, while just 22% say the dad would. The primary driver isn't who's less busy or better with kids—70% of parents say it comes down to who has more flexibility at work. 81% of full-time working moms say they handle parenting tasks during work hours at least sometimes; 38% say they do so extremely or very often, about double the share of dads.

Read more via Pew Research Center, Bloomberg, Fast Company

The benefits gap makes it worse for lower-income parents.

Not every working parent faces summer the same way. For lower-income workers, the same logistics problem comes with far fewer tools to solve it.

Access to paid parental or family leave breaks down sharply by income: 70% of upper-income working parents have it, compared with 51% of middle-income and 33% of lower-income parents. Upper-income parents are more than three times as likely as lower-income parents to have flexibility to work from home (43% vs. 12%). 52% of lower-income working parents say they would be extremely or very worried about losing pay if they had to take time off for a sick child or childcare emergency, compared with 25% of middle-income and 8% of upper-income parents. Single moms are much more likely than married or cohabiting moms to worry about losing pay (50% vs. 32%) or losing their job (26% vs. 15%) when unexpected childcare disrupts work.

Read more via Pew Research Center

Childcare in summer is expensive, scarce, and cobbled together.

Even parents who can afford care often can't find it. And when they do, it rarely covers the full workday.

Families pay an average of $13,128 per child annually for care—about 10% of income for dual-income households and 35% for single-income households. Summer care is an additional cost on top of that. 48% of working parents with a child age 5 or younger say it's difficult to find childcare that meets their cost expectations. Among parents who need care for a child age 6 to 12, 47% say it's difficult to find summer care, compared with 43% for before-school care and 42% for after-school care. About 4 in 10 working parents use more than one care arrangement for the same child; among those with unpredictable schedules, that rises to 45%. 81% report that the traditional support network has shrunk compared to prior generations. Onsite workplace childcare is the starkest gap: 59% of working moms with a child age 5 or younger say it would be extremely or very helpful, but only 7% say it's available to them.

Working from home doesn't solve it.

Remote work gives parents more flexibility in some ways. It doesn't make summer easier.

65% of working parents say their job cannot be done from home; only 17% work from home all or most of the time. Parents who work from home frequently are no more likely than those who don't to say balancing work and family is easy—similar shares across all remote work arrangements say the job makes it harder to be a good parent. 39% of parents who work from home most of the time say they handle parenting tasks during work hours extremely or very often, compared with 25% of those who rarely or never work from home. Working from home with children in the house is not childcare. Hybrid work helps at the margins but does not close a 10-to-12-week gap.

Read more via Pew Research Center, Fast Company

What employers can do.

Most working parents want help from their employer, and the business case for providing it is solid. The interventions that move the needle most don't require a major budget.

79% of working parents say they want their employer to provide or help them navigate care for their children. 88% of employers say childcare benefits boost productivity, and 90% say they boost talent recruitment and retention as much as paid time off and health insurance, according to a 2024 report from Boston Consulting Group and Moms First. About 20% of workers say they left a job because their employer didn't provide family care benefits; 29% said a lack of caregiving benefits was the top reason they looked for another job.

AT&T and The J.M. Smucker Co. have addressed the summer gap directly, providing on-site camps, high-quality childcare, and backup care options for children under 12. Low-cost interventions include planning major deadlines and offsites around known summer transition weeks, moving standing late-afternoon meetings, and making summer schedule conflicts openly discussable rather than something employees have to hide. For working parents, a schedule that shifts with 24 hours' notice is more destabilizing than a heavy schedule that holds. In summer, predictability is itself a benefit.

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