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Even before the pandemic hit, the feeling was pervasive: When we’re raising children in America, we’re going it alone. Demands for more support are growing, but the persistent lack of interest by our government in the essential work of child-rearing has fueled the sense that launching children safely into the world is something we have to figure out on our own. We were struggling—some much more than others—even before Covid-19 roared into our lives. But the pandemic has fully exposed the brutal logic of modern parenting. Too many families entered the crisis with too little. With schools shuttered, many of these children lost access to meals, counseling, and clean clothes. Suddenly without child care, thousands of mothers were pushed out of the workforce. Shut inside our homes, cut off from family and friends, robbed of the solidarity forged at the playground, we battle an isolation that feels more acute than ever.