These Mothers Wanted to Care for Their Kids and Keep Their Jobs. Now They re Suing After Being Fired
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Lauren Martinez and her family in Cape Coral, Fla.
Lauren Martinez and her family in Cape Coral, Fla. Credit - Mary Beth Koeth for TIME
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hen Lauren Martinez arrived home after work to find her teenage daughter feverish and vomiting, she knew her pandemic plans were about to fall apart. It was May 2020 and her day care had closed, so Martinez, an assistant office manager at a dentist’s office in Florida, had been relying on the 14-year-old to care for her infant son between middle-school classes online. “It was not ideal,” she says. “But there was literally no option but her.” Martinez’s husband worked at the same office, and the family needed both incomes.