NBC News, December 2020
Katie Morales tried desperately to keep working while also caring for her 7-year-old daughter amid the COVID-19 pandemic. “Friends and family [were] driving really long distances to come watch Genevieve for like a week or two weeks or a month at a time,” Morales said. “All so I could keep doing this work that I loved.” Soon, it became too much for the 33-year-old single mom to handle.
“I used up all my sick days basically in the first six weeks of schools closing, and I think that I did what I had to do,” Morales told “Nightline.” Before the pandemic, she was working at an animal rescue farm in upstate New York. When schools closed in March, child care became an issue for the working mother. “If the choice is between continuing to take care of animals and taking care of my daughter, I have to choose my daughter,” Morales said.
Morales made the agonizing decision to quit her dream job and move across the country, back to her hometown in Chino, California, so her mother and grandmother could help with child care.
