Expert Commentary
Working Parents
The second shift, the school calendar and the cost of coverage.
As featured in
Working parent coverage often treats the problem as scheduling. Find better childcare, use a calendar app, set boundaries at work. What gets missed is the mental load behind the schedule, and the way a single sick day or school closure can unravel a carefully built week.
The pressure point is rarely a single task. It is the planning layer behind every task: noticing that the backup sitter is away next week, remembering the school form, deciding who leaves work early when a child wakes up sick. Tammy gives audiences language for that layer, so a couple or a team can see the work clearly before arguing about who is doing it.
Tammy speaks to both sides: the household reality parents live with and the workplace systems that shape it.
Segments often end with advice to set better boundaries at work, which assumes a level of control many parents do not have. Tammy focuses on what families can actually change at home and what organizations can realistically offer.
On the workplace side, she speaks to what a manager can say when an employee's childcare falls through, what not to ask, and where to point someone for support. That keeps a segment useful for leaders without suggesting that any single policy can remove the load parents carry at home.
For producers and editors
Angles She Can Speak To
The second shift
The invisible work that begins when the workday ends, and how couples can divide it explicitly rather than by default.
The school calendar problem
Breaks, closures and early dismissals: how families plan coverage for the days that do not fit a work schedule.
The cost of coverage
How parents weigh childcare options against income, flexibility and their own wellbeing, without framing it as a simple budget choice.
Returning to work
The emotional and practical transition back after leave, for parents and for the child.
What managers can do
Practical ways leaders can support working parents without making promises the organization cannot keep.
Guilt and the working parent
Why guilt is so common among working parents, and how families can reframe time with children around presence rather than hours.
The planning layer
The noticing, remembering and deciding behind visible childcare tasks, and how households can assign ownership instead of defaulting to one parent.
The backup plan
Why every working-parent arrangement needs a written backup plan, and how to build one before the first sick day or school closure.
What She Brings
Tammy has twenty years of experience with families balancing work and care, and advises organizations on supporting caregiving employees. She speaks credibly to parents and to the employers who shape their options.
Her corporate caregiving program includes a Working Parent Program and a Manager Education component, and her speaking topics include The Invisible Job After Work, a talk on the planning and coordination behind family care. She has also been featured on NBC's Today Show and Good Morning America as a national voice on parenting, caregiving and family well-being.
She is available for broadcast segments, print and digital interviews, podcasts, panels and keynotes. Send the outlet, the angle you have in mind and your deadline through the contact form, and note whether the piece is live, taped or written. She can prepare focused talking points for a specific angle.
Media commentary is educational. It does not create a therapist–client relationship, and no client stories or identifying details are ever shared.
Related Pages
- Working Parent Program
Workplace support for employees managing childcare, development and behavior questions alongside a full workload.
- The Invisible Job After Work
A talk that makes the planning behind family care visible and easier to divide deliberately.
- Manager Education
Useful language, clear boundaries and appropriate routing for managers supporting caregiving employees.
- Childcare Consulting
Defining, choosing and managing childcare that fits a household's real working week.
Covering working parents?
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