With all that’s at stake in each state, you may be startled to learn that most legislatures remain boys’ clubs, with women so severely underrepresented that the political process suffers.  (No need to single anyone out, but let’s just say that at 9%, South Carolina is a great place to be when you can’t wait long for the ladies’ room!)

Guest blogger Laurie Kretchmar, media director for The 2012 Project, delivers an impassioned plea for women to seize the opportunities open in this year’s election below.  Read the original post via Care2 here, and heed her call to consider running for state office.  There’s still time to jump into a race…and there’s clearly still a deep need for informed, engaged, experienced women (why not you?) to shape the policies that affect your family every day. 

I know, right? We’re both lucky to work for employers that provide paid family leave. So lucky that I feel torn between shouting from the rooftops my personal ode to paid leave and how it has benefited our family, and keeping it to myself because so few families receive this vital support that it feels like I’m bragging.

At MomsRising we frequently hear from our members about the need for all families to have access to paid family leave. In fact paid family leave was one of the top issues MomsRising members wanted addressed in the State of the Union. 

Join us in shouting from the rooftops that EVERYONE needs access to paid family leave when new children arrive!  Congress needs to hear from you! Add your signature here: http://action.momsrising.org/sign/pfl_petition/

Having access to paid family leave shouldn’t have anything to do with luck. It’s good for moms, dads, and babies and, as a new study shows, paid family leave is a sweetheart deal for the economy and taxpayers too.

Paid family leave, good for the economy? 

Yes! Paid family leave is a win-win. Recent research from the Center for Women and Work at Rutgers shows, controlling for other factors that affect leave-taking,  among new parents who took paid family leave after the birth of a child:

• Women who took paid leave are 39% less likely to receive public assistance [1]
• Women who took paid leave were 40% less likely to receive food stamps in the year following their child’s birth when compared to those did not take any leave [2]
• Women and men who took paid family leave were less likley to rely on public assistance after the birth of their child, compared to those who did not take any leave [3]
• Women who took a paid leave were more likely to be working 9-12 months after a child’s birth than those who did not take any leave [4]
• And women who took a paid leave report increases in wages within a year of their child’s birth compared to those women who did not take any leave [5]

Study author Linda Houser notes: “While we have known for a long time about the maternal and infant health benefits of leave policies, we can now link paid family leave to greater labor force attachment and increased wages for women as well as to reduced spending by businesses in the form of employee replacement costs, and by governments in the form of public assistance.”

That is some sweet news! And good timing too, because for the first time in history, women comprise half of the paid labor force, three-quarters of moms are in the labor force and the majority of families need two working parents to make ends meet. This and the fact that over 80% of women in our nation have children by the time they are 44 add up – and you can see why this should be the priority issue for Congress that it is for our MomsRising members.  It is long past time for our public policies to catch up to the modern realities of today’s families.

*Sign our petition to Congress to support paid family leave policies for families! We’ll deliver your signatures to elected officials ASAP along with the message that paid family leave is a neccesity and we can’t afford to wait! http://action.momsrising.org/sign/pfl_petition/

Why is paid family leave so important?

Paid family leave after the birth of a child helps give kids a healthy start in life and gives their families the economic security they need to stay out of poverty at a critical time. At the same time it can benefit businesses’ bottom line. This saves everyone–from parents to taxpayers to businesses–money in the long run.

Studies show that paid family leave after the birth of a child combats poverty, gives children a healthy start, lowers infant mortality by more than 20% [6] and helps lower the wage gap between women and men. [7]

Yet, in the United States, only 49% of mothers are able to cobble together paid leave by using sick days, vacation days, disability leave, and maternity leave. And 51% of new mothers lack any paid leave — so some take unpaid leave, some quit, some even lose their jobs just when they need them the most. [8] No wonder having a baby is a leading cause of “poverty spells” in our nation!

In addition, a number of studies have shown that maternity leave has a positive impact on how long women breastfeed, which in turn affects the long-term health of mother and child.  This is important because major medical authorities recommend that infants be breastfed exclusively for their first six months.  Despite the government’s Healthy People 2010 breastfeeding goals, only 13.6% of U.S. infants are breastfeeding exclusively and only 43% are breastfeeding at all at six months of age. [9] Recently the U.S. Surgeon General called paid family leave policies important for families and babies’ health – linking the ability of new moms to take paid leave to increased rates of breastfeeding.  [10]

Paid leave benefits dads too: studies show that while not all dads have access to paid leave, fathers who are able to take paid leave to care for their children are more involved in their kids’ lives nine months after the children are born and are less likely to rely on public assistance. [11, 12]

Paid family leave isn’t just good for families – it also benefits employers.  A 2011 study of the California Paid Leave program showed that most employers found that the Paid Family Leave had a positive effect on productivity, profitability/performance, turnover and employee morale. [13]

177 countries have some form of paid leave for new moms after the birth of a child.  Sadly, the U.S. isn’t one of them, setting up our families for failure. [14] We can do better. 

*Join us in showing Congress that paid family leave is a necessity for ALL moms, dads, babies, tax-payers and the economy!  Sign our petition calling on Congress to support paid family leave policies that make America’s families stronger! http://action.momsrising.org/sign/pfl_petition/

And please use the Share buttons below to share this with three or more friends you think might like to take action too.

Together we’re a more powerful voice for women and families.

P.S. MomsRising is working with our friends at the National Partnership for Women and Families and Working Mother Media to deliver this petition to Congress to encourage them to support paid leave for families.

P.P.S.  Can you take a moment to share your experiences with family leave (or your experiences with a lack of family leave)? What did you–or your friends or family members–do when a new child arrived? http://www.momsrising.org/member_stories/topic/paid-family-leave-stories_1/submit/mrstory/paid-family-leave

[1-5] Linda Houser, PhD  “Pay Matters: The Positive Economic Impacts of Paid Family Leave for Families, Businesses and the Public,”  A Report for the Center for Women and Work, January 2012

[6] Sakiko Tanaka, “Parental Leave and Child Health Across OECD Countries,” Economic Journal 115, no. 501 (2005)

[7] Waldfogel, Jane “Understanding the ‘Family Gap’ in Pay for Women with Children,” Journal of Economic Perspectives 12, no. 1 (1998), 137-156     

[8] Bureau of Labor Statistics Press Release: Employment Characteristics of Families 2009, May 2010

[9] Centers for Disease Control, Breastfeeding Report Card—United States 2010

[10] Department of Health and Human Services Press Release, “Everyone Can Help Make Breastfeeding Easier, Surgeon General Says in “Call to Action””, Jan. 20, 2011

[11] Paternity Leave and Fathers’ Involvement With Their Young Children. Lenna Nepomnyaschy and Jane Waldfogel. Community, Work, and Family, 2007.

[12] Linda Houser, PhD  “Pay Matters: The Positive Economic Impacts of Paid Family Leave for Families, Businesses and the Public,”  A Report for the Center for Women and Work, January 2012

[13] Applebaum, Eileen and Ruth Milkman “Leaves that Pay: Employer and Worker Experiences with Paid Family Leave in California” January 2011

[14] www.RaisingtheGlobalFloor.org

My sister Americans:

The state of our union is strong.  Electing women to fully 51% of public offices has ushered in a new era in our great experiment in democracy. Legislators now put the common good ahead of their personal power and individual gain.  We, men and women together, make better policy decisions and make them faster than in any prior administration.  As a result, the cost of government has decreased dramatically and we have more funds available to put to good use in making our country smarter, healthier, more competitive, and happier than ever before.

In the past year, the U.S. Congress has passed legislation to make all of our lives easier, more meaningful and more fulfilling.  First, every U.S. worker is guaranteed seven days per year of paid sick leave. If you wake up with the flu, you can stay home and still pay the bills.  If your child comes home with strep throat, you can take her to the doctor and not risk your job.  You can count on getting your annual physical and lab tests, your dental checkups and your children’s vaccines without running the risk of losing your income, or putting off necessary medical care.

Second, paid family leave has become the law of the land. Your members of Congress know that people are born, people die, people get sick and recover, or get injured and get well.  The people who show up every day in our factories and our offices are the self-same people who are having babies, adopting children, caring for their chronically ill parents, their injured spouses, or disabled family members.  We have created a caring economy.  We can attend to the business of America while giving those who need it the care they require because we know that, throughout our lives, there is a time to work, and a time to care, a time to be born, and a time to die.  One day we are the caregiver, the next day we are the family member who needs help.  By accepting this reality and crafting public laws in harmony with it, we share in both the effort and the benefit, in covering for the absent worker, rocking the new baby, or holding the hand of a dying loved one.  We can’t do it all alone.  But from now on, we can do it all together.  Every American will have access to six months of family leave, and receive two-thirds of their wages until they can return to work.

If mothers or fathers wish to spend more time with a young child, they can count on earning Social Security credits for the period they spend with children younger than five for a maximum of six years across their lifetime. Until now, this critical period of personal investment eroded financial security after retirement.  Attributing half the median annual income to a stay-at-home parent will ensure that retirement benefits are not totally inadequate for those who contributed their care work rather than their compensated work to our collective well-being.  At long last, we have instilled family values into policies which actually value the family.

As if that weren’t enough to induce whiplash across this great country of ours, starting now, employed women will make as much money as employed men. Gender will no longer be an excuse for income inequality.  Fair pay puts more money into the economy pushing up job growth, and effectively ending our recession.  Fairness increases opportunity for women and for everyone.  Also, banks and financial institutions, until now directed primarily by men, are prohibited from taking excessive risks with other people’s money.  Therefore, invested savings will no longer be the private casino of a few.  Thoughtful and prudent administration by the most talented men and women will finally end the seesaw effect of market volatility.  When you save for retirement or your child’s education, the money you are counting on will be there.

Finally, workplace flexibility, alternative schedules and tele-work will become the rule rather than the exception. All parents who wish may enroll their pre-school children into accessible, affordable, high-quality childcare, whether it’s for standard business hours, a few days a week, or during a night shift or weekend.  Families will have both the support and the freedom they need to devise a routine that works for them, and to modify it as children get older or circumstances change.   Parents can pursue professional goals while being the mothers and fathers they want to be.  You will always be able to find clean and private places to breastfeed a baby, and other clean and private places to change a diaper.

And from this day forward, the number of women’s restrooms will be doubled in all public buildings, so that no woman ever, ever, has to stand in line again.

Thank you, citizens, for electing men and women in equal measure with a passion for public service and long range vision. Their commitment to our mutual well-being has made this possible.  We can look forward with confidence to generation upon generation of the greatest prosperity and the greatest opportunity possible.

God bless you and God bless the United States of America.  Good night.

Click here to read more posts from Your (Wo)manInWashington blog.

And we need your ears too! Tweet with us @MomsRising in conversation on Twitter starting at 9:00 PM EST tonight.

If you don’t tweet, please join the conversation right here on the blog! Leave your comments under this blogpost during and after the speech. Let us know what you heard and what you think of the speech. We’ll be reading every comment–we want to know what you care about, what you think about the President’s remarks and what our national priorities should be for families in 2012.

I’m on the board of a small, parenting-related nonprofit organization, a board comprised of smart, thoughtful women who are mostly mothers of small children (and one dad, though our father pool is growing). In addition to our full-time parenting jobs, pretty much all of us have professional jobs, or are students. We’re all juggling a lot of balls, and we all take on this additional volunteer job as board members because we believe that the work of this organization is world-changing.

Photo credit garryknight/Flickr

Recently, we’ve endured a spate of board resignations. Each ex-member articulated a variant on the same theme, something to the effect of:

“I just can’t take the guilt anymore. I feel guilty in all parts of my life for not giving enough. I care so much about this organization, and I just can’t face caring about something so much and not do it well. I’d rather just not do it at all than do it poorly. I’ll let someone else step in who can give it her all.”

The trouble is that there’s no one who can give it her all. Smart, capable women who care about our organization? They abound. Guilt-free women with boundless energy who will consistently give all that they’re capable of? Uh, yeah. At last count, I knew exactly zero of them.

My suspicion is this: The future leaders of our organization are out there, consumed by a state of guilt paralysis. They’re out there examining their inboxes crammed with un-responded-to messages. Eyeing a pile of unwritten thank you notes. Trying not to glance at the choc-a-block family calendar. Perhaps reading this article. Writing this piece. All of us out there, relentlessly measuring and grading the attention we’re giving to the many things we care about. And failing to measure up. As a friend of mine once said, “feeling less like we rock, and more like we suck.”

(Disclaimer: If you’re thinking, “Is the writer some kind of guilt expert?” The answer is no. I’m no psychologist, evolutionary biologist, or anthropologist. Guilty as charged. Still, I’m going to engage in some pop versions of all three, to try to explore this jagged terrain called guilt.)

Guilt in our culture is a particularly feminine affliction. Its paralyzing effect on women is something I suspect we’re all familiar with—whether from first-person experience or from loving a guilty mother, sister, friend, or partner. For many of us, becoming a mother only exacerbates the guilt. As a parent, you’re now responsible for something particularly fragile, precious and dependent, and the buck couldn’t stop anywhere closer than right here.

As a guilt-ridden gal and mama, I’ve got a small library of books about women, motherhood, and guilt. Motherhood in the Age of Madness, by Judith Warner. This is Not How I Thought It Would Be, by Kristin Maschka. The Motherhood Manifesto, by Joan Blades. They all describe the phenomenon by which American women are stuck with outdated cultural expectations and support systems, while being served an ever-increasing helping of responsibilities in the name of opportunity and equal access. The contemporary expectation is that we’ll be both breadwinners and cookie bakers; professionally successful at meaningful jobs, with excellent, infallible childcare; ever-present parents who have endless patience; and also modern women who take care of our partners’ needs and our own, too. And that’s the short list.

While the division of household labor has radically shifted in the past 50 years, the emotional caretaking and relationship work is harder to redistribute than the obvious tasks, like who washes the dishes or puts the kids to bed. To the degree that emotional caretaking is still, in many cases, the purview of women, guilt about not giving enough to others is still a particularly feminine legacy.

The different relationships that men and women have with guilt have been explored ad nauseum, usually to the tune of “why are women so guilty and men aren’t guilty enough?” A number of studies suggest that men are “guilt deficient,” while women suffer from “destructive guilt.” Most studies come to the unfortunate conclusion that guilt is biologically based, and take the analysis no further. Others ask the cultural question, “How do we get men to be more guilty, and women less so?” Which also doesn’t seem like the right question to me.

I don’t know about the value of more guilt for men. That’s a topic for another day. Instead, I want to address what women do with their guilt. If guilt can be paralyzing, what antidotes actually give us momentum to be the sorts of women and mothers we want to be?

After three months of maternity leave, I remember dragging myself to work intensely sleep deprived, struggling to focus my brain and get through each day. I kept waiting for someone to give the lie to my less-than-stellar performance. But months went by, and it became apparent that: 1) All the other new parents were doing exactly the same thing; and 2) More amazingly, no one even seemed to notice. It turned out that the implied expectation of consistent, top-notch performance at all times isn’t possible—for anyone—and also that giving whatever you’ve got, however much that is, is sometimes just plenty.

Back to the nonprofit board: When our organization would be so much better off with even a fraction of what these amazing women are capable of giving, why is it so hard for women to imagine that we might give less than we want to, but less might still be good enough?

To date, I’m aware of only one practical, momentum-giving answer to feminine guilt: the “good enough” approach. Good enough means striving not to reach our maximum potential in all things, but instead to be a “good enough” partner, worker, citizen, mother, and self, and to be honest with ourselves about how little is really needed to make a difference sometimes.

It’s exceptionally hard to do. We are calibrated to measure ourselves against the scale of perfect performance—not the “good enough” scale. Recalibration goes against the grain of culture and the world around us. The terms we have for talking about good-enough-ism are all about mediocrity, or lowering our standards.

But I’d say that good-enough is about realism. It’s about allowing us to unevenly distribute our personal resources, and to find a way to feel good about that. To continue showing up for the things we care about, and to consistently make peace with the mismatch between our personal potential and what energy, time, and attention we really have to give. Because just working through the guilt paralysis in order to show up is sometimes—maybe even most of the time—good enough.

Misty McLaughlin is a parent by vocation, a nonprofit web consultant by trade, and a writer and seamstress by fits and starts. Among other topics, she’s passionate about exploring issues of gender and generation, helping other households to find cultural loopholes that allow them to make their own models, and promoting institutional support for rebooting our roles. Follower her on Twitter @mistymclaughlin.

Photo credit garryknight/Flickr

Two other states, New Jersey and Washington, offer paid family leave and someday the U.S. may join the rest of the developed world with a national program. But parents and babies—particularly the most vulnerable ones—won’t benefit unless awareness increases.

Here are the facts outside of those states. Federal law requires only that women can take up to twelve weeks of unpaid maternity leave without retaliation under the 1993 Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA). Beyond that, benefits are up to employers. And like awareness, access falls along class lines. Consider these three typical mothers:

The first mother has a college degree and works as a product manager for a large U.S. corporation. Lucky her, it’s one of those companies often listed as a “best place to work.” When she finally has her first child in her thirties, she uses her company’s six weeks of paid maternity leave policy to take time off to care for her baby and herself, plus the vacation and sick days she’s been hoarding.

The second mother has a high school diploma and is completing a business degree from a local community college while working as an office manager in an accounting firm. At age 25 she gives birth to her first baby and cobbles together her vacation days and sick leave to create four weeks of paid maternity leave. She stays home caring for her newborn for an additional four months, since her spouse has a job, certain that her own position is protected under the FMLA.

The third mother is 21, does not have a college degree, and maybe not a high school diploma either. She works in retail or food services or child care or home care. Her employer is a small business that cannot afford to offer paid leave of any type, and because it has fewer than 50 employees, she is not entitled to take any of the twelve weeks of unpaid leave provided by FMLA (not that she could go without the paycheck anyway).

See the pattern? Those mothers and families who most need paid leave following childbirth are the least likely to get it. This was confirmed last week by a new Census Bureau report [PDF]. The headlines heralded that a “majority” of U.S. moms now get paid maternity leave because 50.8 percent of working women receive some paid time off following the birth of a child. This is an improvement over the early 1980s, when only 37.3 percent had some paid leave. But submerged in the details of the report is the fact that older mothers with full-time jobs and college degrees are far more likely to have paid time off. Two-thirds of college graduate mothers took paid maternity leave but only 18 percent of mothers with no high school diploma could do so.

Though the disparity is understandable and explained by a mother’s place in the educational, organizational, and occupational hierarchy, it comes as a shock nonetheless to contemplate the differences between the “haves” and “have nots”—especially since we are talking about newborns here and our obligation as parents, friends, and citizens to ensure they are cared for in their earliest days of life.

And now, the California poll suggests that those with least employer access to paid leave are also least likely to know about state-level programs. So I asked the authors of the poll, Dr. Eileen Appelbaum and Dr. Ruth Milkman, what could be done to boost awareness in those states. They suggested the very sensible steps of requiring doctors and community health clinics in low income neighborhoods to distribute brochures in their offices explaining any paid family leave program. In addition, community-based organizations with direct links to immigrants, low-wage workers, and other disadvantaged people, as well as the WIC agencies that serve low-income mothers, should have paid family leave brochures to distribute to every client they see.

But there’s a need for activism here as well. At a time when socio-economic disparities and injustice top the news in the form of “Occupy Wall Street” movements around the country, this latest maternity leave news reminds us that even babies have a stake in the 99 percent movement.

How can even more mothers and fathers be reached? To “occupy” paid leave and reach parents on all rungs of the economic ladder, I asked Kristin Rowe-Finkbeiner, Executive Director and co-founder of MomsRising.org, for some advice. She said:

Tell women about the policies on Facebook, Twitter, by email, phone, at work, and out in neighborhoods. This is something that we should all shout from the rooftops. MomsRising has grown from a handful of mothers in 2006 to over a million members today through women telling women using new communication tools. So we know that by using new communication tools–like the Facebook, Twitter, mobile phones, and blogging– friends sharing information with friends can be an effective way to distribute information. We can do the same to spread the word about access to this important workplace policy.

Friend to friend, doctors to mothers, agency to clients: whether we shout from the rooftop or send texts to our sisters, we all need to make those Americans entitled to paid leave aware that they have it–and we need to support family-friendly programs like paid family leave for all Americans.

Photo from Flickr user Hugrakka under Creative Commons 2.0.

Prepare to be impressed with yourselves, girls.  The US Census Bureau just put out new numbers on maternity leave and employment which show we’ve spent the past 40 years investing wisely in ourselves.  First time mothers are more likely to have at least an undergrad degree by the time they give birth, now at an average age of 25.  In fact, if a woman delays her first birth until age 30, she’ll probably join the 43% of mothers with a college degree.  Teen pregnancy has dropped from 36% in 1970 to 21% in 2007.  Births to women over age 35 have gone up by a factor of eight.  Delaying pregnancy and gaining education are two of the best things women can do for themselves and their children, and we’re doing it.

Just about three quarters of new mothers are employed before they give birth.  More than half are working full-time.  Sixty-six percent work during their pregnancy, but among the over-30 first-time  mothers, 80% worked while pregnant.  Overall, women are working much longer into their pregnancies.  Once they deliver, about half receive some kind of paid leave, but how much pay and for how long is not recorded, as there is no requirement that they receive any paid maternity leave at all.  College-educated, older, and full-time employed mothers are the most likely to use some form of paid leave.  Having only a high school diploma, working part-time and being a younger mother are characteristics suggesting paid maternity leave is not an option.

If a woman was employed before giving birth, there’s a 59% chance she’ll be clocking back in by the time her baby is 3 months old.  Almost three quarters of new mothers are back 6 months after, and nearly 80% are back one year after the birth.  Obviously, those most dependent upon their own earnings  returned to work the most quickly, but those lacking a high school education are not likely to return to work even when the baby celebrates his or her first birthday.  Women with college degrees or higher, and who had some paid maternity leave, are likely back by the five month mark.  Most women who go back to work do so at the same employer, and 75% of them work the same number of hours they did before becoming mothers.

Taken all together, pregnant women are now more likely to be better educated, older, and employed when they give birth.  They go back to work in a matter of weeks or months after delivering, and they mostly stick to their pre-baby work hours.  Considering how a baby turns your life and your household upside down, that’s nothing short of extraordinary.  Notwithstanding the fact that the employment world was most definitely not designed with us in mind, and still stiffs us on wages, we continue to show up, work hard, deliver the goods, and push ourselves, all while keeping the lid on the pot at home.  All this, and without the supports the rest of the modern world sees fit to provide, like paid leave for both parents without regard to income level, decent childcare, part-time employment standards, alternative schedules, and the ability to ask for a flexible schedule without fear of being fired.  Not to mention pension credits for the years spent caregiving.  And yet, mothers are the ones who say they feel guilty.  Astonishing!  Where’s the public outrage?  Do you feel even just the slightest bit taken advantage of?

“Til next time,

Your (Wo)Man in Washington

Click here to read more posts from Your (Wo)manInWashington blog.

Last week, the U.S. Census Bureau released a report that found that almost 51 percent of working women who gave birth to their first child between 2006 and 2008 received paid leave (which includes sick leave and vacation time), compared to 42% between 1996 and 2000.

While the new figures represent progress, it’s hardly time to cheer.  Over 49% of new mothers in the United States still do not have access to any form of paid parental leave.  The U.S. remains the only industrialized country in the world that does not provide a statutory right to paid maternity leave. In fact, even counting developing nations, the U.S. is among only a handful of other countries that do not guarantee paid maternity leave, such as Swaziland and Papua New Guinea.

Research has shown that paid family leave helps parents to recover from childbirth, bond with and care for newborns or newly adopted children, and better meet their children’s health needs. Access to paid family leave also increases the average duration of breastfeeding, which provides health benefits to newborn children and their mothers.

California has required employers to provide paid family leave to employees since 2002. A recent study showed that an overwhelming majority of California employers believe paid family leave has had a positive or neutral effect on their business operations, including productivity, profitability, turnover, and employee morale. The same report found that small businesses were actually less likely to report any negative effects on business operations.

In addition, the Census report reveals that access to paid leave is limited and is much less available for those who may need it the most.  Younger mothers, those working part time, and those without a high school diploma are far less likely to get paid leave than older and better educated women. In fact, 66% of women with bachelor’s degrees (or even more education) used paid leave for their pregnancies while only 18% of women with less than a high school education did the same. Perhaps unsurprisingly given the lack of paid leave, half of all women with less than a high school education quit their jobs for their pregnancies. This “benefit gap” between high and low-income women has increased over time. Five decades ago there was no relationship between education and paid leave access. As higher educated women have gained more and more access to paid leave, women with less than a high school education have stayed stagnant, at about 18% since the 1960’s.

For these new mothers who must quit their jobs, having a child frequently spells poverty. Paid leave is a critical tool to keep women in the workforce and off of public assistance programs that cost taxpayers more. It should not be a “benefit” reserved for educated, wealthy women, but instead a right for all women, especially those low-income workers who need it the most.

For information supporting paid leave efforts in New York, view our Paid Family Leave Fact Sheet.

Cross posted from A Better Balance blog.

Nazeer Bibi’s daughter had about a 92% chance of never being born.  Throughout her pregnancy, Nazeer worked in the fields with her husband. One day she felt pain and told her husband. He found an ox cart to take her to the nearest village for help, but on the way her pain and bleeding were so great that they stopped while local women gathered to help her. They held up cloths to protect her privacy but had no midwifery training. One woman pressed down on Nazeer’s belly with her foot which made her cry out and bleed all the more. Other locals arrived and told her husband that he must send for a trained midwife or Nazeer would die. He refused and told the male worker not to go near his wife.

Depiction of Nazeer Bibi, found at whiteribbonalliance.org

An hour later Nazeer died under the open sky. All had witnessed this woman lose her life needlessly. Nazeer’s baby also died.  Sadly, they didn’t defy the odds against them, as my child and I did.  But their case can’t be dismissed as an “accident” either.  In my case I’m fortunate to call my “accident” a “gift;” but in Nazeer’s and over 1,000 women every single day, her circumstances resulted in a tragic, needless loss.

I didn’t know Nazeer.  I read her story on the White Ribbon Alliance For Safe Motherhood’s website, which shares both the Stories of Mothers Lost, and fortunately, of Mothers Saved, like on this video at a maternal hospital in Tanzania.  White Ribbon Alliance members in 152 countries are taking the message and concrete solutions for safe motherhood to their own families, local communities, governments, and entire nations.  They are working tirelessly, urgently to prevent needless deaths like Nazeer’s.

As I’m wrapping up this post, I just realized that my eyes have been watering and my heart hurting throughout writing this piece.  These stories are real, and had I not won the lottery at birth, I realize it could have been me…or you.  I don’t want to forget this feeling I have in response to these humble, powerful women.  In a few minutes I need to get up from my computer, figure out what to make for dinner, pick up children from activities, and images of Nazeer and others will temporarily erase from my mind.  But I’m committed to doing better.  To translate this heartache I feel right now, I’ll stay in touch with the White Ribbon Alliance, sign up for the Million Moms Challenge, and learn more about the other partner organizations.  The global effort for mothers’ health can mean the difference between life and death for our sisters, and a commitment to a better world we want to build for every one of our children.

(This piece originally appeared at ABC.com’s Million Moms Challenge.  Sign up now for the Million Moms Challenge and Johnson & Johnson will donate $1 for the first 100,000 people who join the movement.)

Kelly Coyle DiNorcia uses her degrees in neuroscience and education to out-maneuver two small children, care for an astonishing variety of animals, and run an ice hockey organization with her husband. She thinks “work life balance” is a lie and spends  her time careening from one extreme to the other.

If you read books like “The Wonder of Boys” and “Raising Cain,” you will learn that today’s American boys are in crisis.  As schools become more heavily focused on academic achievement and test scores, children are expected to spend more time seated quietly at their desks while physical education and recess are being squeezed out of their schedules.  The crunch is on after school as well, when time is spent going to organized activities and completing homework instead of running around outside, playing stickball and manhunt and generally letting off steam.

Boys, who on average are less inclined to sit quietly at desks and have more of a need to move their bodies, are suffering disproportionately under the current state of affairs.  Some even argue that the bias against girls in academic settings is a relic of the past.  With teachers under ever-increasing pressure, they tend to favor girls who (again on average) are more able to sit and focus for long periods of time.  This is borne out by the fact that young women are currently earning more post-secondary degrees than young men.

If women are doing better in school, and are earning more advanced degrees, then logic would dictate that the number of women in positions of power and prestige should be at least equal to, if not exceeding, the number of men.  And yet…women continue to be underrepresented in business, science, academia, medicine, and government.  The reason seems obvious:  biology is destiny, and motherhood makes the difference.

I have a friend who is a stay-home dad and who grew up as one of six brothers (and no sisters), and he insists that men and women are, in every way and absolutely, equal.  He has four children of his own, and his wife, the bringer home of the proverbial bacon in their family, needed to take leave from work in order to birth these children into existence.  While he is a man who would have chosen to take family leave when his children were born, this would have in no way been a biological imperative in the way that it was for his wife.  That’s a pretty major difference when you consider the effect such absences may, and do, have on career potential and achievement.

People argue that having children is a choice, and in many cases (though by no means all, or even most) that is true.  What this fails to take into account is that when a heterosexual couple makes the choice to have a child, it is the woman who, even in the most enlightened and egalitarian of families, bears the physical brunt of bringing said child into the world.  The subsequent interaction among hormonal, biological, psychological and social forces is poorly understood, but it would be difficult to deny that the mothers are usually the ones tasked with raising the children.

Smart, motivated, well-educated women are left to choose between fulfilling their responsibilities as mother or having fulfilling and lucrative careers.  Perhaps more importantly, smart and motivated but less well-educated women are in a position where it is expected that they and their children will suffer exhaustion and separation, among other things, so their work doesn’t have to suffer at all.  In both cases, society does not support these women in their efforts to continue employment and earn long-term economic security while simultaneously maintaining an acceptable standard of living for themselves and their families.

If the problems seem obvious, so do the solutions:  paid maternity leave, subsidized quality child care, flexible work arrangements, time off for family obligations, social security credits for time spent bringing up baby.  Unfortunately,  the people who make the decisions in this country, primarily legislators and business leaders, do not see these things as a priority for a whole plethora of reasons.  So it is up to us, ladies, to bring about change by coming together and using our smarts and our strength to demand family-friendly social policies.  We deserve it.

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