Hitting your computer this week: A Better Balance’s sobering small-screen look at what you may NOT be expecting when you’re expecting—losing your job. Check out our new video and hear real stories from people whose lives were turned upside down by outdated laws and workplace policies that pushed them out of the jobs they needed to support their growing families.

Our culture has an obsession with pregnancy and parenting advice. Our news media is awash with stories of celebrity baby bumps, breastfeeding preschoolers and tiger moms. But we hear far less about the critical challenges facing millions of expecting and new parents, such as pregnancy discrimination, inflexible work schedules, lack of time off to care for new and sick children, and rampant bias in the workplace against family caregivers. Rollercoaster hormones may plague plenty of pregnant women, but so do outdated laws that don’t guarantee expecting moms the right to minimal workplace modifications they need to stay healthy and employed.

This is one of many areas where we, as a country, can do better. Just last week, members of Congress introduced the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, which would ensure protections for pregnant workers who face being pushed out on leave or terminated when they ask their employers for even the most minor workplace accommodations. No pregnant woman should be forced to choose between a paycheck and a healthy pregnancy. (To learn more about this legislation and support it becoming law, please visit A Better Balance’s website.)

Pregnancy and parenthood will inevitably lead to upheaval of some sort, but we can make sure they do not lead to demotion, job loss and poverty. Together, we can change our laws and culture to value the work that goes into creating and raising a healthy, happy and productive member of our society. Expecting parents should be able to expect that.

So for all those candidates and elected officials interested in the women’s vote and eager to prove their support for motherhood and families, here’s a sampling of what mothers want and need, not just one day a year but every day:

The right to care for a sick child or personal illness without losing our paychecks or our jobs. Moms need leaders to actively support the right for workers to earn paid sick days and champion local, state and federal policies that would guarantee this protection. Make sure no one has to choose between being a good parent and being a good employee — and that no one has to serve you flu with your soup.

The right to coverage under the Family and Medical Leave Act. Half of private sector workforce employees aren’t covered by this law because they work for an employer with fewer than 50 workers, haven’t been on the job for at least 12 months or work less than 25 hours a week. Moms need Members of Congress to work to expand FMLA to cover all employees after 90 days of employment.

The ability to afford leave under the Family and Medical Leave Act. Many who are covered under FMLA can’t afford to take the time without pay. As a result, nearly three million eligible workers a year who need leave to care for their health or the health of a loved one don’t take it, according to a 2000 Labor Department survey. And nearly 9 percent of those who do (including 20 percent for low-income families) are forced to rely on public assistance to keep food on the table, according to a 1995 Department of Labor report. Moms need leaders to voice their support for policies to create family leave insurance funds like those that are working in California and New Jersey so that caring for a new or seriously ill child doesn’t trigger financial catastrophe.

The right to care for one’s partner regardless of their gender. Being able to marry who you love — and being able to care for one another in sickness as well as in health — shouldn’t be a gift, it should be a right. Moms are glad to see more of our leaders standing up for the rights of all families by supporting marriage equality legislation and bills to expand FMLA access to same-sex partners.

The right to attend children’s school activities. Far too many children in this country never see their mom at a school play or sporting event because employers won’t let them take off work or rearrange their schedules. Mothers need leaders to support the right to use family leave to do what’s best for raising our children.

A recognition that men are parents, have parents and also need time to care. All the policies listed above are gender-neutral. Moms — and dads — need leaders to end on-the-job punishment of men who want to be good fathers, sons and husbands. That will also boost women’s efforts to get men to share the work at home.

This list flows from deeply held American values: that no one should have to risk a job to be a good family member or put a loved one at risk in order to keep a job. Mothers want basic standards that guarantee these rights to everyone.

And candidates, if you don’t believe me, check the polls. More and more voters — from all political perspectives — say they’re more likely to support candidates who’ll make sure family values don’t end at the workplace door, and who understand that for the economy to recover, we need policies like these to help people stay employed and have money to spend at local businesses.

Doing the politically smart thing for moms is also doing the right thing for families and for our nation.

Cross posted with author permission. This post originally appeared at the Huffington Post.

A Rachel’s Network report entitled “When Women Lead: A Decade of Women’s Environmental Voting Records in Congress,”  compares the environmental voting records of Congresswomen and Congressmen from the 107th through the 111th Congress.  The conclusion:  in both houses of Congress, whether red or blue, women are greener!

Here’s Annie’s personal account of a moving conversation:

How did a girl raised and hardened on the streets of New York City become a passionate environmentalist, geeky master gardener and full-fledged compost queen? I read Rachel Carson’s bestseller, Silent Spring.

Overnight, I became a Rachel Carson groupie and went searching for my teammates. I found them at Rachel’s Network, a nonprofit that builds productive alliances among women funders who care deeply about the environment and women’s leadership.  These impassioned leaders and agents of change have collected the latest statistics showing that women are uniquely positioned as environmental stewards and that women in policy-making positions will vote to protect the environment more than their male counterparts.

This is all swell, you may be thinking. We can stop worrying about clean water, safe food and the ubiquitous barrage of industrial and agricultural chemicals. But American women account for only 23 percent of state legislators and 17 percent of Congress, and the United States ranks 73rd in the world in gender parity in governance.

I contacted Laurie Syms, co-director of Rachel’s Network, to ask how both women and men could earn some badly needed extra-credit points from Mother Earth.

To read Laurie’s answers to Annie’s thoughtful questions, see their interview in the Huffington Post, or learn more about ways The 2012 Project is propelling women into the political pipeline here.

And as you celebrate Mother’s Day, consider the influence you could leverage by running for office yourself.  Whether you’re most moved by education issues, toxic chemicals, family-friendly workplaces, or health care for kids, there’s no more effective way to effect lasting change than by setting the policy agenda yourself.

Don’t get me wrong:  breakfast in bed is dandy.  But a seat at the decision-making table is invaluable!

The answer is, as soon as you have a baby, YOU ARE MOM ENOUGH!

TIME is sadly out of touch with what Moms really want. It’s time to ask, “Are we Mom-friendly enough?”

In my circle of “Mom” friends, we largely think that the “Mommy Wars” are over. Until, of course, some stupid news outlet uses the Mommy War to try and sell magazines. We trust that the choices that you made about parenting your children were made based on the information that you had at the time. “We do better, when we know better” is a phrase we often share with each other as we gather new information and work to improve our lives and the lives of our children.

But the question is not the only insult. The cover photo is also offensive. Not because the mother is breastfeeding an older child, but because the picture does not represent the actual relationship that this mother has with her child.  To the many mothers, physicians, and public health advocates, who have strived to bring breastfeeding back into the mainstream, it is offensive to have such an exploitative and staged photograph become emblem of what is a normal part of motherhood.

In my 12 years of motherhood, having breastfed all my children into preschool, I have never seen another mother of a toddler or preschool aged child, pull up a chair, stand like a mudflap girl and nurse her child, while gazing off into the knowing eyes of the camera. I wonder how this picture would have looked if there was a little girl standing on that chair, as opposed to a very boyish boy?  Typically, mother’s who are extended breastfeeding an older child, reserve their nursing for the needs of the child, not the needs of the photographer.

I have seen mothers, whose children have fallen down, with a bloodied knee, comfort their children with nursing. I have seen mothers of children with severe diarrhea, comfort and hydrate their children with nursing. I have seen mothers of children, who have been scared and frightened, comfort and love their children with nursing.

I am not opposed to the beautiful pictures of women nursing older children, as was represented within the article and video, but the cover photo that TIME chose was intended to inflame and misrepresent.  TIME’s use of this inauthentic representation of what extended nursing “looks like” is simply a lie.

Some families choose to breastfeed beyond infancy because of the evidence-based health and neurological benefits. Yes, I said families, because very frequently, it is the fathers that see, support and promote the nursing relationship.

But the reality is that many women never breastfeed beyond the first weeks of life, because of the many barriers that prevent them from achieving their dream. Women need accurate and timely information, not hypersexualized hyperbole.

TIME, here are the questions you should have asked:

-                Where can we get the best information to make an informed choice?

-                Are we supporting a Mom’s choice to breastfeed for 1 minute, 1 day, 100 days or 1000 days?

-                When are we going to get paid maternity & paternity leave?

-                How can we get more flexible work options?

-                How can we ensure our children are educated?

-                How can we get health care?

-                When will we expand lactation accommodation rights for all working women?

-                Are we providing Moms with real food to feed their children?

-                Are we supporting families in the workplace to parent their children?

If you are ready to opt out of the Media-Industrial Mommy War Complex, please join us here.

1) A pregnant woman can be fired for carrying a water bottle on the job to stay hydrated and prevent bladder infections.

2) A pregnant activity director at a nursing home can be terminated because she requires help with some physically strenuous aspects of her job to prevent having another miscarriage.

3) A pregnant delivery truck driver can be forced out on unpaid leave because she has a lifting restriction and needs light duty.

The answer to all of these questions is true. These scenarios are based on actual cases, in which courts interpreted existing law to deny these pregnant women protection.

Unfortunately, this happens all too frequently in America. Across the country, pregnant women who request minor adjustments are forced out of their jobs unnecessarily and denied the minor modifications to workplace duties, rules, or policies that would enable them to continue working and supporting their families.

Over thirty years ago, Congress passed the Pregnancy Discrimination Act (PDA) in order to eradicate discrimination against pregnant workers. The PDA prohibits discrimination based on pregnancy, childbirth or related medical conditions and directs employers to treat pregnant women as well as any other temporarily disabled worker, as long as they are similar in their ability or inability to work. Despite these protections, pregnant women are still routinely treated worse than workers who are temporarily disabled and/or covered by the American with Disabilities Act.

In a recent New York Times Op-Ed, I wrote about the economic and public health consequences of this form of discrimination against pregnant workers and the need for legislation to close legal loopholes. Today, women make up nearly half of all workers on U.S. payrolls, and working women’s salaries are critical to their families’ economic security. They need income but sometimes cannot perform some aspects of their usual duties without risking their well-being or the health of their pregnancies. If they lose their jobs, their families suffer. This is simply unacceptable.

Fortunately, in the midst of the now familiar War on Women, some Congressional leaders are really listening to women’s needs and developing solutions. Today, Representatives Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), Carolyn Maloney (D-NY), Jackie Speier (D-CA), Susan Davis (D-CA) and Marcia Fudge (D-OH) will introduce the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA) to address this problem. This critical legislation would ensure protections for pregnant workers who face being pushed out on leave or terminated when they ask their employers for even the most minor workplace accommodations. It would also require an employer to make a reasonable accommodation for pregnancy, childbirth and related medical conditions, unless this creates an undue hardship on the employer. The PWFA is common-sense legislation that would help millions of women, especially those who are economically vulnerable, to keep working and supporting their families.

Let’s be clear — plenty of women can and do work throughout their pregnancies without issue. However, pregnant women who cannot — predominately low-wage and blue-collar women in physically demanding jobs — should be able to request and receive reasonable adjustments to work duties and should not be forced out on leave unnecessarily or fired. These women desperately need a clear right to ask for what they need to stay healthy and on the job.

The PWFA has already garnered broad support from prominent women’s groups, unions and dozens of other organizations across the country. Similar protections for pregnant workers are on the books in several states, and a comparable bill pending in New York State is gaining momentum. Such laws help countless women maintain income and work-related benefits without unduly burdening businesses. They also save taxpayers money, because pregnant women who stay on the job need not turn to public assistance to stay afloat.

This Mother’s Day, stand up for expecting mothers and their families and tell your Senators and Representatives to support the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act. No pregnant worker should be forced to choose between her job and a healthy pregnancy. Ensuring the well-being of pregnant women and their babies should be a nonpartisan issue.

This blogpost was originally published on the Peaceful Revolution column at The Huffington Post by MomsRising.org and CustomFitWorkplace.org. The Peaceful Revolution presents innovative ideas to strengthen 21st Century American families through public policy, business practice, and cultural change.

We are powerfully, substantially, fully “Networked Moms.”

Increased Internet access, coupled with new communication technologies–like Facebook, Twitter, blogs, and even emails– allows women to reach dozens, hundreds, thousands, even millions of other women at one time with a quick press of a button.  It’s an unbelievably fast moving tool that significantly accelerates communication, education, organizing, and impact.

One example of these rapidly growing networks is the fast growth of MomsRising due to networked friends telling friends: We started with just a handful of members in 2006, and we’ve grown to over a million members today.  MomsRising’s highly trafficked blog and social media networks have also grown at a fast pace. We’re delighted to share that MomsRising now has over 700 bloggers, including Congresspeople, Cabinet Secretaries, moms with amazing personal stories, policy experts, and more. There’s an amazing variety of well-written perspectives, resources, and action links in ONE place: The MomsRising blog. 

Networked moms are powerful and we’re everywhere.  And we Networked Moms are creating our own new media online– and are bringing forward topics that have too long been ignored in traditional media outlets.

So in celebration of the growing power of Networked Moms to bring forward critically important topics, for Mother’s Day we’ve gathered together the most popular recent blogs posted on MomsRising right here (Scroll down this page to check it all out).

Click here!

How to Make a Superhero Cape by Lara from HowDoesShe

Food Revolution! A Blog Carnival On School Food and Fighting Childhood Obesity, Diabetes by Monifa Bandele

Mother Takes on Monsanto, Wins Global Prize by Kristin Schafer ***Shared over 1,000 times on Facebook!

The Real View of Free Formula Samples—Open Your Eyes by Melissa Bartick, MD ***Shared over 1,000 times on Facebook!

The Story Behind My Film “Entre Nos” by Paola Mendoza

Coke Turns 125: Why I’m Not Celebrating by Mike Jacobson

130 Death Row Inmates Have Been Found Innocent Since 1973: Troy Davis’ Execution is Set for Tomorrow  by Monifa Bandele ***Shared over 1,000 times on Facebook

Wal-Mart’s Sick Sick Day Policy by Katie Bethell

It’s Not a “Mommy War,” It’s a War on Moms by Kristin Rowe-Finkbeiner

The Execution of Troy Davis–A Mother’s Story by Martina Davis-Correia

TIME: Ask the RIGHT Questions! by Genevieve Colvin

Click to donate & receive an autographed copy!

“A quiet but profound revolution is taking place in offices and businesses all across America-and The Custom-Fit Workplace is its practical and sensible manifesto.  A must-read for 21st century employers and employees.”

by Rachel Sarnoff, Executive Director & CEO
Healthy Child Healthy World
www.healthychild.org

Happiest Babies Are Soothed by 5 S’s

Can simple soothing take the place of sugar? That was the takeaway from a new study published this week in the journal Pediatrics. In a study involving more than 200 infants, researchers found the “5 S’s” baby-calming tactics worked better than the sugar-water supplements traditionally given to infants after experiencing pain, according to ABC News. The 5 S’s tactics were developed by Dr. Harvey Karp, a founding board member of Healthy Child Healthy World and author of “The Happiest Baby on the Block” book and video series. Yet another reason to “shh-shh-shh”!

Carcinogens in the House

On Wednesday, the U.S. House of Representatives will hold an investigative hearing on the Report on Carcinogens of the National Toxicology Program, a government program that identifies cancer-causing chemicals. The Subcommittee on Science, Space & Technology will meet to assess the impact of the Report on small business jobs. Healthy Child has signed on to a group letter urging the Committee to continue funding the Report; we’ll share more information as it emerges.

The Story’s Not Over on BPA

The FDA’s recent decision not to ban BPA has been criticized by scientists who are concerned that low-dose exposures may be linked to health problems, according to the Washington Post.

Earth Week is for Mothers

Earth Week started Sunday and there’s nothing more powerful than moms doing their part for the Earth. In addition to the awe-inspiring “Mom on a Mission” finalists and all the incredible hosts teeing up for Healthy Child Party Week, we wanted to take a moment to recognize…

Lori Popkewitz Alper of Groovy Green Livin’, who took on P & G with a petition that’s racked up nearly 75,000 signatures encouraging the company to strip carcinogenic 1,4 dioxane from its Free & Gentle detergent.

Jenna Elfman, Kelly Preston and Laila Ali, who kicked off the Healthy Child Party campaign with a bang and showed the world ALL moms fight for children’s health.

And green living leader Sara Snow, who recently launched a petition to get cancer-causing flame retardants out of Graco baby products—for her baby daughter’s health and the health of children everywhere.

Go team!

This story has been buzzing around the internet this week, and it’s been driving me crazy.

Pete Cashmore of Mashable writes in this article:

Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg recently set off quite a debate in the tech world when she told an interviewer that she works a 9-to-5 schedule:

“I walk out of this office every day at 5:30 so I’m home for dinner with my kids at 6, and interestingly, I’ve been doing that since I had kids,” Sandberg said in a video posted on Makers.com. “I did that when I was at Google, I did that here, and I would say it’s not until the last year, two years that I’m brave enough to talk about it publicly. Now I certainly wouldn’t lie, but I wasn’t running around giving speeches on it.”

Does anyone else see the ridiculousness here? A national conversation is going on about how GREAT or how AWFUL it is that an executive (and a mom, can you believe it!) at a huge tech company works a 9-5 schedule.

Good for her, she leaves at 5 every day!

What! How can you leave so early when you’re an important executive who should be tied to the desk and putting work above all else? 

Boo, who does she think she is working “normal” hours and then getting back on email and working some more from home! Doesn’t she know when to turn off?

Cashmore asks:

And how about the blurred line between work and home life in the modern world? Sandberg admits that after dinner with her kids, she’s back to checking e-mail — it’s clear that “being at work” is no longer necessary for “doing work.”

And are those working eight-hour days that end at 5 p.m. being quietly judged by their co-workers? Whatever happened to “work-life balance”? Worse still: Are those who work these “standard” hours being overlooked for promotions?Sandberg’s timing would suggest that such biases exist. She only felt comfortable talking about her work hours once she had entered the highest levels of management

What?! How can people be so judgmental, aren’t we supposed to have work-life balance these days? HA! I can’t help but laugh because my business partner, Cali Ressler, and I hear this all the time. It’s the #1 thing that has to go when you become a Results-Only Work Environment.

And we call it  SLUDGE, the judgmental attitudes from co-workers, managers, and even friends and family. Judgement comes from all sides: for working too many hours, or not enough hours, coming in too late, or too early, working from home in your pajamas (gasp!). There’s no way to win, because our ingrained cultural attitudes about work are broken.

Wow.

So many readers of my last blog post thought I was endorsing Rick Santorum, his policy prescriptions and all the anti-gay and anti-women statements he has made when I wrote that I’d miss him in the Presidential contest.

Not at all.

As I wrote, I don’t agree with his policy prescriptions, but I wish that we had people in both presidential campaigns who are forcing our country to confront the hard issues of how we raise our children and support our families at a time of growing single-parent households and growing childhood poverty.

Case in point:  The inane media debate over who works harder—stay-at-home mothers or mothers who work outside the home—and the fact that less than a week later, it seems to be over.

Remember how this started: Mitt Romney deferred a question from the audience about women struggling in this economy, saying that his wife, Ann, has been hearing more from women than he has, creating the impression that as the Republican’s likely presidential nominee, he didn’t have an independent thought on the matter.

Hilary Rosen then stepped in and threw gasoline on the long-smoldering debate about the value of stay-at-home moms versus “working” mothers, by suggesting Ann Romney was hardly an expert on the issue.  President Obama’s response?  All mothers should be respected and Presidential spouses should be off limits (even when they are out there campaigning).

So, does this mean Romney and Obama are now debating what we should do to enable more women to stay at home?  Are they debating how to better support women who must, or choose to, enter the workforce? Are they debating what we should do to provide greater economic security for women who still face a pay gap in our country?

No, no, and no.

They are trying to get away from these issues as fast as possible while their surrogates are out there talking about who values mothers more.

To be sure, President Obama has released a report on his accomplishments in supporting working women.  And there are parts of it that do help women in their dual role as breadwinners and caregivers.  The most significant are improved economic security through greater access to health insurance and increases in federal child care funding for more children and families.

But the report ignores a fundamental problem that our country is facing—how we support low and middle income single mothers and married mothers who must work to provide income for their families while providing care for their children.

Consider these three facts:

• Twenty-four percent of children in the United States are raised in single-parent families.  On international tests of reading, U.S. children in single-parent households score 23 points lower than their peers from two-parent families, even after accounting for socio-economic background. Yet other countries with similarly large populations of single-parent households, such as Chile, Switzerland, Portugal and Austria, don’t see significant differences in the educational performance of children from single-parent and two-parent families.

• Both parents work full time or more in more than half, or 51 percent, of all middle-income families, but have no access to subsidized child care offered to low-income families and little access to the type of workplace flexibility offered to professional mothers and fathers.

• The majority of working single mothers—62 percent—work in low-wage jobs, such as retail, service and administrative. These are the jobs that are least likely to provide time off for pregnancy and recovery from child birth, let alone paid sick days or paid family leave to care for an ill child.

So have President Obama and Mitt Romney offered up solutions to these problems?

Candidate Obama in 2008 suggested that he’d fight for paid sick days and paid family leave, but his list of accomplishments on workplace flexibility merely note that his Administration wrote a report on the issue and hosted conversations around the country.  More than conversations and reports, we need legislation and an insistence that we try to get in line with the rest of the developed world in offering paid family leave.

Also, we need to ensure that stay-at-home mothers receive credit toward Social Security so that they are not destitute in their senior years for staying out of the workforce to care for their family.

Mitt Romney?  Well, he has said little other than he thinks low-income women should “learn the dignity of work” and that he’d support providing them with more child care support to do so.

The time has come to address these significant problems. Here’s one approach:  Kristen Rowe-Finkbeiner, co-founder of Moms-Rising, a group that fights for policies that help mothers and families, provides a great “to do” list for our Presidential candidates.

I have a few ideas for the Presidential candidates, as well, summarized in a report released last week by the Center for American Progress endorsing a policy package that provides real support for both working mothers and stay-at-home mothers.  With my an accompanying report authored by my colleagues Heather Boushey and Sarah Jane Glynn, we recommend updating Social Security to include paid family leave to allow women to be out of the workforce for short periods of time to deal with the most pressing family issues, including the birth of a child, a seriously ill family member or a worker’s own serious illness.  And I recommend coupling this proposal with Social Security caregiving credits that would allow women to earn credits toward retirement security even while staying at home to care for their families. These policies truly value women’s work, both in the home and in the labor force.

It’s time to stop talking about who cares more about mothers and start putting policies in place that value women’s work, no matter where it’s carried out. That’s going to help children derive the benefits of time and attention from their parents, far more than cynical debates that serve little purpose other than to score political points.