Paid Family Leave

Paid Family Leave Childcare & Early Education Open Flexible Work

October 30, 2009

I’ve been on a one-woman campaign to resurrect the phrase, paycheck job , used by Betty Friedan in The Feminine Mystique forty years ago. Friedan was referring, of course, to jobs outside the home for which people receive money. She recognized that the unpaid job of caring for children and home was...

MomsRising Together

Nanette Fondas

Paid Family Leave Childcare & Early Education

October 30, 2009

Why is it so hard to tell our bosses we have to leave for family reasons? What if all the dads where we worked did it more often? Leaders like Valerie Jarrett show that being committed to your kids and your job are not mutually exclusive -- and employers win when they recognize that. Maria Shriver's report A Women's Nation offers fresh ideas for opening up more common-sense conversation - like adopting UK "right to request" rules that allow parents to get some control over their hours and still produce great results for their employers.

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Sharon Meers

Paid Family Leave Childcare & Early Education

October 30, 2009

I was at the Working Mother Work Life Congress this week, which showcases the 100 Best Companies for Working Mothers and also provides workshops and discussions for people who work in the field unfortunately called “work life.” Companies were asking: What should we do to retain new moms, and to...

MomsRising Together

Morra Aarons-Mele

Paid Family Leave

October 28, 2009

President Obama today signed the Defense Reauthorization Act with a provision for expanded family leave for military families. This is an important victory for all families in the U.S. because it acknowledges the value of caregivers in the health of our nation. The new provision, introduced in the...

MomsRising Together

Ellen Bravo

Paid Family Leave Childcare & Early Education Paid Sick Days Realistic & Fair Wages Family Economic Security

September 28, 2009

On NPR this week, I was asked if there’s any good in the new statistics showing that women now outnumber men in the work force. Maybe. If it lets us embrace women as breadwinners, I said, that would be healthy. Even healthier: If men do their part at home and free women to keep the kinds of jobs...

MomsRising Together

Sharon Meers

Paid Family Leave Health Care

September 11, 2009

When people think of breastfeeding difficulties, the things that probably come to mind are supply issues, bad latch, cracked nipples, constant feedings, and the like. Certainly, there are women who are afflicted by those difficulties and who cannot overcome them. But I believe the societal barriers to breastfeeding (propagated by the kyriarchy) have a much more significant impact on breastfeeding rates than the medical or technical issues.

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Annie

Paid Family Leave Health Care

August 6, 2009

I was amazed when a friend of mine told me that it took about a month for her and her first baby to figure out how to breastfeed. (Doesn't breastfeeding just...happen?) But she explained to me that it is actually a skill that moms and babies have to figure out. My friend was dedicated to...

MomsRising Together

Katie Bethell

Paid Family Leave

July 30, 2009

Two recent studies both expose and excuse OBs who perform cesareans for their own safety, fiscal welfare, and personal anxieties, rather than in response to the genuine health status of mother and baby.

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Jackie Levine

Paid Family Leave

July 10, 2009

A recent Good Morning America story reflected something I’m hearing more of from friends: now doesn’t feel like a safe time to take a full maternity leave. As Ellen Galinsky notes in the piece “The issue for women these days is that they are increasingly important financial supporters of the family...

MomsRising Together

Morra Aarons-Mele

Paid Family Leave Paid Sick Days

June 16, 2009

From Your (Wo)man in Washington Blog Another Hill hearing room, fresh-faced staffers buzzing in the background, Congressmen and women at their microphones, witnesses seated at the witness table. June 11 was just another day for the Nation's Capital of the World's Greatest Democracy. Except it wasn'...

MomsRising Together