paid family leave

May 12, 2012

Mother's Day unifies the nation as we all scurry to find the right Hallmark card, fancy flowers or some proverbial chocolates to honor she who labored us into this world. The treats, however, can't sweeten a bitter fact: our country, while touting that it values families, gives scant evidence of doing so, particularly when it comes to infants and their care. Our public policies in these arenas could, but don't, give mothers (and fathers) who work outside the home what they need to nurture our next generation. To create healthy, thriving families and communities, we should start when children...

Hannah Matthews

paid family leave childcare & early education environmental health paid sick days healthcare

May 11, 2012

Meet Annie Spiegelman, a Bay Area mom who blogs as " The Dirt Diva " on matters of love, gardening, and cultivating a healthy planet. Just in time for Mother's Day, Annie shares her interview with Rachel's Network Co-Director Laurie Syms on the evidence that women in Congress, regardless of party, support the environment at rates that outpace their male counterparts. 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...

Miriam Feffer

paid family leave environmental health paid sick days healthcare

May 11, 2012

TIME Magazine just became another self-appointed arbiter of “Mommy Judgment” by trying to inflame the Mommy Wars with their exploitative cover of a young mother standing like a mudflap girl and breastfeeding her 3, maybe 4 year old. The byline: “Are you Mom enough?” 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...

Genevieve Colvin

paid family leave childcare & early education environmental health paid sick days healthcare

May 10, 2012

Do your kids argue? Or did they when they were younger? Here's a hilarious Mother's Day fantasy just for you! Click here: http://www.momsdaycard.com/index2.php Happy nearly Mother's Day!!! - Kristin, Joan, Monifa, Elisa, Ashley, Nanette, Sarah, Julie, Sarah, Anita, Ruth, Claire, Donna, Mary, and Gloria

Kristin Rowe-Finkbeiner

paid family leave childcare & early education environmental health paid sick days

May 10, 2012

This Mother's Day we're celebrating the fact that moms are now networked and engaged in ways unimaginable just a decade ago. More than 36 million women are now active in the blogosphere, either publishing or reading blogs. And, by the end of this year, more than 90 percent of moms with kids under age eighteen in our nation are expected to be online. 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...

Kristin Rowe-Finkbeiner

paid family leave childcare & early education

May 4, 2012

Having lived in France for the past several years, I am often asked which differences with the US strike me the most. Aside from being able to buy delicious baguettes every few blocks, what surprised me the most were the differences in social services available. As a student, I receive full health coverage and reimbursement for any prescription medications (all for 200 euros per year) as well as a subsidy to help me pay my (exorbitant Paris) rent. Speaking to the parents among my co-workers and instructors, I was amazed by the amount of time women receive for maternity leave, the ease with...

Erina Aoyama

paid family leave

May 1, 2012

Hot off the presses – a new report finds access to paid leave following the birth or adoption of a child reduces the likelihood that a family will be forced to resort to public support or food stamps. Rutgers University and the National Partnership for Women & Families have analyzed data in the five U.S. states with paid family leave to examine the results when public policy, and not the whim of individual employers, promotes family economic security, better health for parents and babies and maintains parents’ earning potential. In today’s economic turbulence, such a program also bolsters...

Valerie Young

paid family leave childcare & early education environmental health paid sick days healthcare open flexible work

April 25, 2012

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...

Rachel Sarnoff

paid family leave paid sick days open flexible work

April 17, 2012

Cross posted with author permission from the Huffington Post . 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...

Ann O'Leary

paid family leave childcare & early education environmental health paid sick days

April 14, 2012

There is no question that Hilary Rosen should have chosen her words more carefully when she said that Ann Romney, mother of five sons, " never worked a day in her life ." Raising children is work. It's immensely rewarding work, but it's work just the same. Ann Romney is justifiably proud of the work she's done raising her children. Now that the spotlight is on motherhood, rather than fanning the false flames of a "Mommy War" that doesn't really exist, it's time that we as a nation recognize that regardless of whether or not mothers' work is paid or unpaid, the work of caregiving is important...

Kristin Rowe-Finkbeiner