Paid Family Leave

December 14, 2009

A single mom needs work; she’s literally thinking about applying for welfare. As she writes on her blog , “I had been looking for a better job, but there were none to be had in the low-income/high-unemployment area where I lived. And I couldn’t get a full-time job anyway — I was still on the...

MomsRising Together

Morra Aarons-Mele

Paid Family Leave Paid Sick Days

November 27, 2009

From Your (Wo)manInWashington blog When the subject of paid leave comes up, someone will say: "Oh, no, we could never pay for that, it would be too expensive!!" It's the Voice of Doom, and I hear it frequently. So often repeated, I know it by heart. It will destroy small businesses. It would push...

MomsRising Together

Valerie Young

Paid Family Leave Health Care

November 16, 2009

Breastfeeding rights is a big topic with MomsRising members. In fact, as we were developing this blog to update our members and allies on the current status of breastfeeding legislation, the issue again came to the attention of the MomsRising team when several MomsRising members expressed concern...

MomsRising Together

Dionna Humphrey

Paid Family Leave

November 8, 2009

I was amazed to learn how much research there is -- at business schools -- saying 24/7 work culture is counter-productive and not the necessity it is often seen to be. Even in the most demanding jobs, re-thinking time use gives us BOTH better results for clients and more dinners at home. A newly published Harvard Business Review piece (on a 4-year study at Boston Consulting Group) offers very inspiring ideas we can all apply where we work.

MomsRising Together

Sharon Meers

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.

MomsRising Together

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.

MomsRising Together

Annie