Today I had the enormous privilege of representing you, and all of MomsRising, at the White House to watch President Obama sign the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act into law. As you know, MomsRising members played a major role in getting this Act passed with their over 150,000 supporting contacts to Congress.
In case you missed it, the New York Times ran a feature about men who care for their elderly parents. Nearly 40 percent of men are their family's primary care provider up from 19 percent in 1996, according to the Alzheimer's Association.
As the mother of a daughter, there are things I want for my eight-year-old especially when she becomes a woman -- things that I was lucky to have, but that generations before me didn't. Interestingly, John McCain, as the father of daughters, doesn't seem to want those same things.
I regret to inform you that you're a victim of your own success: As a result of mothers across the country expressing their outrage at wage discrimination, we have not one, but two (yes, two!) major pieces of legislation moving in Congress to protect women and people of color from discrimination in the workplace.
The moment my now 10-year-old daughter started kindergarten, I knew that school schedules were a missing piece of the work/family puzzle. From the assemblies at 11:00 a.m. that only a handful of parents can attend to the countless days when children are off or released early from school, sometimes it’s hard to believe we’re living in the 21st century.
Great news this week -- thanks to your hard work, New Jersey is poised to become the third state in the nation with paid family leave. The NJ State Senate passed the bill 21-15 after receiving over 63,000 (yes that's 63 THOUSAND) letters as part of a major MomsRising campaign. That's what I call "naptime activism" in action! Learn more about the campaign behind this success story here on MomsRising.org, and I also wrote about it on my Mojo Mom blog
In New Jersey, a broad coalition of organizations including MomsRising is in the final stages of passing Family Leave Insurance. This is terrific news that has important national implications.