If you have something to say...
Say it on the Huffington Post
If you have something to say...
Say it on the Huffington Post
The Blog
The hardest part of maternity leave is no longer sleepless nights caring for a newborn, but dealing with the anxiety surrounding communication between a pregnant women and her employer.
Working mothers, or at least those with limited education and lower-end jobs, have almost no employee benefits that allow time away from work when their children are sick or even when they give birth.
In the race to be bigger, faster, stronger, we've lost sight of what makes us better: Time with each other.
It turns out that if our infants do well, our nation does well too. By packaging paid family leave and quality affordable infant care, we can give babies a strong start in their first year of life. That's a package of policies ready for wrapping.
If the love of your life had major surgery or a serious illness, you would want to be by their side. You'd want to take time off work without losing your job to give them the care they need. But if you're gay, you have no such right under federal law.
If my kids aren't thankful throughout the year for all I do for them, one day won't make up for their failure -- or mine.
In this election year, women are being thrust into the political debate and openly attacked as if we were a single hot-button issue like gun rights or fracking.
Men and women are both in the kitchen. Men and women are both at the grocery store. Men and women are both changing diapers. But men and women are not both respected as parents.
Does having a child mean that a parent needs to pass on a promotion -- or give up time with a child in order to advance his or her career?
Let's end discrimination against women, officially, in the United States of America.
Ever wonder what happens to a worker who becomes disabled for weeks from injuries in a car accident? Or the worker who has a baby but no maternity leave? Every day across America, workers are left to fend for themselves with no protections against lost income.
Is discrimination against mothers -- not against women in general -- almost single-handedly responsible for the gender gap in the academy in science and math-related fields?
All other parents seem like they have it under control. Know what they are doing. Are even -- dare you say it -- better at this parenting thing than you are. I'm going to save you some wondering: They are.
Peel back the layers of cultural stereotypes meant to catapult vulnerable and tired American parents into a perpetual state of self-doubt and longing for all things French, and all I reach is one conclusion: Good parenting is borderless.
I was voted most likely to succeed in ninth grade. Now, I don't want to be excessively self-deprecating and assert that it's been all down hill since, but I think it's fair to say that a jury of 14-year-old peers may not have anticipated the curve ball that motherhood would throw me.
