Let's Honor Mothers Every Day

This Sunday, mothers across the country are being recognized for the invaluable contributions they make to their families and communities. I will be spending time with my family and honoring the women who played a special role in my life. Cards and flowers are always thoughtful gestures, but Congress and the Obama administration can do more than that to make life a little easier for working mothers and their families every day.

I've spent a 14-year career in Congress championing women's issues and working to ease the challenges they face balancing family responsibilities with their place in the workforce. In that time there has never been as productive a start as the past 100 days. From the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, to expanding children's health insurance, to the Federal Employees Paid Parental Leave Act -- a bill I wrote which has just made it out of Committee - Washington is back on the side of working women and their families now that we have a president who will sign these bills.

President Obama's stimulus, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), will temper the effects of the current recession for these families right now and over time. Extended unemployment benefits, nutrition assistance programs and tax cuts will bring immediate relief for these families. The recovery act also invests in job creation in education and healthcare that tend to disproportionately employ women.

Challenges facing women to balance work and family are exacerbated in a downturn, which calls for greater workplace flexibility. Simply put, the workplace should be as adaptable as working mothers have become. This is why I am working to pass the Working Families' Flexibility Act -- a bill I have sponsored with Sen. Edward Kennedy which would provide job protection for working parents who request flexible work schedules from their employers. Nearly 80 percent of workers say they would like to have more flexible work options and would use them if there were no negative consequences at work, according to the Families and Work Institute. However, close to 40 percent of workers surveyed believe they would be less likely to advance in their career is they asked for flexibility.

This weekend, families all across America will be thanking mothers for the sacrifices they make -- something we should remember long after the cards are opened and the flowers are put in vases. I urge you to remind lawmakers to remember the commitment mothers make and push us to enact policies that continue our commitment to them.

Comments

[MikeLicht]

Careful. Mother's Day can make you crazy.

See:

http://notionscapital.wordpress.com/2009/05/07/the-story-of-mothers-day/

[Bethab]

Will these flexible work hours be available to everyone, or just mothers? Not all women are mothers, not all people are parents, and none of these are protected classes under the law.

[RoseMerry]

Part 2

From the bosom of a devastated Earth a voice goes up with
Our own. It says: "Disarm! Disarm!
The sword of murder is not the balance of justice."
Blood does not wipe out dishonor,
Nor violence indicate possession.
As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil
At the summons of war,
Let women now leave all that may be left of home
For a great and earnest day of counsel.
Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead.
Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means
Whereby the great human family can live in peace...
Each bearing after his own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar,
But of God -
In the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly ask
That a general congress of women without limit of nationality,
May be appointed and held at someplace deemed most convenient
And the earliest period consistent with its objects,
To promote the alliance of the different nationalities,
The amicable settlement of international questions,
The great and general interests of peace.

- Julia Ward Howe

[RoseMerry]

Mother's Day began in 1870, with these words by one of the greatest activists in history:

Arise then...wom­en of this day!
Arise, all women who have hearts!
Whether your baptism be of water or of tears!
Say firmly:
"We will not have questions answered by irrelevant agencies,
Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage,
For caresses and applause.
Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn
All that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience.
We, the women of one country,
Will be too tender of those of another country
To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs."

..to be continued

[greyhound2]

Let's honor fathers everyday.