Working moms need maternity leave…and the right to breastfeed at work
A recent Good Morning America story was heartbreaking. As Ellen Galinsky notes in the piece “The issue for women these days is that they are increasingly important financial supporters of the family,” unemployment rates and pay cuts increase monthly, and that leads to great stress, and fear of taking leave.
A mom in the ABC piece says, “The longer I’m away from work, the more I’m worried they will realize, “hey we don’t realy need her.”
At the very least, women need to be able to breastfeed AT work! From MomsRising:
Tough economic times may be making it harder for women to breastfeed? Yes! According to a recent ABC news story, one of the fall-outs from the recession is that some new mothers are feeling forced to take shorter maternity leaves due to concerns about finances and job stability.1 Unfortunately, women who have to cut their maternity leave short often can’t continue to breastfeed their infants because many workplaces don’t adequately support breastfeeding.2 That’s a big problem when you consider that 56% of women with infants are now the in the labor force–we need common-sense workplace policies to make sure that moms who want to breastfeed can.3
Act now for nursing moms by urging your Member of Congress to support the Breastfeeding Promotion Act!
Too many women are unable to breastfeed for the 6 months recommended by doctors and experts. This is often due to the fact that many workplace structures make this nearly impossible.
Voice your support for the Breastfeeding Promotion Act today!
Nursing vs. extinguishing our demons…and butts
Barack Obama (who a Hillary supporting friend snarkily refers to as “Messiah”) smokes. Even though he’s “95% cured,” “there are times when I mess up,” he admitted in a press conference yesterday.
Oh, the smoking must drive Michelle crazy! And the girls! I can still remember being a little girl and crying because both my parents smoked and just could not seem to quit. I couldn’t imagine how hard it was- it was so far outside my ken. One of the biggest adjustments I’ve had to make as a grown up is accepting that I cannot change the bad habits of those I love. I can only support them as they try to change. Husband, father, even myself as I struggle to lose baby weight. How we balance our concern for ending the bad habits of those we love without being nags? The truth is, you never know what will happen. When my son was born, my mom told me “you’re now a hostage to love.” How true that was.
But every once in a while, you read something that makes you think, “Goddammit, why can’t x person take care of himself! Doesn’t he realize how lucky he is!” This article, from Asha Dornfest via the American Cancer Society’s More Birthdays blog, struck me. Asha writes about her childhood friend Mike, who battled lung cancer at 34:
Mike says that cancer has made possible a vitality and an immediacy that he never knew existed. Without cancer, he may have never had the motivation or courage — or even the inclination — to run a marathon, or climb Mt. Whitney, or hike to Machu Picchu. More importantly, the time he spends with his wife, Linda, and his son, Griffin, is a gift Mike never takes for granted.
How can you be technosexy? See More Mag
I love this term for its James Bondian cheesiness! But the concept is important:
MORE: You’ve written about being “technosexy.” What does that entail?
MA: When I wrote the column, I was thinking about a woman I know in her 60s. Technosexy is an attitude; it’s about embracing technology that can help you, not being scared of it. Being sexy is being confident, and the thing I liked about my friend, she’s not your typical Mac user. But she loves anything Mac, she has all of the latest gadgets. She’s really proficient with it, she can tell other people how to use it, and she totally defies stereotypes. It’s about making technology work for you. She’s a busy person, she’s not going to sit there all day on every social media—she’s going to focus on what works for her, where are her friends, what’s going to help her get done what she wants to do.
Thanks More Magazine for the homepage promo!
This blog post is enough to stop women from having kids
Samantha from TemporarilyMe.com writes a post — and her argument is not even as important as the miserable stress that her post conveys. Her argument is that being a work at home mom is not comparable to being a work out of the home mom; I’m not getting involved in this. Who cares as long as you’re earning money. But the details of her life make my blood pressure escalate and shows why many young women would be forgiven to not choosing to have children. A sample:
Working moms. I scoff at the Internet’s idea of a working mom. Sorry Internets, but I do.
I have been a working mom for the better part of three years; and by working I mean dragging my ass out of bed at 4:45am to get showered and dressed, waking my child(ren), getting breakfast going, dropping off at daycare and sitting in traffic ALL to get to the office by 7:30am.
I work through an eight and a half hour day of telephone calls, emails, meetings, reports, proposals, arguments, disagreements while someone with a higher authority, a boss, dictates my time.
After those eight and a half hours, I get in my car to sit in traffic, pick up my kids at daycare, get dinner going, oversee bath time, read stories and put my children to bed.
I see my children for a total of – at the MOST – three hours a day – and most of that time is spent doing chores like the cooking and bathing. I very rarely have the luxury of sitting down and actually interacting with them.
Let’s talk about being a REAL working mom shall we? Not this fluff about working from home because I’ve been there too. I’ve too worked from home, designing, freelance writing, and trying to manage my house at the same time. I was doing what I could to keep us afloat while home with my children.
There is no comparison. None. I don’t care how high up on the blogging ladder you are: working from home is not even in the same realm as being a Working Mother.
Is this what it is? Who is their right mind would sign up for this? If this is what being a working mother is like, why don’t we all just stick with pets?
President and Mrs. Obama, something’s gotta change here! Employers, something’s gotta change here.
Talking Womenomics with Claire Shipman and Katty Kay
Cross posted from the new Families and Work Institute blog
Flexibility at work “isn’t like a favor you hand out at a children’s birthday party.” It’s good for business and good for people.
“For the past 30 years [women] were happy to sit quietly at the boardroom table and that’s changed: the boardroom table has to change. We think that can finally happen now.”
These were the key messages shared by Katty Kay and Claire Shipman, who together have written Womenomics. It’s no. 10 on the New York Times Bestseller list, so it’s clearly resonating. Shipman and Kay spent 90 minutes with Families and Work Institute staff and Corporate Leadership Council members.
Born of a friendship—they talk about “whispering in corners at cocktail parties in Washington” about their desire to manage work and family—both Shipman and Kay note they have other priorities other than a “climb up the ladder,” although they certainly excel in their work. They wanted successful careers but they also wanted time for family. And so they negotiated with their own employers. I was so surprised to hear that Claire Shipman, a famous new anchor, accepted a pay cut to work fewer hours! In their new book, they share personal lessons, results from research (including the FWI National Study of the Changing Workforce and interviews with Ellen Galinsky) and interviews with corporate leaders and employees.
Kay and Shipman stress that their approach is good for men, too, but that it’s vital for women. Depressed by the “opt out revolution” argument, the authors embrace the controversial notion that women work and manage differently: and that’s a good thing. Women, they say, have somewhat different values of what women want at work. Claire Shipman: “We are willing to say no to things in a way that men (at least of our generation) are not. And we’re saying that the workplace is changing to fit that.” She continued, “The case we’re trying to make with Womenomics is that women have so much more power in the workplace than they even understand.” We can use this power to help ourselves, and companies. Research shows that the more senior level women in the company, the more money the company makes.
Kay noted they encountered some skepticism from older women- the pioneers who’d “had to put their heads down and work.” Some of these women felt:
“you’re telling women not to aim high, to just opt out. But we came to a different conclusion: this is real feminism. If we can create a work world where women’s needs are genuinely met rather than a world where women are trying to be men, that’s real power. We empower workers, and empower families, it doesn’t need to be seen as non-feminist.…We’re not saying people don’t want to work; they just want to control the hours they have to be in the office.”
About Me
Morra Aarons-Mele utilizes social media strategies to help employers, employees and communities connect. She also consults with leading organizations on how women can use the internet for professional and personal development. In her spare time, Morra enjoys blogging about women and politics. Read her full bio >>
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