5

The Maternal Wall

Leaving the hospital, my 7½ pound tiny daughter snapped into her navy blue car seat and wearing what I called at the time her Secretary Madeleine Albright outfit, I couldn’t stop smiling. A mini salmon-colored matching top and bottom set, it looked to me like she could rule the world, baby style.

But my husband, toddler son, mom, and I drove home to a tricky situation. Like the majority of people in the United States, I didn’t have any paid family/medical leave after my daughter arrived. Only 13 percent of all people in our country—and 6 percent of low-wage workers¹—have access to paid family/medical leave through their employer.²

To say becoming a mom was complicated for me is an understatement. I’d unexpectedly left the salaried labor force when we realized that our infant son couldn’t be in childcare due to his immune system deficiency and anaphylactic allergies. So, after my daughter was born, I was working from home on contract for nonprofits doing policy analysis and advocacy strategies. I thought I’d finally figured it out.

I thought the gig economy, contract work, was the way to work and raise kids on my own terms. I knew for sure that I was lucky—and extremely privileged—to even have the option to do work at home on contract. In one moment, I actually thought: “This is THE way!” I didn’t realize then that this was just my duct-taped solution to a national problem.

I picked up the phone and called Ann Crittenden, author of the bestselling book The Price of Motherhood. I gleefully boasted into the phone: “Ann—I figured it out. The way to raise kids and also work is to do contract work!”

Ann replied: “Kristin, do you have any health care coverage on your own?”

Ummm… “Nope,” I replied.

“What about sick days and paid family/medical leave? Have any of those?”

Ummm… “Nope again,” I had to confess.

And, Ann asked, “Retirement? Is there a retirement plan with your current solution? What are you going to do when you’re older?”

Ummmmm…

That moment remains in my mind as one of many important wake-up calls. My conversation with Ann was a reality check. I was parenting without a safety net. No one can solve this current untenable situation on their own.

Many women are working in the “gig” economy or stuck in jobs that offer few or no basic benefits like health care coverage, paid family/medical leave, or retirement savings plans. This is why we need national social insurance programs like paid family/medical leave, where the business doesn’t foot the cost all at once because it’s paid via small paycheck deductions over time and the coverage stays with the person, not the workplace.

Access to paid family/medical leave for everyone is a crucial part of the women’s movement agenda and of boosting our national economy. In fact, enacting a national paid family/medical leave policy that covers all parents in our country absolutely must be addressed in order to advance equality (the lack of paid family medical leave is a major contributor to women’s lower pay), improve infant health, boost businesses, and save taxpayer dollars.

So what are we talking about here? Paid family/medical leave is a defined amount of time off in the moments when people need it the most: birth and medical crisis. It’s time to heal, to bond, to be there when you’re truly needed. It’s paid time off after a new baby arrives. And it’s the time women need to heal from childbirth and establish breastfeeding and bonds, or to take care of themselves, a spouse, domestic partner, a parent, or child if a significant medical crisis strikes.

But here’s the full truth: When the baby comes home, so does the impact of living in a country that says it worships moms but is far, far behind other nations in terms of passing policies that allow a woman to actually be a mom and have economic security in a way that the entire family (and the national economy, by the way) can thrive. There are only two countries in the world without any national maternity policy: the United States and Papua New Guinea.³ (Without this workplace protection, one in four new mothers in our nation has to go back to work within ten days after giving birth.⁴)

Most women don’t realize they’re walking out of the delivery room into a space without basic workplace protections for moms and right into a maternal wall, which is the high level of wage and hiring discrimination that moms in particular face. Implicit bias against women, moms, and moms of color is strong—so strong that it pulls our paychecks down even though the work we do is proven over and over again to be far more than adequate. There’s not a committee of people saying, “Pay women less,” but the subconscious inaccurate assumptions about our work add up to a massive amount of money lost for women. The wage discrimination that builds the maternal wall is sexism in action. But we don’t often hear about the maternal wall. Instead, the message women often get from society is that all of this stress—all the ways in which we fear we might be failing our children in one moment and falling down on the job the next—is a result of our own personal inadequacies. We don’t often hear that this madness is no one’s personal problem and that we have a systemic, outdated public policy problem that we can fix together. Well, I’m here to tell you we can fix this.

The good news is that it also doesn’t take rocket science to break down this wall. By moving forward long-overdue policies like access to paid family/medical leave, affordable childcare, health care, and earned sick days, the maternal wall can be broken. Other countries have done it. And the United States can, too. In fact, studies show that countries with these policies in place have less hiring and wage discrimination than we do.

The maternal wall hurts children, women, and our economy. It hurts us all. It’s no accident that fewer Fortune 500 CEOs are women,⁵ that there’s a shortage of women in Congress, and that of the last six Supreme Court nominees, all the men had children while none of the women did. This wall hurts moms. Many moms are working full-time, playing by the rules, and still struggling to make ends meet and put food on the table. This wall hurts kids, too. One in five children in the United States experiences food scarcity due to family economic limitations⁶ and a quarter of young families in this country are living in poverty.⁷

The first step to change is realizing that a maternal wall exists in the first place so we can stop accidental implicit bias in its tracks by calling attention to it.

Paid Family/Medical Leave: A Win-Win-Win Solution

Advancing a national paid family/medical leave policy does more than allow time for new families to heal, bond, and thrive. It raises our economy and lowers wage gaps. Crucially, in order to be effective, it needs to cover all parents, not just birth mothers. In fact, paternity leave in particular directly helps reduce the wage gap between men and women. The World Economic Forum found that the countries that offer paid parental leave for moms and dads are the most successful in closing the wage gap between men and women.⁸ So once we finally pass a national policy in this area—and I firmly believe that will happen within this generation—we also will have to work to change our culture so people of all genders use this policy when a new baby arrives or to care for seriously ill family members. Breaking down gender walls breaks down the maternal wall, too.

Roxanne shared, “In our family I work and my husband stays home with our children. We would not be able to survive without paid family leave as my husband’s job is staying home with our four-year-old (and now nine-month-old twins), yet I still needed to recover from the birth of our twin boys. Without paid family/medical leave, we would have no income while I recovered from the birth. With culture changing and both men and women being stay-at-home parents, it’s even more important to have paid family leave for situations like ours, where the mom works and the father stays home.”

The reality is that our labor force and many of our families have changed. For the first time in history, women are now half of the labor force,⁹ and moms are now the primary breadwinners in more than 40 percent of families.¹⁰ Yet our public policies—like access to paid family/medical leave for all parents, affordable childcare, fair pay, access to sick days, and more—haven’t caught up to our modern-day workforce, even though the vast majority of women in our nation become moms at some point in their lives. The wages of moms aren’t pocket change; they put food on the table and fuel our economy.

But this isn’t just about moms. Access to paid leave also benefits dads. Studies show that fathers who are able to take paid leave to care for their children are more involved in their kids’ lives nine months after they are born, and their families are less likely to need public assistance.¹¹ It also helps families balance the distribution of unpaid labor. Fathers who take paternity leave are more likely to take an active role in childcare tasks. According to a study of four rich countries—the United States, Australia, Britain, and Denmark—fathers who had taken paternity leave were more likely to feed, dress, bathe, and play with their child long after the period of leave had ended. Danish men were the most diligent: 77 percent of them play with their children regularly. And, in Britain, dads who took time off at birth were almost a third more likely to read books with their toddlers than those who hadn’t.¹² Paternity leave is good for women’s careers, too. When men shoulder more of the unpaid childcare burden, the effect of parenting on women is lessened.¹³

The additional unpaid work women do at home is a big deal. Even when there’s a partner involved, women still bear the brunt of the load when it comes to tracking family needs, like who has to go to the doctor and when the coffee is going to run out,¹⁴ as well as performing the vast majority of household chores and caregiving.¹⁵ All of this takes time and is work. According to one UN Human Development Report, if all the tasks women do for free were paid, even at low wages, the total would be $11 trillion.¹⁶ To put this figure into perspective, the official estimate of total paid wages around the world is $23 trillion.¹⁷ Women’s unpaid labor (whether full-time or part-time) takes physical and mental space and time. It also puts a tremendous amount of money into the economy, but too often that work is invisible and disrespected—and that deep level of disrespect leaches over into the paid labor force, where it becomes part of the gender pay gap.

Unpaid work should be respected and distributed more evenly across genders. Access to paid family/medical leave helps make that happen. Having both parents be able to access paid family/medical leave immediately after a new baby arrives allows new family task patterns to be established more evenly between genders.

Babies, the future leaders of tomorrow, benefit from paid family/medical leave policies, too. Infant mortality decreases up to 25 percent when parents have paid leave compared to unpaid leave.¹⁸ Parental bonding is strengthened, and infants have improved brain and social development. Also, women who take paid family/medical leave breastfeed for longer,¹⁹ which is universally recommended by pediatricians because breastfeeding has a positive effect on their overall health and the overall long-term health of the babies.²⁰

Lia explained, “I have two daughters and I work full-time as a teacher. When we decided to plan for a second child, we had to save for over a year. I took off the twelve weeks afforded to me through the FMLA, but it wasn’t nearly enough time to fully bond with my daughter. When I returned to work, I was still breastfeeding my baby. My school did not have any reserved space for pumping, so I had to pump in a bathroom twice a day. Instead of feeling the joy of motherhood, I felt as though I was being penalized for being a working mother. I would love to have another child, but I do not think my family could afford to have another period like this in our lives. Mothers, fathers, and children deserve more than this.”

MOMentum

Moms, dads, and babies all benefit from paid family/medical leave. So do women without children who encounter a medical emergency or who have a spouse, parent, or domestic partner in a medical crisis. Women’s rights are advanced. But that’s still just the tip of the iceberg. Businesses, employers, and our economy benefit, too.

Fortunately, several states have stepped up to move this policy forward, with excellent outcomes and data to prove that this policy walks the talk when it comes to benefiting businesses, families, and our economy. In fact, a 2011 study of California’s Paid Family Leave program found that most employers reported that providing paid family leave had a positive effect on productivity, profitability, performance, turnover, and employee morale.²¹

Good for Businesses

The majority of proposed—and all passed—paid family/medical leave policies at the state and federal level are paid for as social insurance programs. That means that the cost of the program is paid by some form of small employee and/or employer paycheck deduction and not directly by the business when an employee takes leave. This actually lowers the cost for many businesses because the compensation of people who are on leave is covered through funds from a state or federal program instead of directly from the business itself. So passing paid family/medical leave programs at the state and federal levels actually lifts the direct cost off businesses because they don’t have to pay wages during the time the employee takes for leave in order to care for a new baby, a seriously ill close family member, or their own serious illness.

Rachael is the owner of a small business and agrees that we need a national paid family/medical leave program to lift the cost off individual businesses like hers. Many of her employees have taken paid time off, saving vacation, personal, and sick time to use after they became parents. Scheduling hasn’t been a problem. But because we don’t have a national paid family leave program, Rachael reports that she’s challenged by the outflow of funds for their employees’ paid time off while also paying for someone to take their place. Without a national program, when someone takes leave Rachael has to pay twice—once for the employee on leave and once for their replacement. A national program would solve this cash flow issue. She notes: “In order to smooth all this out, and give more time, like twelve to sixteen weeks for a postpartum stretch—a business would benefit from payments made into a paid family leave program much like their unemployment account that could cover the cost when people take time out. This is just good planning for businesses.”

In addition, businesses that have paid family/medical leave policies save on recruitment, retention, and retraining costs. In one poll, 77 percent of respondents indicated that the amount of parental leave offered by a potential employer affects their decision when choosing one company over another, and 50 percent said they would rather have more parental leave than a pay raise.²² Many companies are using this policy to lure and retain workers—and it’s working! When Google lengthened maternity leave from three months to five and offered full pay instead of partial pay, attrition decreased by 50 percent.²³

As the changes at Google demonstrate, access to paid family leave also stabilizes the labor force—thus helping businesses with retraining costs. Studies have also found that moms with access to paid family leave were more likely to be in the labor force one year after having a child and significantly less likely to rely on government programs, saving taxpayer dollars.²⁴

Boosting the Economy

When Terry’s mom passed away suddenly, her dad, who had rapidly progressing metastatic cancer, was left behind. As an only child, Terry had sole caregiving responsibility. “When I approached my bosses for a leave of absence to be at my dad’s bedside, I was told they would ‘consider it,’ but that I would lose all of my accounts during my absence.” As she waited for the company’s decision, her dad got sicker. Terry was working, taking her dad to the doctor, and trying to juggle it all. The juggle wasn’t working. Terry recalls that because she couldn’t get time off, her “ability to effectively manage dad’s care was greatly impeded.” She then requested to work from home, but was denied that option, too. Then, just hours after her dad died in her arms, Terry’s boss phoned to finally say they would grant her a short leave of absence. “When I told my boss my dad died, the phone went silent. I will forever be haunted by that experience.”

Terry is not alone. When women (and men, too) have access to paid family leave, they are more likely to stay in their jobs, be able to continue to pay taxes, and also to get the wage increases that go along with longer employment histories—no matter what is going on with their personal or family lives. The economy as a whole also benefits when workers have access to paid leave.

Jennifer shared her story. “In 2006, I was living in California and I was fortunate enough to be able to use California Paid Family Leave after my son was born. It allowed me to take the time to bond with my newborn and stay home for three months with pay. My husband was then able to use Paid Family Leave when I returned to work for six additional weeks (paid through PFL). The amount taken out of my paycheck to support this program was not even noticeable! I love being a parent and I love being an employee. (I’m a social worker and love my job!) I am glad that I did not have to choose between one or the other, like so many families are forced to do.”

The benefits of paid family leave are real and palpable. Twenty-six weeks of paid maternity leave would increase U.S. women’s labor force participation to the tune of a 5 percent increase in gross domestic product, which is $900 billion per year.²⁵

Despite that, only 13 percent of U.S. workers overall and only 6 percent of low-wage workers have access to paid family leave, even though more than half of all new mothers work outside the home for pay. As a result, many take unpaid leave, quit, or even lose their jobs when they face a major health issue or have a baby.²⁶ No family should face the prospect of poverty because of the birth of a child. I’m not the only person who thinks this.

The majority of voters in our nation strongly support paid family leave policies. California, New Jersey, and Rhode Island all have paid family leave insurance laws.²⁷ As of the writing of this book, five states have passed paid family/medical leave and nearly fifty cities have moved forward some type of paid family/medical leave policy, even if just for city workers.²⁸ But access to coverage shouldn’t be dependent on geography or winning the job lottery.

Right now, the only policy we have at the national level is the 1993 Family Medical Leave Act, which provides unpaid leave but doesn’t cover all workers. We need to keep pushing and bringing these policies forward in cities and states across the nation. The momentum is already growing and must continue right on into Washington, DC, so we can change legislation at a national level. Women have fueled many of these wins by making phone calls, sharing their experiences, writing letters, signing online petitions, attending meetings with elected leaders, holding events, sharing information on social media, and more. It all adds up.

Women’s Workplace Justice

There’s more than one policy in the women’s workplace justice mix that we can’t afford to overlook. You see, paid family/medical leave is for the birth or adoption of a new child, your own very serious illness, or to care for a close family member having a health crisis, but it’s not for when you catch a regular bug like the flu. That falls under sick days.

When Miranda was working for a major retailer, she and her co-workers could take a sick day, but would not be paid for any time missed. Instead, she told me, “Everyone would come in to work because we all needed the money. We’d pass around the same cold for weeks. Once, someone came in who had meningitis.”

Similarly, Barbara, like 54 percent of all mothers, didn’t have access to any paid sick days, so she had to postpone taking her daughter to the doctor.²⁹ One time, this resulted in her daughter having a serious untreated ear infection that permanently harmed her hearing.

For all women and all people, sick days are crucial. More than 70 percent of low-wage workers—like Miranda and Barbara—don’t have access to a single paid sick day to care for themselves or a family member (like a child), and 40 percent of all private sector workers don’t, either.³⁰ This is not okay.

Earned sick days are a few days per year that people can receive with pay based on the total hours that they work. This allows employees to have paid time off when they have the flu, an ear infection, a bad cold, or any other regular illness. This is important because everyone gets sick from time to time, but not everyone has a chance to get better. It’s time to change that.

Paid sick days are also a big win for businesses because they reduce employee turnover cost, boost workplace morale, and help stop the spread of illness among workers.³¹ As Miranda’s story demonstrates, employees coming to work sick because they don’t have access to paid sick days costs the national economy more than $155 billion annually because of lost productivity.³² It’s no wonder so many businesses support paid sick days.

We’re also the only developed nation in the world without a national paid sick days law. It’s hurting our global competitiveness, and we’re overdue for a change.³³ Over 160 countries have passed this type of policy—and we can and must, too. This is a critically important policy for families, businesses, and our economy. Without the ability to earn paid sick days, working women and families are faced with impossible choices: sending a sick kid to school or going to work sick, versus staying home and losing an invaluable day’s pay, or sometimes even losing a job.

In these uncertain and tenuous times, it’s more important than ever to fight for the 41 million workers, including more than half of all working moms, who can’t earn a single paid sick day to stay home when needed—and women are rising to do exactly that.³⁴

I have good news to share (and some bad news, too).

First, we’re winning these fights. City by city, and state by state, people are rising up (including many volunteers from MomsRising) and urging elected leaders to pass local paid sick day policies, and change is happening in real lives. Thirty-one jurisdictions (cities and counties), seven states, and the District of Columbia have already passed paid sick days for their residents and workers.³⁵ As of March 2017, 68 percent of private sector workers now have access to paid sick days compared to 64 percent in 2016, and 61 percent in 2015.³⁶ When I started working on this policy area over a decade ago, only 40 percent of private sector workers had access to this policy, so this is a big jump in coverage.

I actually did a little happy dance when I saw these new numbers. Each city and state that passes this policy adds up to a higher overall percentage of real people who are covered. Real people who can take the time needed to care for a sick child, or to take care of themselves. (Thank you to all the people and organizations who played a role in these many wins across the nation.)

But while we’re winning at the local level and gaining momentum, we still need a national sick days policy to cover 100 percent of people—particularly because hidden in those stats is the fact that low-wage workers are the least likely to have access to sick days.

So it’s time to pump up the volume.

For an average family without paid sick days, just three and a half days of missed work is the equivalent to an entire month of groceries.³⁷ And nearly one in five low-wage working mothers have been fired for needing time off because they or their child is sick.³⁸ Without the opportunity to earn paid sick days, the realities that Donna shares are unfortunately all too normal. “I work in a factory where people come into work even when they are sick because they can’t afford to stay home. You can’t get well that way!”

Unprecedented support for paid sick days is building across the nation in no small part because women are raising their voices. But access to paid sick days shouldn’t depend on your zip code—we need a national policy that makes paid sick days standard.

Paid family/medical leave, earned sick days, and equal pay together help ensure the economic security of women across our nation, especially women in the most vulnerable communities, including communities of color and Muslim, immigrant, and LGBTQ+ families, as well as families in rural communities. These are fights we can win.