Stop the Lip Service: Give Moms What They Need

So Mother’s Day is around the corner again. Expect to get bombarded with advertisements starting with the phrase, “Show her you care this year …” as close-ups of diamond rings and pendants are shown to entice your partner into spending far too much money.

Mother’s Day has become a farce in America and frankly, I’m tired of it. I’m not just talking about the Hallmark commercialization surrounding Mother’s Day either. I’m talking about how poorly this country treats its mothers. If our leaders actually valued motherhood and “family values,” they’d put their money where their mouth is. New moms must have support to start off motherhood without going bankrupt. I’m talking paid maternity leave. We are the only developed nation in the world not to offer it. Think about it. It’s shameful.

I’ve lived in London now for three years and the opportunity to live abroad has been eye-opening. I have seen first hand how new mothers are able to take six months paid maternity leave in England with the option of taking an additional six months unpaid with their jobs intact. The British economy is not falling down because of these policies.

My husband opens offices for his company throughout Europe and Scandinavia. Last night he called from Stockholm and told me how his Swedish colleague is going to take four months of paid paternity leave. “It’s the standard in Sweden—can you imagine? God, I’d have loved to have been able to do that when William was born,” he says to me with a sarcastic laugh. He only took one week off—and since I was in the hospital for five days—that equated to only two work days at home with me and William. His one week off also counted as one week of his vacation pay—and he was only given two weeks at the start-up he helped form in California at the time. We both hope to return to America soon, but it’s a bittersweet thought as we know none of these policies are in place back home.

It’s a different story for most of the developed world. In fact, out of 168 nations in a Harvard University study, 163 had some form of paid maternity leave, putting America in the leagues of Lesotho, Papua New Guinea, and Swaziland for family-friendly policies. Working parents in Sweden are offered eighteen months paid leave upon the birth of each child—which can be split between the couple.