Paid Parental Leave Is Good For Families And The Economy. So Why Don’t We Have It?

I’ve been given a lot of great advice as a new mom: Sleep when the baby sleeps, trust your instincts, savor every moment because it goes so quickly. Now that I’m a little over a year into motherhood, here’s what I’d add to that list: Work at a company where having a child is not seen as a setback.

I love my job — I’m the editor-in-chief at digital media company theSkimm — and I give a lot to it, but as you may have heard, having a job while being a parent is challenging. In the past few months, my son has had RSV, pink eye, the stomach bug, and an ear infection. I’ve had to pull him out of day care, take him to doctor’s appointments, work more days from home, and call out sick myself when I inevitably pick up whatever illness he has. My son is growing up in a home with two parents who work and share child care responsibilities, and the reality is that most days I’m just trying to keep my head above water.

The struggle to care for my son without dropping the ball at work is a fairly common one. What’s less common is that my company gives me the flexibility to make it work.

We conducted a survey at theSkimm, in partnership with the Harris Poll, in which we asked 4,500 women about the State of Women today. In response, 84% told us they’re looking for a more flexible work schedule to better juggle the demands of motherhood and a career. Sadly, this is not the reality for most parents.

Only 6% of companies provide employees with child care benefits like on-site care, a child care stipend, or flexible working hours. And only 24% of companies offer their employees paid family leave. What companies haven’t caught onto yet is that these benefits result in better recruitment, retention, productivity, and diversity. This is not charity or an employee perk; it’s a good business decision and one that I implore more companies to adopt.

We can’t call ourselves a modern society until we set up the infrastructure to enable every woman to work.

When you compare the parental leave and child care policies of wealthy nations, the U.S. ranks second to last. This is not surprising, given that the U.S. is the only industrialized nation that doesn’t offer federal paid leave. Child care in our country is inaccessible, unaffordable, and underfunded. Many parents struggle to find care for their kids and 51% of Americans live in a child care desert, where the demand is three times as high as the supply.

For those of us lucky enough to secure child care, the next challenge is figuring out how to pay for it — a 2022 survey found that 40% of parents say they’ve gone into debt from the high costs. Despite bipartisan support among voters, the U.S. government has failed to pass any significant legislative action on these issues. As a result, parents — and let’s be real here, moms, who take on caregiving responsibilities at a disproportionate rate — are having to assess whether they can even afford to have a job. Women lose out on nearly $300,000 in earnings and retirement savings over the course of their lifetime because they have taken on this unpaid labor.

It’s why I’m calling for a revolution. We can’t call ourselves a modern society until we set up the infrastructure to enable every woman to work.

This is a systemic issue that requires systemic solutions. We need the public and private sectors to work together to provide support for American families. We need our policies and benefits to reflect the reality of our workforce today — one in which a majority of women with kids work. And we need to shift the cultural narrative around caregiving responsibilities to level the playing field and close the gender wage gap.

While this is not an issue any one of us can solve alone, there are ways we can take action together: theSkimm and Moms First joint #ShowUsYourChildCare initiative provides resources for how to advocate for better child care at work, plus spotlights companies that offer benefits supporting working parents. And, as always, vote. Use your voice at the polls in your local, state, and national elections to show just how powerful a coalition of mothers can be.

Niven McCall-Mazza is the editor-in-chief of theSkimm where she oversees editorial production, operations, and development for the digital media company. Under her leadership, theSkimm has ventured into health and parenting verticals, expanded its news and money offerings, launched a career podcast, and focused on more inclusive, elevated, and in-depth storytelling. McCall-Mazza is a staunch advocate for theSkimm’s 12 million+ audience of millennial women, activating them to use their power at the polls in the last four election cycles, and championing paid family leave and child care benefits as a means to help women stay and advance in the workforce.