BabyCenter Staff
posted in Mom Stories
If the presidential candidates are looking for a way to woo American moms, they should consider taking on a paid maternity leave platform. American moms want more maternity leave and they think the government should pay for it.
“We are supposed to be one of the most developed countries in the world,” said Amy, “and yet we are SO far behind all of the others as far as maternity leaves go.”
Amy was one of hundreds of moms who answered our call for questions to raise at the Women’s Health Town Hall held last week at the White House. She wasn’t alone. Dozens of women echoed her yearning for a federally-funded paid maternity leave program.
“Make a universal maternity leave for everyone in the USA,” said another mom. “If you want a better country, allow mothers the opportunity to bond with their children and still be financially secure!”
“I had to quit my job when I had my baby because my job at the time did not offer maternity leave of any kind,” said Danny’s Momma
At the Town Hall, BabyCenter’s Editor-in-Chief, Linda Murray, had a chance to ask Michael Lu, the Director of the Maternal and Child Health Bureau, what the government was doing about the issue of paid maternity leave (the current Family and Medical Leave Act allows women to take unpaid leave after the birth or adoption of a child). While he recognized what a challenge unpaid maternity leave is for many moms – especially in this difficult economy – he said that no one in the government was working on a federally-funded maternity leave program.
That’s when Linda hit him with the news that 66 percent of moms in a recent BabyCenter poll said they’d be willing to pay more taxes to fund maternity leave (from 1 to 5 percent more). He was shocked. I urged him to share this information with his colleagues and to voice moms’ concerns about maternity leave in general.
How do you feel about maternity leave in the U.S.? Would you pay higher taxes to offer this benefit to moms? Would either candidate get your vote if they got behind paid maternity leave?
Photo: Collage by Dadler, includes “Pregnant woman” by flequi; “obama-manassas-va-rally2″ by Greg Elin; and “Question mark” by Ryan
Read more from source:“babycenter-com-baby”
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