On Mother’s Day: Give me good policies, not pancakes in bed

By Lisa Frack and Andrea Paluso of Portland, Oregon. Lisa and Andrea are both on the board of Family Forward Oregon.

It's almost Mother's Day. A day to celebrate the mothers in our lives with brunch and flowers and small gestures of gratitude. But Mother's Day, in this country, started as a mother's call to action, all the way back in 1908. As it turns out, action by mothers (and others), on behalf of mothers, is needed again.

We all lose when mothers earn less – and they do

It is a sad and startling fact that in this country, MOTHERHOOD is now known to be a LEADING PREDICTOR OF POVERTY in old age. Why? Because when mothers take time out of the workforce to raise kids they suffer wage and promotion gaps that they never recover (not to mention a good bit less social security and 401(k) savings too). In fact, women without children now earn around 90-cents for every dollar a man earns (a pitiful disparity inherited from another era).

Mothers, meanwhile, earn only 77-cents for that dollar, and single mothers - who raise 1 of every 4 kids in the U.S. - average a mere 62-cents. In addition to significant wage disparities, our lack of access to paid family leave, paid sick leave, affordable child care and flexible and part-time work options make it all the more challenging for mothers to stay connected to the workforce while they're raising kids. Even when we want and need to.

American families look different now, our policies should, too.

Today, in the vast majority of families in the U.S., all available adults work (outside the home). And despite significant cultural shifts in work and family structures over the past few decades, we've taken mere baby steps to update workplace and public policies so they better support working parents.

Skip the flowers and do something!

Mothers, and the people who love them (that’s everyone, right?), must take action - NOW. We must demand improved policies at the state and federal level, because without real workplace and public policy improvements, economic insecurity among mothers (and their children!) will persist. Shifting cultural norms and passing strong family-friendly laws is a critical, and long overdue next step in the feminist movement.

Interested in joining this conversation? Join Family Forward Oregon tonight (Thursday, May 5th) for our Price of Motherhood event in Portland. You'll hear from Ann Crittenden, the nationally-acclaimed author of The Price of Motherhood: Why the Most Important Job in the World is Still the Least Valued. Crittenden's discussion of her national research and findings will be followed by a panel discussion with Oregon policy-makers and business leaders in order to connect the author’s national perspective to the efforts of a growing mothers' movement and on-the-ground advocacy work happening right here in Oregon. Our local panel will bring the conversation around to what’s going on here in Oregon to improve work-family policy. Panelists are: Rep. Ben Cannon, Rep. Michael Dembrow, Amelia Psmythe (Breastfeeding Coalition of Oregon), Kim Graham-Nye (gDiapers co-owner), and Mary King, PhD (labor economist).

Find out more: familyforwardoregon.org.