Thursday, May 05, 2005

It's official: my state is a disaster area when it comes to family leave policies. Such is the position of the National Partnership for Women and Families, which just released a state-by-state scorecard on how individual states deal with leave. You get an "F" -- as Virginia (and 18 others) did -- for failing to go beyond the federal government's paltry 12-unpaid-weeks policy. No state received an "A," though California, with its wonderful paid leave policy, managed an "A-". And just over the river in DC, where Rebel Mom works, gets a B+ for offering more leave to a broader selection of employees and offering up beefed up legal protection for pregnant women and new mothers.

Both Rebel Mom and Jen -- writing in the comments to the last post -- expressed some surprise at my cynicism about the Motherhood Project report. They both wondered, essentially, why I seized on the negative and ignored all the stuff (less domestic violence, more flexible schedules, etc.) that I strongly believe in.

Reading through the FMLA report from the National Partnership underscored part of the reason I was less-than-thrilled with the 55-page motherhood publication. It reminded me that the Motherhood Project highlights finances as the no. 1 concern of mothers, and then fails to follow that up with a call for pay equity or social security credits for caregivers or healthcare reform. The report does a great job of documenting the desire of mothers to work part-time, but fails to push for proportional benefits for part-time work or an expansion of the Family and Medical Leave Act.

In short, while I think that less domestic violence and stronger marriages are indeed laudable goals, I was disappointed about the missed opportunity to talk about other solid ways to improve the position of parents in society.

(P.S. and FYI: I wondered earlier in the week what the survey meant when they said that 49 percent of mom and dad split responsibility for the childrearing. Looking through the data, I realized they then asked moms to quantify that split. In less than 2 percent of the cases were fathers doing more of the care than the mothers, though 30 percent said there was a straight 50-50 split.)

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