Home  About  In the News  Publications  Blog  Join  Donate  University of Michigan Roosevelt members at the Roosevelt Relief: Hurricane Katrina Launch Event 2007 Announcements National Expo: July 11th Hyde Park Summit: August 14-17 Essay Winners Announced in The Nation On Campus Iowa Chapter Holds Forum Zach Hindin in the GW Hatchet Coverage of the Johns Hopkins Chapter Launch > More "In a moment of decision the best thing you can do is the right thing. The worst thing you can do is nothing." — Teddy Roosevelt    Valuing Working Families > Roosevelt Home > Roosevelt Challenges > Valuing Working Families By Suzanne Kahn Categories: Economic policy, Education, Labor and workers' rights, Poverty and social justice, Public health, Women, gender, and feminism The Challenge: Create parent friendly work environments across the country. How the proposed Challenge meets the challenge criteria: Applicable throughout the geographic United States Approachable at local, state, and national levels of government Approachable from a variety of academic disciplines and specialties Across the country, parents, mothers especially, face the challenge of raising their children and keeping their jobs. Parents in the United States receive fewer supports than parents in any other industrialized nation, not to mention parents in quite a few developing countries. (See this report for details about the many places where we lag behind: http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/globalworkingfamilies/images/report.pdf) Although individual states have a range of laws on the books regarding key issues such as paid family leave and the use of sick days to care for a newborn child, no state comes close to ensuring that parents have the support they need to raise their children the way they want to well while participating in the workforce. There is work to be done, by businesses, cities, states, and the country as a whole to ensure that all parents can provide their children with financial security, safe day time and after school care, and health care. We need to come together to find creative ways to guarantee paid family leave for parents with new children, quality after school and child care, health care for all children, fair wages for parents, and other programs that will allow parents to raise the next generation to the best of their ability Vision or background behind the proposed Challenge: Today, three-quarters of all mothers in the United States have jobs outside the home. This marks a dramatic shift in family structure in the United States. Despite this shift and a simultaneous shift in the larger structure of the economy, the United States still has an industrial-era family support structure. Recognizing this problem, Joan Blades and Kristin Rowe-Finkbeiner wrote The Motherhood Manifesto, a book detailing the challenges working mothers face and what needs to be done to he help mothers overcome them. The book has inspired a movement, MomsRising, that progressive organizations from SEIU to ACORN, from the National Coalition for Healthcare to NOW have joined. The Roosevelt Institution is perfectly positioned to join this coalition and bring the Manifesto to the attention of college students. Our focus is broad enough to address this problem from all the angles— healthcare, education, economic policy, to name a few— from which it needs to be approached. Moreover, we are located in cities and states throughout the country so we can mobilize to push for improvements on every level that they can be made. Why Roosevelt should take on this Challenge over others: This is a social justice issue, a women’s issue, a children’s issue, an economic issue, and a college students’ issue. Providing parents with and their children with childcare, economic security, health care and the other support networks will improve not only the lives of parents and children today and in the future, but also the health, wealth and competitiveness of our country. As we prepare to leave school and begin careers we have to look ahead to the choices we will have to make as employees and parents. Comments Kai H Stinchcombe, Sun 30 Jul 10:34 pm PST: I love this one.   The Roosevelt Institution is a nonpartisan, nonprofit national think tank devoted to bringing students' policy ideas to the policy process. The opinions expressed on this site are exclusively those of its members. DC Headquarters: Roosevelt Institution / 2100 M St NW Suite 610 / Washington, DC 20037 || (202) 833-1359