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| English: Graph of Maternity Leave in Americas (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
If I weren’t already married, I’d be trying to date John
Oliver. He gets it. He captured the plight of the American working woman on his
recent show entitled, “
Why It Sucks To Be A Working Mother In America”. He
pointed out how schizophrenic the country is. On the one hand we extol the
virtues of motherhood while we simultaneously fail to support mothers. We say
that nothing is more important than family and fail to pass family/friendly
legislation and most companies are reluctant to establish family/friendly
policies. Everyone loves babies yet many hate social programs.
While sensational, John Oliver’s piece is poignant and
accurate. He touches on everything from the lack of paid maternity leave to many employers failure to accommodate breastfeeding moms. The clever way he portrays it makes it clear that this country's legislative philosophy is pure lunacy.
The quote below illustrates it best of all.
"If a worker with no paid leave goes into labor at work, she better hope it’s on her lunch hour and that her co-workers don’t mind if the break room gets a bit messy," he said.
What this country decides to do about working mothers will show the
measure of our compassion. And since women are graduating from higher education
at higher rates than their male counterparts, what we decide to do will also
determine our future success.
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