The sacrifices moms make
Glenn Leibowitz
Senior marketing leader at McKinsey | 4x LinkedIn Top Voice in marketing & management | Inc. magazine called me "a writer you should start reading today"
Normally I'm not a big fan of celebrating my own birthday, choosing to quickly and quietly move through the passage of each year without making a particular fuss.
Until this week.
Last November, on Thanksgiving Day, I underwent a 5-hour emergency operation that saved my life.
In addition to gaining a new appreciation for my own life, I've also learned to appreciate even more deeply than ever before my mother.
Looking at a photo of her holding me as a baby, I think about the sacrifices she made to raise me and my siblings, and to support my father through his busy career, his brief stint in local politics, and his weekend fishing trips.
It certainly wasn't for lack of academic ability that she didn't pursue her own career. Growing up in a small steel town in Pittsburgh, my mother was a straight-A student who was accepted at Carnegie Tech University (renamed Carnegie-Mellon Univ.), which she attended for a brief time before dropping out to get married.
She has always been a voracious reader, a gifted writer, an open-minded and embracing person to everyone she meets.
Which sometimes makes me wonder: Just how many opportunities did my mom give up to pursue her own career for the sake of raising me and our family?
Perhaps not so coincidentally (I do believe in the concept of 'synchronicity', or as they say in Chinese, 'yuan-fen'), today I received an email from a former McKinsey colleague of mine, Denielle Sachs , who today leads APCO Impact, the social impact arm of the global public affairs firm.
She writes:
"Moms have made heroic efforts over the last 18 months, but at great cost. Since COVID-19 first hit the US, over 2M women have left — or been forced to leave — their jobs, bringing workforce participation to its lowest point in 30 years. The pandemic didn’t undermine a functioning system. Rather, it exposed what women have known for decades: work doesn’t work for moms, and work-life balance is an illusion."
"APCO Impact, in partnership with the Marshall Plan for Moms, announced a groundbreaking piece of research. Combining insights from a survey of more than 1,000 American moms, hundreds of academic studies, and dozens of expert interviews, their report, "Making Workplaces Work for Moms," lays out a “Bill of Rights” for working moms & 10 recommendations for employers to help moms return to — and thrive at — work."
I couldn't help but share their 10-point "Bill of Rights" for working moms here:
领英推荐
? 1. Give Us Control Over Our Schedules -- We can handle it, seriously.
? 2. Support Us With Child Care -- We simply cannot work without it.
? 3. Own Your Role in Shaping Dynamics at Home -- Incentivize paternity leave and encourage men to take it -- all of it.
? 4. Prioritize Moms' Mental Health -- Normalize paid time off and promote well-being.
? 5. Close Your Gender Pay Gap and Pay Moms Fairly
? 6. Root Out the Motherhood Penalty -- Stop penalizing women for having kids
? 7. Don't Rush New Moms Back to Work Before They're Ready --
? 8. Provide Better On-Ramps to Bring Moms Back to Work
? 9. Guarantee Paid Sick Leave -- Moms can't work when they (or their loved ones) are sick
?10. Advocate for Moms Publicly
What do you think about this "Bill of Rights" for working moms? What would you add to this, or change? Let's have a conversation.
I Teach College Students and 20-Somethings a Magical Approach to Discover Their Perfect Path // Inspirational Speaker, Emcee & Moderator // Host 'This Magic Life' Podcast // 2021 Top Job Search Expert on LinkedIn
3 年Glenn Leibowitz first of all, belated happy birthday! Secondly, I fully support this 10-Point Bill of Rights for Working Moms. As the mother of a 17-year old son -- and as a woman who worked outside the home for the 1st 13 years of my son's life -- I can attest to the fact that working mothers are not valued or supported by most employers as they should be. And I also recognize that as a white woman of privilege I had it much easier than many other working mothers of color. Considering that we're raising the next gen you'd think this would be more of a national priority in the US -- as it has been in so many more progressive countries in Europe.
Bachelor of Education - BEd at St. Patrick's College Drumcondra
3 年Great post Glenn. There is no substitute for a mother’s caring love and this 10-point Bill of Rights is configured to ensure that there is due recognition of this.
Helping mid-sized organizations increase sales and improve customer service since 1993 | #LinkedInLocal
3 年Re "2 Support Us With Child Care" Glenn Leibowitz: in Quebec, where I live, the government began a subsidized, low-cost, child care program back in the late 1990's. From the abstract of a 2005 academic study: The econometrics results support the hypothesis that the childcare policy, together with the transformation of public kindergarten from a part-time to a full-time basis, had a large and statistically significant impact on the labor supply of Quebec's mothers with pre-school children. So give families child care ... and there will be more women in the work force! By the way, the program has been so popular here that the federal government is now assisting other provinces to set up similar programs! Source: Low-fee ($5/day/child) Regulated Childcare Policy and the Labor Supply of Mothers with Young Children: a Natural Experiment from Canada https://ideas.repec.org/p/lvl/lacicr/0508.html
Management Consultant at Freelance, self-employed
3 年Great article. Indeed Mums need to be celebrated .