Filling the Policy Void: A Call for Organizational Leaders to Proactively Support the Journeys of Working Mothers

Abstract

The mounting research on working mothers helps shed much-needed light on the challenges they face and the resources necessary to enable them to overcome such challenges. Yet, our increased understanding of the working mother journey—encompassing pregnancy, postpartum, and childcare among other challenges—has not led to wide-scale improvements in federal policy surrounding paid parental leave, access to high-quality and affordable childcare, and related supports that enable mothers to thrive across the work and family domains. With federal policy unlikely to catch up to the needs of working mothers in a timely and sufficient manner, we make the case that the responsibility needs to shift to organizational leaders, supervisors, and colleagues. In recognizing mothers as indispensable contributors and long-term assets, it is critical for organizations to invest in infrastructure and interpersonal supports that can sustain working women’s success and well-being through pregnancy, postpartum, and parenting beyond the infant years. For each of these stages of the working mother identity, we provide recommendations aimed toward filling the void of such federal policies. Overall, we hope that our piece shifts the conversation from whether organizations should support working mothers to how they can do so most effectively across each stage of the motherhood journey.