What's going on with paid leave?

or, an interview with Dawn Huckelbridge, Founding Director of Paid Leave for All

I would be remiss if I didn’t start by acknowledging that this week marks A Cup of Ambition’s second birthday! 🥳🎉 Writing this newsletter is a labor of love, and there have been times over the past year that I’ve wondered if I’m still adding anything of value to the never-ending noise of digital media.

Though I often warn about becoming overly dependent on external markers of success, I have to admit that it was quite lovely to be acknowledged recently as one of Motherly’s top nine parenting Substacks. I am in excellent company, and continue to be in awe of the badass-ery of working moms (each of you, included!)

Whether you’ve been around since the very beginning or you just subscribed last week, I am so incredibly grateful for your readership. Cheers to year three! ☕️

c/o Paid Leave for All

In this newsletter, I talk a lot about the broken systems that fail working moms in the US—one of the most egregious being that the US is one of only seven countries in the world without paid family leave. And yet, there is so much amazing activism in this space. One of the leaders in this fight is Dawn Huckelbridge, the founding director of the Paid Leave for All campaign. And I am thrilled to share my interview with her here today.

Dawn has also held leadership positions at Supermajority, American Bridge, Planned Parenthood Action Fund, People For the American Way, and the Barbara Lee Family Foundation. She graduated from the London School of Economics and Political Science with a master’s degree in gender and social policy and studied political science and communications at Northwestern University. She lives in Capitol Hill with her 8-year-old son.

JW: Let's start with the basics. Why is federally-funded paid leave so important?

DH: Phew, that’s a very long list. Paid family and medical leave — the ability to keep a job and paycheck while you take time away from work to care for a new baby, yourself, or a loved one — is the most powerful policy, truly.

It’s a proven tool for public health and well-being, for financial security and economic growth, for racial and gender equity. It helps small businesses compete. It boosts pay equity. It improves maternal and infant mortality rates. It reduces depression. It encourages entrepreneurship and creativity.

Think about it, all the ways our life possibilities could expand if we had the guarantee of paid leave when a baby arrived or a crisis hit. And as it stands, we are one of only seven countries in the world that guarantees no form of national paid leave, and only one in four workers have paid family leave through their jobs.

This means that in America, we are missing some of the most important moments of our lives: a baby’s first smile, a parent’s last breath. And while we are making great progress at the state level, this is a common-sense policy that everyone should have, regardless of where they live or where they work. Without it, families lose tens of billions in wages every year, our economy loses trillions. And it’s in all of our best interests for paid leave to be accessible for everyone, which only a federal program can ensure. 

JW: There's been so much talk--and, ultimately, lack of action--around paid leave. Can you give us a brief summary of where things stand now on a federal level regarding paid leave?

DH: Well, the path is frustrating, but there actually has been quite a bit of action along the way. In 2020 when the pandemic hit, one of the first things Congress did was pass a temporary paid sick and family leave law (the first in the nation, and they did it on a bipartisan basis). While that expired, we know it saved countless lives and jobs, and the fight then went to a permanent program.

We actually did pass our country’s first comprehensive paid family and medical leave policy through the House of Representatives in 2021, and were within a vote or two of it moving through the Senate and becoming law. That was a real disappointment, but the momentum has continued to grow. Since then we’ve seen the launch of the first ever bipartisan working group on paid leave in Congress, the strongest proposal for paid leave in a President’s budget in history, and record high support with the voters. We believe with a little more political power and will, paid leave can — and must — get over the finish line. 

JW: Given that survey after survey finds that the majority of Americans support paid leave, it seems like this should be a political slam dunk. What are the biggest barriers to making paid leave a reality?

DH: Well, obstructionism and partisanship isn’t new to Washington. But as you point out, paid leave is wildly popular with the public, across party lines and walks of life, and Congress is catching up to that. There is also often a misunderstanding that this would be an unfunded mandate or a burden to business when the opposite is true: a federal paid leave program would be a support to employers and a boon to business, and we know from evidence in the states it would help their bottom lines.

But there are of course always larger disagreements about the role of government and how to prioritize its spending, and at its heart, politicians often still deprioritize what they consider “women’s issues.” But not only is that sexist and misguided but these are issues that impact every one of us. Paid leave and care are kitchen table issues, the biggest sources of stress and financial costs to whole families — these are in fact economic imperatives. More and more of us are working and caring for children, parents, and family members all at the same time, and it’s not sustainable. 

JW: As you point out, with federal action stalling, some states have adopted paid leave policies. What are we learning about both best practices and outcomes from states who have adopted these policies?

DH: What’s remarkable is that with each new state program, we learn what works and continue to strengthen the models. We’ve learned best practices that inform legislation at the federal level, like the need for a comprehensive program (not just maternity or parental leave), an inclusive definition of family because we know families take all forms, and progressive wage replacement, meaning holding onto enough of a paycheck that low-income workers can afford to take leave at all. We also know that it works. It’s not some impossible feat, nearly every country and a growing number of states have figured it out, and it’s working well, and doing all the great things I mentioned at the start, from financial returns to better health outcomes. 

JW: What are tangible actions that each of us can take to help move this cause forward?

DH: Ask every candidate and elected official you can if they support federal paid leave — and what they will do to advance it. Support leaders who do. You can call them, email them (in fact on our website you can reach your representatives in two clicks), or better yet, ask them in person at a town hall or meet with them in their office. You can sign petitions like this one we have with Glamour, you can share your story on social media, and follow our channels for more updates and ways to get involved. 

Lightning Round

Favorite family vacation spot… This is a hard one because travel is one of my favorite things, and I try not to repeat destinations. But one place I’ll go back to over and over is Italy — I studied there for a bit in college because I wanted to learn the language and the best bolognese recipe, and I always feel so full and happy there, plus they’re great with kids. I loved sharing it with my son, who’s now a travel junkie too. 

Best book you've read lately… The Vulnerables by Sigrid Nunez. I love anything both poignant and hilarious, and I think a lot about what we should have learned from COVID about connection and community and care (that includes policy). 

What do you remember most from your own parental leave… My parental leave was a hard time for me. I was lucky to have any, but I had to piece it together and it wasn’t enough. My body wasn’t healing very well, and my baby was colicky. I didn’t sleep much his whole first year, or eat or even sit down a lot. Honestly what I remember most is trying to soothe my child; singing the same lullaby on repeat, swaying in this figure eight in an endless loop, trying to channel calm to him, sometimes all night. My postpartum experience fuels a lot of my passion for this issue because even with the resources I had, it was one of the hardest experiences of my life, and made me realize how unsupported families are in this country. 

Best piece of advice for working moms… There’s no one way to make it work, and the struggle is not your personal failing. Ask for help from partners, friends, family. Build your tribe. Take care of yourself. Know your rights. Fight for federal paid leave. But most of all, I like to say, becoming a mother is transformational in a lot of ways, but you can still be whoever you want to be. Just like fatherhood or parenthood, don’t believe in tropes, it’s no one thing. The best thing you can be for your child is fulfilled — and yourself.

---