What Working Moms Need

by Sarah Bennett-Astesano

Carol Evans is the author of the recently published book, This Is How We Do It, and president of Working Mother magazine.

Working mothers aren't just busy, they also must contend with discriminatory practices and outdated (or nonexistent) social supports. That's the premise of another recent book, The Motherhood Manifesto: What America's Moms Want - And What to Do About It, by Joan Blades and Kristin Rowe-Finkbeiner. Using the acronym MOTHER (Maternity leave, Open flexible work, TV we choose and other after-school programs, Healthcare for all kids, Excellent childcare and Realistic and fair wages), the authors advocate for a web of connected government and employer policies to redress the situation, and they invite mothers to join them.

What is a manifesto and why do American mothers need one?

Joan Blades: The best way to take care of kids is to take good care of their parents, and, in particular, in this case we're talking about moms.

Kristin Rowe-Finkbeiner: We're dusting off known solutions for caring for mothers and children and really getting down to implementing them. The word "manifesto" is the strongest word for clearly stating that it's time to implement solutions.

Can you explain the concept of the maternal wall?

Blades: If you look at board rooms and the halls of power, you still see a huge percentage of men. You look a little more closely and you find that an awful lot of the women that are there don't have children. You put two and two together and see that, when a woman has children, in all too many cases, it just stops her career trajectory short.

A recent study found that with the same resume, mothers were 44 percent less likely to be offered the job than non-mothers, and they were offered $11,000 less for the same job with the same resume. There's a huge bias against mothers in the workplace.

Rowe-Finkbeiner: Mothers take a wage hit, while fathers typically get a wage boost.

Something you point out in the book is that it's legal to pay mothers less.