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There is no way around it – America is failing mothers. We are in a crisis of burn out, physical and mental health challenges, financial obstacles, lack of support at work postpartum, and more.
Today you’ll hear first hand stories from American women who have, or are currently facing, all too common issues that come with being a mother in this country. They share about the lack of maternity leave, lack of health insurance options, physical and financial burden after birth, extreme childcare costs, broken trust with medical providers, and the overall stress of maintaining a career with children.
My hope for this episode is to bring light to these very real issues that mothers face in America today. Mothers should not have to face these challenges alone. I strongly believe that the more we talk about these issues. the more we are able to change them going forward and create a better life for the next generation. Be sure to tune in next week to part two of this series.
In this episode we discuss:
- Lack of maternity leave in The United States, and how it negatively affects families (and companies)
- The significant expense of childcare
- The shame that often comes with postpartum depression and anxiety
- Why women should not go six weeks after birth before seeing their provider
- Possible solutions for the challenges that mothers are facing
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Connect with Lynzy:
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Quotes:
“I thought that motherhood would be my fairytale ending after everything we had gone through [to conceive]. Instead, I felt completely unsupported in this journey and began to experience an incredible amount of anxiety and a lot of sadness.”
“Overall, I feel like our medical system is not doing a good enough job for women, especially in the postpartum period. We can’t accept that 6 weeks is an okay amount of time to go from giving birth to a baby and being seen by a provider.”
“We need to come together as women and we can’t accept the status of what it’s like to have a baby today in the United States. We need longer, guaranteed parental leave, and we need to advocate for these changes to our lawmakers.”
“It takes a village, and women are just thrust out there on their own. We’re just expected to do it all…and then the men show up and do what the women have been doing all along.”
“Sometimes I think that the system is set up this way – so we do just leave corporate, or we leave careers and we go backwards, right? The system is not set up for us to thrive.”
“A lack of paid parental leave isn’t just a short term financial burden due to missing paychecks. It creates a cascade of negative consequences that impacts a family’s quality of life long after the parental leave is over.”
“Times have changed. Women have careers. Women are breadwinners now, which also allows partners to have more flexibility. Times have changed and we are not. We have not caught up. We have not even remotely begun to treat women the way that is necessary to help support them in the workplace.”
Questions:
What challenges have you been faced with as a mother in America?
What was your experience with maternity leave?
How was your transition back to work after giving birth?
Are the other women in your life facing the same challenges as you?
What can we do to make real change for mothers?
