29
Beyond letting women decide whether to have a baby,
our government needs to pass legislation that would ensure
that those who do become moms are paid the same as dads.
According to the National Women’s Law Center, for every dol-
lar white dads made in 2018, Asian American and Pacific Is-
lander moms made 89¢, white moms made 69¢, Black moms
made 50¢, Native moms made 47¢ and Latina moms made
45¢. In 2017, Michelle J. Budig, a professor of sociology at the
University of Massachusetts, published a report, “The Fa-
therhood Bonus and the Motherhood Penalty,” in which she
explained women’s wages tend to decrease after they have
kids while men’s tend to increase, though these shifts are not
equal across income distributions. “First, there is a wage pen-
alty for motherhood of 4% per child that cannot be explained
by human capital, family structure, family-friendly job char-
acteristics, or differences among women that are stable over
time,” she wrote. “Second, this motherhood penalty is larger
among low-wage workers while the top 10% of female work-
ers incur no motherhood wage penalty.”
Part of the disparity between fathers and mothers may be
due to employer discrimination, Budig explained, citing re-
search suggesting that companies view dads as more compe-
tent and worthy of promotion than moms. “Ideas of what make
a ‘good mother,’ a ‘good father,’ and an ‘ideal worker’ matter,”
she writes. “If mothers are supposed to focus on caring for
children over career ambitions, they will be suspect on the job
and even criticized if viewed as overly focusing on work.”
But modern motherhood is also relentless. Not only do
mothers in America today continue to spend more time on
both childcare and household chores than fathers do, despite
men’s increased involvement at home, they also spend more
time with their children than they did in the 1970s, when Bom-
beck wrote that mothers had to have six pairs of hands, even
as they worked full-time jobs. Unable to justify the cost of
childcare compared with their wages or, in the case of a global
health crisis, faced with no childcare at all, women end up
being the ones to walk away from work.Previous economic crises in the U.S. have put men out
of work, and we’ve bemoaned the hit to masculinity. This pan-
demic has hit women, specifically mothers, particularly hard,
but instead of contemplating the creativity, discovery and pro-
ductivity that are lost when women are forced from the work-
force, we expect them to lean in so far, they fall off a cliff.
In the Bombeck column, the angel comments that the
mother is too soft. “But tough!” God replies. “You can imag-
ine what this mother can do or endure.”
How much longer will fables of valor be held up as an ex-
cuse for using mothers to prop up a failing system? Even if
women can handle it, or at least appear outwardly to be han-
dling it, does it really have to be this hard? How many fathers
would find “enduring” to be a satisfying existence?
American mothers have been the undersupported cog in
the wheel of American capitalism for too long. We must now
completely reimagine their role and start over.Lenz is the author of Belabored: A Vindication of the Rights of
Pregnant Womenthis decision takes away a measure of
control that can alter the entire trajec-
tory of a woman’s life. Meanwhile, states
like Texas and Iowa, which had already
put up barriers for women seeking abor-
tions, tried to use the pandemic as a cover
to further erode health care access for
women by claiming the procedure was
nonessential, a determination contra-
dicted by leading health organizations.
America has the highest maternal
mortality rate in the developed world
(a number that rises significantly for
people of color), and in addition to taking
steps to combat this disgraceful problem,
we should actually take into account the
considerable risk that comes with preg-
nancy and childbirth and the long-term
implications for those who are forced to
become moms when they’re not ready.
A study by the research group ANSIRH
(Advancing New Standards in Repro-
ductive Health) at the University of Cali-
fornia, San Francisco’s Bixby Center for
Global Reproductive Health found that
women who sought an abortion and were
denied one were more likely to live below
the federal poverty line, more likely to
stay with abusive partners, and more
likely to suffer life- threatening complica-
tions during pregnancy and birth.
64. 2 %
Percentage
of mothers in the
U.S. who brought
home at least a
quarter of household
earnings in 20170
WEEKS
Amount of
federally mandated
paid parental
leave in the U.S.70 ¢
Amount moms
earned on average
for every dollar
dads earned in 2018