The War is ON Moms, Not Between Them

To celebrate Mother's Day, Family Forward Oregon's Executive Director, Andrea Paluso, shared her thoughts in The Oregonian about the media hype around the fake "mommy wars," clarifying, instead, that if there's a war at all, it's on moms, not between them.  Read her full guest column here.

The High Cost of Child Care

I’ll never forget that first check I wrote to pay for child care.  It was so much money!  Did you know that in Oregon, child care often costs more than college tuition?  That’s right.  Full-time infant and toddler care, for example, costs an average of $10,392 a year, while college tuition averages $6,790.  And we have 18 or so years to sock money away for college!  Not so for child care, which many of us start paying for as soon as six weeks after birth.  A shocking reality for most new parents.  Read the rest.

NPR Airs Story on Working Mom Conundrum

The recent brouhaha in the national news media around Ann Romney's work as a stay-at-home mother of five has yielded some excellent commentary that - happily - reaches far behind the old "mommy wars."  Because today's mothers know that there are much more important issues at stake, ranging from the high cost of child care to lack of workplace flexibility and paid time off to care for sick family members. Plus, most of us do stints of paid and unpaid work throughout our time as mothers, so the divide is no longer relevant (if it ever was).

Take a minute (or 4) to listen to this excellent NPR story on the challenges of working mothers in the United States - it's another positive outcome of last week's hullaballoo.