Advocating for Parental Leave in the US
Episode 38: Advocating for Parental Leave in the US with Raena Boston @theworkingmomtras
Parental leave, or lack thereof, can be such a stressful part of the postpartum journey for new parents. That’s why this week Rachael has guest Raena Boston, co-founder of the Chamber of Mothers, on to discuss the importance of parental leave! Raena tells us about the work her organization is doing to advocate for better policies. She also shares her personal experiences with unpaid leave and the impact it had on her mental health.
Raena highlights the barriers to passing legislation, including the lack of a strong lobby for parental care policies, and provides advice for parents balancing work and parenting.
Raena is a writer, an HR pro, and fierce advocate for parental leave which has led her to become a Co-Founder of the chamber of mothers… a collective movement all about advancing maternal rights. Raena also founded The Working Momtras, which is a community designed to help empower moms to resign from doing it all and release themselves from the pressures of mom guilt, guiding moms toward becoming more of who they already are. Raena is a space-holder, cheerleader, and conscientious connection-creator. Raena is also a mom of three!
Mentioned in this episode:
Raena’s Instagram: @theworkingmomtras
Chamber of Mother’s Instagram Page: @chamberofmothers
If you enjoyed this episode, please rate 5⭐️ and write us a review! ⬇️
✨For sleep support and resources, visit heysleepybaby.com and follow @heysleepybaby on Instagram! 😴☁️🤎✨
Rachael is a mom of 3, founder of Hey, Sleepy Baby, and the host of this podcast.
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Welcome back to the No Untold Us podcast. I'm your host Rachel, and today I'm so excited to welcome Raena Boston. Raena is a writer, an HR pro, and a fierce advocate for parental leave, which has led her to become a co -founder of the Chamber of Mothers, which is a collective movement all about advancing maternal rights. Raena also founded the Working Mom Tres, which is a community designed to help empower moms to resign from doing it all and release themselves from the pressures of mom guilt, which I know we all feel sometimes. She guides moms towards becoming more of who they already are. Raena is a spaceholder, a cheerleader, and a conscientious connection creator, and also a mom of three. So welcome to the podcast, Raena. Thank you so much for being here.
Thank you so much for having me. I'm delighted to be here. - My gosh, it's my pleasure. I love following you and all of your advocacy work, and I would love if-- before we dive into the main part of our conversation today if you could just explain a little bit about what the Chamber of Mothers is and how you first kind of started to get involved with co -founding that organization.
Yeah so the Chamber of Mothers is we are focused on uniting mothers as advocates to create a better America and our work centers around three pillars so securing federal paid family leave affordable and accessible childcare, and improve maternal health outcomes. And we broadly define maternal health, physical health, mental health, and we know that paid leave and childcare impact our health. And so we are focused on mobilizing moms to create the change that they wanna see in this country and the state upon future generations. And you asked how I came into this work. So I have three kids, as you mentioned, with my first two, I didn't have any access to paid leave. With my first kid, I went back to work at 12 weeks postpartum, all unpaid.
Second child, I switched jobs seven months into my pregnancy. And I was one month too short to qualify for parental leave. So I ended up going back to work at six weeks postpartum. And I'm still bitter about it. And then with my third child, I knew I had access to paid leave. And I also did not know how much it was going to radicalize me. So my daughter was born in October of 2021. And, you know, believe it or not, when people don't lose access to pay and they know that they're going to have almost six months off paid, the mental health things are less mental healthy.
I mean, like they're not as bad. And so I had in the past experience postpartum depression and or anxiety. And with her birth in my leave, I didn't experience any of that. It just was a huge change. And I think just, you know, was so couldn't believe the difference. One, but two, the backdrop of the time was Build Back Better was about to be voted on. And so within Build Back Better, there was paid parental, paid family leave, paid sick leave, all of it for 12 weeks. And I just remember being so proud to be an American that we were finally going to get it right. And I watched to go from 12 weeks to four weeks to zero weeks and I got really pissed off so my daughter was a couple weeks old…. and I You know would see on Twitter that journalists were looking to talk to people and I like typed to news hour and just was like Ready to talk about my experience and the difference that paid leave had in my life.
And at the same time a lot of other people were pissed off about this a lot of other moms. And so I think I saw Lauren Smith Brody, who wrote the fifth trimester, talk about, you know, we're going to do something. We don't know if it's a strike, we don't know if it's a union, we don't know what it is, we're going to do something. And I just was like, whatever it is, I'm in. And I didn't know her very well. We followed each other, but I just really was very adamant that I wanted to be involved. And so, we came together to form the Chamber of Mothers, and the Chamber of Commerce is the biggest blocker of paid leave. They have it on their job killer list. When the data actually shows that it improves retention, it is good for business and it's good for people.
Right. And families. Right.
Right. - And so Daphne Delbeau, who is the mama attorney on Instagram said, Where's the Chamber of Mothers? And that was that. And so we formed overnight, we had 10 ,000 followers, and we were being covered by parents and self and groups like paid leave US and paid leave for all were tapping us to reach out to our communities to get moms who could talk to their lawmakers about why they wanted them to pass this. And that's what we've done really well is we are all very close to the everyday mom. And we decided at the end of 2021, we knew that it wasn't going to be passed, but we felt like we had captured lightning in a bottle and moms were saying what's next.
And so we became a 5 -0 -1 -3 -2 and we've been carrying this work forward.
I love it. And so with the Chamber of Mothers, what are your main kind of like initiatives right now that you're kind of working towards?
Yeah, so I mentioned our three pillars. So paid family leave, affordable and accessible child care and improved maternal health. So we lobby at the federal level. We are a pro bono client of Crowland Moring and they are our governmental affairs firm. So we do fly -ins, we go to DC, we talk to lawmakers. So that's one way federal advocacy.
We do grassroots mobilization through our local chapters. And so those are places that moms can come together to build competent community. And we help them advocate for this for our three pillars and get involved locally and both federally. And then the third way in which we work is narrative shifts. So we work with brands, we work with different partners to talk about this broadly, to talk about these issues broadly.
What do you think are the main kind of barriers to passing legislation that we need so badly and it seems so obvious to those of us that are not only parents, but compassionate people that care about other people. It just seems like this should have been passed long ago. Why wouldn't it be? Other countries seem to figure it out. What do you think are the main barriers?
What are we up against?
That's a really good question. And I'm trying to think of a way in which I can say this that makes sense. So leave has support, like nationally, on both sides of the aisle. People really feel that it is a good thing that we should be investing in. Some lawmakers don't see it that way. They say, how do we pay for it? And that's the main thing. How do we pay for it? I mean, there's a lot of ways in which it could be paid for. But I think the biggest thing is, by and large, parents don't have a lobby. There's nobody that's lobbying super hard for care policies.
And that's what we're aiming to solve with the Chamber of Mothers is showing these lawmakers, showing these institutions that we are, we are watching and we will vote you out if you do not prioritize the things that will move this country forward and create a better nation in the short term and for future generations.
Yeah, we're forced to be reckoned with as moms. I don't understand why they have to make it so difficult. Have these leave policies just kind of like evolved over the years or have things stayed pretty stagnant? And then what changes do you see on the horizon? Like, is there any hope coming up? I know we are in an election year. So are there any things that you see coming down the pike that could be positive?
Yeah, so let me just start with a historical context. So we have FMLA federally. So that's the family medical leave act. And that's if you yourself are sick and you need to recover from surgery, childbirth, whatever it may be. And it's also to take care of a sick loved one. And so that is 12 weeks. It's unpaid. And it's basically just job protection. It turned 30 last year. So if FMLA turns 31, it was always designed to be a placeholder and not a precedent. And it has just stayed that way. There is no science behind the 12 weeks at all. It's just an arbitrary number.
So we all know that at 12 weeks, the dreaded sleep regression hits. And that's when we're telling parents that they should go, moms that they should go back to work.
It is like early in the worst time. I can't think of a worst time to go back to work, honestly. It's like, it's such a sick joke.
Right. And then even with that, there's people who can't afford to take the 12 weeks. And one in four women are back to work within two weeks of having a baby unimaginable because they have to
yeah I think I'm still bleeding with my first at two or three weeks or even more. Yeah, that's just insane.
Yes My co -founder Aaron Berg who's also the CEO said we can't build back bleeding when it was reduced when it was four weeks. We can't build back bleeding. We can't no and so Here's what I think is promising. This is the most attention that these care policies have been getting. And it's not like people are going to be quieter about this. This has become a part of the national conversation.
There are private companies that provide paid parental leave. That's how I had access to parental leave with my third. And... states are taking it upon themselves. I think we're up to like 13 or 14 states that have paid leave or are going to be rolling it out, have voted on it its past and they're going to be rolling it out in the next few years. So we're seeing a lot of traction on the state level as well as there are bipartisan working groups that are working to continue this federal conversation so that we can secure it for all.
And I also want to talk a little bit about the limitations of FMLA. Yeah, not everybody qualifies if in if your employer has less than 50 employees…. You don't qualify for FMLA. If you work a certain amount of miles from like the work site that could disqualify you from FMLA… there are certain things that Like loopholes that disqualify people from access to that.
Recently in the last few weeks, there's been a lot of buzz on the internet about the Kyte Baby termination. So was that part of what you're talking about with the loopholes? Because I think if I'm correct, the mom wasn't working there for a full year. Would that be something that would disqualify her?
I'm so glad that you brought that up. So yes, you also have to work for the same employer for the previous 12 months to qualify for FMLA. So I, I don't know, I don't remember, I didn't look into the exact specifics, but like, I know that everything that Kyte did with legal, even though it was wrong, right?
Yeah. And so, you know, that is, she also did not ask for leave. She wanted to work from the hospital to be near her child and that she wanted to work remotely and that was denied.
So insane. I know that caused like so much uproar and rightfully so and I think people can go on and on about cancel culture and like this is wrong and you know they didn't do anything illegal but I think overall the fact that it's maybe making some companies rethink their policies because they don't want to get dragged on the internet if something like this happens like I think it's worth it to me for this conversation to be happening on such a big scale. I mean, so many different news outlets picked it up. It was all over TikTok. It got a lot of attention.
Yeah, and I wrote about this too. What's legal is the bare minimum. Companies can always do more. Of course. They can always do more. They could choose to be better. And when they don't, it's incredibly disappointing. And when it's a company that is designed to support infants and families, to not offer that policy is just even more devastating.
Yeah, truly. We're gonna take a quick break and we'll be right back.
Raena, what advice do you have for parents who are kind of trying to do it all? They're back. work, they're parenting little ones, and they're kind of getting ready or newly in that transition back to work after leave?
This is a great question. I would say simplify as much as possible. Like, number one, remove the expectation to do it all from your shoulders. It's not possible. It's a Sisyphean task. and I think it's very important to get clear on what do you value, what matters, what has to get done, if you're a partnered, how can you get your partner involved with sharing some of that mental load.
And then at work I think that it's important to understand what type of policies exist. So some companies offer a ramp up back in. So you maybe wouldn't work full time for the first month or so. There's flexibility with remote options. I would say exploring any of those options that are going to make your life easier as you manage this transition are things to prioritize. And I also think being gentle with yourself, you know, this is a life changing thing. And I've had three kids in every time it was different and it was, you know, there's no point in which you're like, I would say a pro at this 'cause every child is different. Every birth is different. Every leave experience is different.
Totally. And so I think even just showing yourself the grace and like taking yourself off the hook from feeling like you should be further ahead or you should be better at this or you're doing it wrong because you don't feel ready at 12 weeks. Like I said before, 12 weeks is an arbitrary number, not based in any type of science and many other countries do not have people returning back to the workforce so quickly after birth.
No, I'm sure because you have a pretty large Instagram platform as well. I'm sure you hear from people in Canada and other places like in Europe all the time. I mean, I have people every time I talk about this on my Hey Sleepy Baby page, I get people from other countries that are just outraged for us. And they're flabbergasted. They're like, I cannot imagine what you guys go through having to go back to work that early. And I've been lucky where for my second two births I didn't go back to work. I started to work from home when I was on maternity leave with my middle.
But I went back to work at about four months with my first and I just remember sobbing the entire night, the night before I had to go back. It's so so hard to hand him off to a daycare provider who I barely knew. And just managing all of that, getting up at 6am to get him out the door because I was a teacher and had to be at school at 7 o 'clock. Like it's just, it's so much and and we don't have to live this way, which is the most frustrating part about it is like all these other places have figured out a way to make it work for parents.
Right, I'm right there with you. I just it's I get a lot of um… I have people that follow me from Canada, New Zealand, Australia, England, other places and they are absolutely baffled at the conditions in which we and the the ways in which we treat mothers and families.
That's really what it comes down to right is that you know, if mothers and families and infants were valued in our society, things wouldn't be this way, right? It's, I mean, when you really get down to the bottom line, it's like money is more important. Moms are not important. And it's just, it's super unfortunate. So I'm so grateful to the work that you're doing, both on the Workingmomtras and with the Chamber of Mothers. It's just like, there's nothing more important than that.
Thank you.
And I think -- No, no, you go ahead. I think that our society has moms internalize and individualize institutional failures. And so a lot of moms think that there's something wrong with them. And then they're also gaslit by being told they're superheroes and that this is the greatest job on earth in all of these things. But really it's just a scam. It is a scam that is designed to Disconnect moms from what they know in their heart is not right and unjust and it really forces moms to like I said before Individualized institutional failures.
There's nothing wrong with you if you don't feel like you're ready to go back to work. There's nothing, you know, I feel like depression or anxiety is a reasonable response to being without pay for 12 weeks.
100 % oh my god.
And so there's nothing wrong with you if you're not broken the system is broken.
Absolutely. Yeah, that's so important to keep in mind because I know that You know like we said earlier going back to work at 12 weeks or whatever it is even earlier…. There's you know sleep is completely going off the rails. Your breastfeeding journey if you decide to breastfeed is barely, you know, kind of getting to a place where it might feel manageable for you and then you're having to, you know, learn how to pump and dealing with all of those restrictions and rules about pumping at work and it's just so much and then on top of all of that, like you're having to leave your little baby and you might not feel ready, you might not feel great about the childcare that you are getting because that is another huge issue is that the child care choices and options and the cost of child care in this country is also just a hot mess.
So yeah, it's really hard. I'm so glad that you brought that up that, you know, we can't take this on ourselves is like, why can't I handle this? I should be able to handle this. All these other moms do it and we shouldn't have to be handling this, right?
Right, we should not have to be handling this. I also like like will tell people it is so ridiculous that me a mom of three with a full -time job should have to beg, plead, harass, take on another unpaid job with Chamber of Mothers in order to get us the things that we need.
Like and just the bare minimum.
It's just unreal to me that this is something that I like and I will do it because I don't want anybody to experience what I did with my first two leaves.
Yeah, I would, I would love for you to talk a little bit more about that. So what was, what were the circumstances around your first two leaves? How old is your oldest? So this was how long ago?
So my oldest son is eight. He was born in 2015. And like, this is also something that encourages me. So for between 2015 and now, when I had a baby in 2015, it was like, unrealistic to talk about like it was like, oh, yeah Would be nice to have but like don't bet on it. And now we've gotten to a point in our society where we are or Nation our country that moms are talking about that this is deeply screwed up and deeply unfair and that there are real repercussions to Not only us personally, but the economy.
Yeah we are have set up our society in such a way and we really like there has been a big change in those eight years about how this has been in this conversation has been normalized how companies are offering it how state more and more states are offering it. So with my first son I was working as a campus recruiter for a higher education institution and there was no paid leave whatsoever, but I scrimped and did whatever I could to be off that 12 weeks and we took a big financial hit and that was a huge stressor. And I also tell people that I remember taking that postpartum screening at my midwives office.
And I remember feeling like I couldn't answer honestly because I did not have time to be depressed.
Can't deal with that.
And I didn't have time to be anxious. I did not want to be a burden on my family after I'd already felt like I had been a burden for not having any income for 12 weeks. And so I lied and I was not okay. And then with my second child, he was born in 2017. My boys are 20 months apart.
Wow.
And I... decided to, like I had been working it, like I've moved to another job and it was not a good fit. And, you know, a lot of life happened, my dad passed away in 2016, like there was just a lot of things that happened. So anyway, I started working back in higher ed again. And then my next door neighbor was like, Hey, come work at my company. And at this point, I'm like seven months pregnant. I'm like, Oh, who's going to hire me in this condition? She's just like, no, absolutely, like, just apply. And I did and I got the job and I was very excited.
And I also knew I was going to be cutting it very close to qualify for any paid family leave, even though my company offered it. And I was one month too short. So I went back at six weeks. I just feel like it went so fast that I didn't even like have time to process. it. And it's only been in like the recent months that like I really have been grieving that time. And I am really angry about the fact that I did not have an adequate amount of time with him.
Yeah.
And, you know, I'm deeply like, it really does upset me like every time I think about it, like, yeah, I'm really mad about this. I'm really upset about this this really like still hurts me six years later. I Also went back. I live in Florida. And so we were in hurricane season and We had a hurricane that was projected to hit our area and so While it did not hit us directly. We had impacts from the storm and lost power….. So all 100 ounces of milk that had pumped on that six no break too was destroyed.
Oh my god. And so like that's another thing that makes me like so mad.
Did that just send you completely over the edge?
I think so. I don't think that like you know I talked to my older sister or talked to my mom and like people would like they would be like you just pump some more like they didn't get like how that it was also wrapped up in the fact that like I was grieving that time. And so it was just like one more thing.
Oh my god, that's crushing.
And so yeah, in 2021, I got pregnant with my third and final kid. And I knew that I was going to have an adequate leave, like I knew that I was going to have time off with her. And so I ended up having about five and a half months, almost six months. And then I also have a like phase return where I worked three days a week for the first month. And then I was off for two days. So like it was a nice like ramp like back in with her. Like I was saying, I felt no depression, no anxiety. I breastfed all three of my kids. And I also combo fed all three of my kids. But the biggest difference was I had time.
So like I had time to establish that relationship. And so my daughter nursed until she was 19 months. And like, that's another thing that I think about. Like there's a lot of people who are like lack of this online and they are, you know, anti formula, so on and so forth, whatever. And like I said, I combo fed all three of my kids. But the biggest, the best thing that you could do to advocate for that is push hard as hell for paid leave because time is what you need in order to establish the breastfeeding relationship. Like time, you need time. You need to not be stressed. Yeah, you need to not, like you need to have time to not be... trying to pump and do all the like you just need time with your baby, your baby on your body.
Yeah. It's so true. Yeah. It's so true. We're going to take a quick break. And when we come back, I want to find out what is something that no one told you before becoming a parent. And I want to ask about how people can get involved with Chamber of Mothers. We'll be right back.
So Raena at the top of the episode you said something that really resonated with me Which was that motherhood Radicalized you and I feel the same way and I feel like a lot of our listeners probably feel the same way because we just want a Better country a better society a better world for not only ourselves, but to leave for our kids. And so I love that you've started these communities, both with the Workingmomtras and with Chamber of Mothers and your advocacy work there. If other moms or dads that are listening also feel radicalized by parenthood, how can they get involved? What is like an easy entry point because we're all busy, we all have little kids. It's not easy to find the time for something extra. So what's a good way to just kind of start with getting involved with something like this?
I think a good way to start getting involved is know who your reps are and where they stand on the issues. So you could even type in your reps name in childcare or paid leave and see if anything comes up. Look on their website and see if they've signed on to anything.
Yeah.
I think knowing that is so important, especially as we're in those times. election year and there's going to be down ballot things happening. That was the time to be pushing these people on those issues, so calling, emailing, tweeting, Instagram, whatever, about, "Hey, where do you stand on this? Hey, I'd like for you to sign on to this," that kind of thing. I think that's one easy way.
Another thing is the Chamber of Mothers, we're always talking about our three pillars. So we're talking about news, we're talking about action items, we are very plugged into our coalition partners and the things that they are working on. And that's a great way to just get bite -sized, digestible things that you can see, just be aware of. And from there, we have a newsletter, we have local chapters.
So we're rolling out more local chapters. And so go to our website, sign up for our email list, and look for ways to get involved.
I would love to help with a San Francisco chapter, if that's ever an option. San Francisco is begging for a chapter. We are working on it.
Okay, good. Let me know how I can help, because I would love to. Before we wrap up, what is something, I ask this of all parents that come on the podcast, what is something that no one told you before becoming a parent? that you really wish they had? Like what is something that you just felt completely unprepared for that just came completely out of left field?
I think that I would be different. I would change, my values would change, and that I really needed to make space for who I would be on the other side. And it's not necessarily a loss of identity, but a shift of identity. So like before, I would you know like always want the next promotion or the next thing and now it's more like does this align with the life that I want to lead?
Do I actually want this promotion or do I want what it says about me? Like I or like I really feel like my kids have brought me closer to myself and allowed me to stay close to who I am as I'm evolving and they've like when you become a mom you just don't have time. So I don't have time to want to be somebody else. I don't have time to try and like be a quote -unquote good mom or whatever that means like… I can be my own definition of a good mom like I don't have to keep chasing these tropes or ideas of what that is because the goal post is always moving.
So true yeah I love that I think so many people before they have kids, say that they're gonna cling to their identity, like their kid's not gonna change them, their kid's just gonna fold into their life, and I always just kind of chuckle inside when people say stuff like that, 'cause of course you're gonna change, and it's not a bad thing. But like you said, it's more of just an evolving and a shifting, and that's all okay.
It's all okay. It's all okay.
Raena, where can listeners connect with you and find your... valuable resources and follow you in all of that stuff?
Yeah, so I'm @theworkingmomtras on Instagram and my website is just theworkingmomtras .com, Chamber of Mothers as well. So Chamber of Mothers is our Instagram handle as well as our website, chamberofmothers .com. Those are the best places to find me and I have a pretty dormant TikTok because I'm an elder millennial and I just am unable to can right now but I'm trying to hide myself.
TikTok is a lot it's a whole different animal it's yeah yeah you have to kind of go all in on TikTok and it's kind of exhausting.
Great like I don't have all in left.
No you can only all in on so many things and you're doing a lot.
Thank you so much Raena for joining us today have a great rest of your day.
Thank you. Thank you for having me.
