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"On Sunday we took time to celebrate our own moms and all the mothers of the world. Today, let&amp;#x27;s talk about an issue that affects moms even though it&amp;#x27;s technically about dads: paternity leave. We visited the issue last month when we applauded New York Mets&amp;#x27; second baseman Daniel Murphy for taking the three days (yes, only three days) paternity leave allotted by Major League Baseball after the birth of his child, missing opening day. Several prominent sports announcers criticized him, and it wasn&amp;#x27;t OK. On the bright side, it helped contribute to a much larger conversation on the topic. This spring, President Obama will convene a White House Summit on Working Families to address issues, like paternity leave, to focus on how we can strengthen the workplace for working families, especially in an era when women have an increasingly important role as family breadwinners. While the U.S. hasn&amp;#x27;t yet reached the best solution for working moms and maternity leave, paternity leave is even further behind all over the world. As of 2012, only 81 countries offered paid paternity leave, compared to 177 that offered paid maternity leave. For many men, the only option is to take time off under the Family and Medical Leave Act, which allows either parent to take up to 12 weeks off work without losing his or her job. However, that leave is unpaid. Furthermore, as we can glean from the Daniel Murphy example, even when a man is technically entitled to leave, he doesn&amp;#x27;t always receive a lot of support for doing so. The unequal opportunities for men to take leave can lead to a wide range of problems for both men and women. To start, it sets a pattern for placing the majority of the burdens of childcare and housekeeping on mothers, even if/when they eventually return to work, while simultaneously diminishing the importance of dads and father-child bonding. And the expectation that the woman will be the one to take the majority of the time off and make further sacrifices to her career contributes to the wage gap that still exists between men and women. Not only is that unfair to working women, the notion isn&amp;#x27;t even necessarily the most financially beneficial for most American families these days. Women are nearly 50 percent of the workforce, and for 40 percent of families, women are the primary breadwinners. Plus, young women today are earning more advanced degrees than young men and as such are poised to out-earn men in the future. If that becomes the case, it will no longer be the default option for the woman to take time off while the man keeps bringing in the higher paycheck. With all that in mind, it&amp;#x27;s clear that we need this national conversation on how to make changes for American men and women so that families have a variety of options to do what works best for them, economically, emotionally, and otherwise. Whether you&amp;#x27;re a working mom or a stay-at-home mom, whether you have kids or plan to someday or don&amp;#x27;t at all, we should all be rooting for women to have every tool and equal opportunity we need to succeed. What are your thoughts on the best solutions for working moms and dads? "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.glamour.com/inspired/blogs/the-conversation/2014/05/working-families-summit-patern>