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A. About the same time that my first child was born, one of my sisters had her first baby. She was teaching at a secondary school in Manchester, England. I was astounded when she told me that she had seven months' maternity leave at full pay. I thought she must live in an enlightened place. But when I looked into it, I discovered that it was the U.S., not Manchester, that was out of step with the rest of the world.
Q. What accounts for that difference?
A. In the U.S. we have confused equal rights with identical treatment, ignoring the realities of family life. After all, only women can bear children. And in this country, women must still carry most of the burden of raising them. We think that we are being fair to everyone by stressing identical opportunities, but in fact we are punishing women and children.
Q. In what ways?
( A. Working women pay a steep price for motherhood. Look what happens: if you take a 27-year-old American woman right now, she is doing very well. Whether she is a lawyer or a bus driver, she is earning almost 90% of the male wage. But the same woman at 35, with two children, working full time, is earning 46% of the male wage.
Take a Frenchwoman, age 27: she's earning 75% of the male wage. She is not doing as well as her American counterpart because she does not have the same opportunities. But take her at 35, with two children, working full time, and guess what? She's still earning 75% of the male wage. She isn't losing ground. And that is because of the extraordinary investment France has made in preschool, maternity leave and other family supports. She does not have to quit her job when her children are small or limit herself to simple jobs close to home. She does not lose seniority and career momentum.
Q. Can we afford to match those programs?
A. Good family policy is cost effective. The confusion and stress and emotional deprivation in the home are robbing our children of the chance to succeed. We are facing a growing labor shortage in this country. Yet because of the rising skill demands of the workplace, many of our dropouts are simply unemployable. A technology-based economy cannot absorb workers who are not literate and who lack rudimentary mathematical skills.
Q. Aren't you describing mostly the inner-city poor?
A. No. As tragic as their situation is, the problems afflict middle-class children as well. Even high school graduates are coming up short in meeting the demands of the workplace. Chemical Bank has reported that it must interview 40 high school graduates to find one person who can be trained to become a teller. All they are seeking is eighth-grade-level skills, and they cannot find them in most high school graduates.
Q. Beyond parenting leave, what do you think we need to do?