Month: July 2012

2012 National Paid Leave Summit

We were recently in Washington, DC representing Oregon at the National Summit on Paid Sick Days and Paid Family Leave, a productive event hosted by two of our strong national partners: the National Partnership for Women & Families and the team at Family Values @ Work. Read more here.

TIMBERS! Let’s watch some soccer, folks.

Now that summer’s (finally!) here, it’s a perfect time to take in a Timbers soccer game with the kids!  Don’t miss your chance to get affordable Timbers tickets while also supporting the work that Family Forward Oregon does to create smart workplace and public policies for today’s families.  The Portland Timbers have kindly offered us tickets to a Timbers “Reserve” game on Sunday, July 29th at 2 PM.  Each general admission ticket costs you just $10, and a portion of every ticket you buy goes to support our work for Oregon families.  A clear win-win.

Let’s talk about mothers & work!

We’re hosting a conversation about work and family next week in Portland and we want you to join us!  We were inspired by Anne-Marie Slaughter’s recent article in The Atlantic, “Why Women Still Can’t Have It All” (and the many, many responses to it), because she raises some important questions about mothers and work in the U.S. that we grapple with often. She also makes some very critical points about how and why our workplace and public policies aren’t in sync with today’s families.

The way we see it, our dark-age family policies  prevent too many mothers from remaining financially stable, engaging with their children, and reaching leadership positions (where we need them!). Great fodder for a hearty conversation!

Read more about the event here.

Our thoughts on Anne-Marie Slaughter’s article in The Atlantic

Anne-Marie Slaughter’s recent article in The Atlantic about the structural barriers to mothers truly succeeding (and even surviving) in the workplace, “Why Women Still Can’t Have It All,” was like a lit match touched to a fuse.  To any mother in America today, it’s obvious why: day in and day out we are forced to decide what’s more important: our work (and the financial security it brings our families) or our kids.  The result ranges from poverty and inequality to under-parented kids to a real lack of women leaders in American business and government. Keep reading here.