EP77: How To Be A Better Ally To Working Moms

Interview with Reshma Saujani / Advocate For Women and Girls

HOSTED BY PAUL SULLIVAN

Reshma Saujani is an amazing force for working parents, an advocate for girls and a thinker on work today. She founded the nonprofit Girls Who Code, which worked to close the tech gap for women by teaching girls to be programmers. In the pandemic, she started a second nonprofit called the Marshall Plan for Moms, now known as Moms First. It advocates for child care, paid leave, and equal pay. Want to know what Lead Dads can do to support Working Moms at home and at work? Listen in.

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Transcript

00;00;05;08 - 00;00;25;05
Paul Sullivan
Welcome to the Company of Dads podcast, where we explore the sweet, silly, strange and sublime aspects of being a dad in a world where men who are the go to parent aren't always accepted at work, among their friends, or in the community for what they're doing. I'm your host, Paul Sullivan. Our podcast is just one of the many things we produce each week at the Company of Dads.

00;00;25;06 - 00;00;48;17
Paul Sullivan
We have various features, including the lead dad of the week. We have our community online and in person. We have a new resource library for all fathers. The one stop shop for all of this is our newsletter. The dad to sign up at the company of dads.com backslash. The dad. Today my guest is Reshma Saujani. An amazing force for working parents, an advocate for girls, and a thinker on work today.

00;00;48;20 - 00;01;11;25
Paul Sullivan
A lawyer by training, she worked in finance, ran for Congress and served as a deputy public advocate for New York City. But ten years ago, her career took a turn and she founded the nonprofit Girls Who Code, which worked to close the gap for women by teaching girls to be programmers. In the pandemic, she started a second nonprofit, The Marshall Plan for moms, now known as Moms First.

00;01;11;28 - 00;01;30;16
Paul Sullivan
It advocates for childcare, paid leave and equal pay for moms. While we at the company dads are focused on lead dads, we know that the majority of them are supporting their own spouses at home and in their careers, and also being advocates for women at work. What Reshma is doing is in line exactly with what we're advocating for.

00;01;30;19 - 00;01;33;03
Paul Sullivan
Welcome, Reshma, to the company Dads podcast.

00;01;33;05 - 00;01;35;19
Reshma Saujani
Great to be here, Paul. Thank you.

00;01;35;21 - 00;01;56;26
Paul Sullivan
You know, the idea for the Company of Dads, came out of the pandemic and quite happy being a New York Times columnist. But I'd always been the lead dad, which which we define as the go to parent, whether he works full time, part time or devotes all of his time to his family, in many cases, he's supporting his spouse in in her career.

00;01;56;27 - 00;02;17;25
Paul Sullivan
Now we know there's some portion of the dads who are divorced, widowed are single. But but the majority of our constituents are. Are men supporting a partner? During you didn't just get the idea for moms first, you know, formerly known as the Marshall Plan and we didn't get the idea in the pandemic. You started it in December, and, you know, so people know where you are.

00;02;17;26 - 00;02;35;05
Paul Sullivan
You're in New York City, New York City, the city the epicenter of the pandemic. You're sitting around, all hell is breaking loose. You're like, you know what? Let's start another nonprofit. Tell me the story. How did it what was what was the kernel? That that led to what's now being called moms for.

00;02;35;07 - 00;02;44;08
Reshma Saujani
You and I may have had similar epiphanies. I was a mom. You know, I just had a newborn child, and I was already homeschooling my five year old. I was running.

00;02;44;08 - 00;02;48;25
Paul Sullivan
Not so much fun, wasn't it? So much fun? You and the iPad. Because you're qualified to do that.

00;02;48;25 - 00;03;12;01
Reshma Saujani
So while I was, like, trying to do work calls and like, you know, keep my family alive and, like, do some laundry. And so here I am, you know, have a newborn baby. You know, I am taking care of our homeschooling, my, you know, pre-K gardener. And I'm trying to save my nonprofit, Girls Cry, which is one of the largest women and girls nonprofits in the world for being shut down.

00;03;12;01 - 00;03;33;14
Reshma Saujani
And it's the pandemic. And and there are two things I thought that moment. I think we're eye openers. One was so many of the students I taught at Girls Who Code were under the poverty line, and their mothers were essential workers, and instead of them going off to college and majoring in computer science, they had to stay home and take care of their siblings because daycare centers were shut down and schools were shut down.

00;03;33;16 - 00;03;52;11
Reshma Saujani
And so you really saw how and because we were the only nation that doesn't have paid leave, right? Like we have a broken structure of care in our country, and that is actually causing this two generational cycle of poverty to happen amongst women. I, I really I knew this was happening in other countries, but I didn't know it was happening here.

00;03;52;11 - 00;04;19;20
Reshma Saujani
And so seeing that was like this light bulb, like I can teach millions of girls of color, but if I don't help their mothers, I haven't done anything. And then the second thing was just, again, seeing my own leadership team, which were a lot of working moms, of young children, and how, again, like, we never really had a shot at equality because we were always bogged down by the unpaid by balancing the unpaid labor that we were doing with the paid labor doing.

00;04;19;20 - 00;04;42;00
Reshma Saujani
And it was clear that, you know, what was happening. The pandemic didn't start the pandemic. It's been going on the whole time because the status quo workplaces have never worked for moms. You know, we're the only industrialized nation that doesn't have paid leave. You know, we invest less and childcare than any other nation or industrialized nation. Your moms make $0.58 on every dollar earned by dad.

00;04;42;07 - 00;05;04;03
Reshma Saujani
Two thirds of the caregiving work is being done by women. You know, in many ways, we're still living in, you know, in the mad man era, you know, in terms of how workplaces are really designed, even though so many mothers, I think 40% plus they are the sole breadwinner or are in, you know, families like yours where the lead parent is a dad.

00;05;04;05 - 00;05;23;15
Reshma Saujani
So to me, it was very clear that like, again, like we're never going to finish the fight for gender equality if we don't finish the fight for moms. And that is what inspired me to step down as CEO of Grocer Co and start another organization, which was never the plan. Because the first one nearly killed me. You know, in building that one.

00;05;23;17 - 00;05;34;20
Reshma Saujani
But here I am now, you know, building moms first to advocate for childcare, paid leave and pay equity. You know, real structural changes that are necessary to ensure the economic security of women.

00;05;34;23 - 00;05;53;24
Paul Sullivan
You know, one of the things we advocate for at the company of dad is sort of parity and fairness in the workplace. If I understand correctly, you're going more at it, in a broader, almost systemic way where you, you know, I get your newsletter. I like it very much, but you're going more the political right. Is that fair to say in, in Congress?

00;05;53;26 - 00;06;17;10
Reshma Saujani
No, I would I would say that what we're really trying to do is focus on changing the private sector first. I think as a, you know, field politician, I don't have a lot of faith, that Washington is going to get there as quick as it needs to. Know, we just launched a bipartisan childcare caucus with, you know, Nancy Mace and Rebecca.

00;06;17;12 - 00;06;37;25
Reshma Saujani
So there are like inklings of support, meaning like if if there's ever a moment where childcare could actually be fixed, it's now because I think whether you're a Republican or a Democrat and you're hearing from your constituents, is that the cost of childcare is going up faster than the cost of inflation. It's the largest cost center for families.

00;06;37;25 - 00;06;57;07
Reshma Saujani
You know, so many women work to work. So like, there needs to be a bipartisan, you know, across the aisle initiative to really bring about change. But while we are I mean, you just got to look at the debt crisis right now to be like, you know, how how quickly is this really going to happen? You know, while I'm like, again, you know, not holding my breath.

00;06;57;09 - 00;07;17;12
Reshma Saujani
I think that we're there's change that can really happen. I think you'll agree with me, is in the private sector. So at the same time, we've launched about a year ago the National Business Coalition on Childcare, because I believe that companies are incentivized in many ways to fix the broken structure of care because they too are seeing that.

00;07;17;12 - 00;07;38;25
Reshma Saujani
So many of their workers are not able to return back to work or not able to, you know, leave. Have, you know, missed work days. You know, they don't they're not able to like, stay for more than 18 months because childcare is broken. So we have 40 plus companies that have agreed to provide some sort of childcare supports.

00;07;38;27 - 00;07;58;02
Reshma Saujani
And start kind of changing the narrative around childcare. That's not it's not a personal problem that you or I have to fix, but an economic imperative. And the next on that list, honestly, is also gender neutral paid leave you. And I'm sure you're not surprised how many well known companies still don't offer gender neutral paid leave.

00;07;58;02 - 00;08;03;08
Reshma Saujani
And what I mean by that is they offer moms 12 weeks and they offer dads four weeks. Well, what message are we sending that?

00;08;03;11 - 00;08;17;04
Paul Sullivan
Well, I think even even more that they could offer exactly the same amount. But if they don't have senior executives in the firm, models that behavior, the junior executive is never going to take four weeks, 12 weeks, 20 weeks.

00;08;17;06 - 00;08;35;08
Reshma Saujani
Absolutely. And we know very prominent CEOs kind of march around the trading floor and gaslight men who are taking it. So there's a culture that exists, right, that disincentivize men, you know, to to to basically take on those risks. People have to say, me, what do you do about the dads? I'm like, the dads are with me. They're not my problem.

00;08;35;08 - 00;08;45;13
Reshma Saujani
Like they want the same world that I want. It's just we live in a culture. We actually don't give men the opportunity to actually care equally.

00;08;45;15 - 00;09;04;15
Paul Sullivan
And I'd also argue that so many CEOs of the, you know, household name companies suffer from confirmation bias. They got to be the CEO, to a certain path, and they expect other people to do that, even even ones that we admire you. I mean, you mentioned, you know, the debt ceiling crisis that we're going through now is as we're talking, you know, Jamie Dimon always comes in front and center.

00;09;04;15 - 00;09;26;23
Paul Sullivan
I've interviewed Jamie several times, and I was at The New York Times. But I look at what he's doing now and he's, you know, ordering all managing directors back in the office and saying he wants in there five days a week, and he wants them to be available, to have impromptu meetings with junior colleagues. And I think to myself, that's total nonsense, because pre-pandemic, those managing directors, if they're in the office or losers, they they should have been there traveling all over the place.

00;09;26;23 - 00;09;53;25
Paul Sullivan
They weren't getting promoted. They're traveling everywhere to clients. And which one of them is, is meeting, you know, impromptu with with the junior plate. It just doesn't happen. But my bigger concern is what it's actually doing is perpetuating this example that the only way you can get ahead is by, you know, being in the office. And if you're not in the office, whether you're a man or a woman, there are plenty of, you know, the asset management division, Chase, they're both run by senior female executives.

00;09;53;27 - 00;10;10;12
Paul Sullivan
But if you're not in the office, you can't do it. How do we work to change that, that narrative and show that, you know, there are plenty of 20 somethings and 30 somethings and 40 somethings who have found a way to work quite productively while while still being, you know, care givers and human beings.

00;10;10;14 - 00;10;27;12
Reshma Saujani
Well, I think that you need to have a movement of men who are at JP Morgan standing up and saying, wait a minute here, like, I know, I think right now, if we're going to retain women and if we're going to have a goal of having, you know, half of our managing directors be female, the vast majority of them are going to become mothers.

00;10;27;15 - 00;10;47;16
Reshma Saujani
And so that period of time, I would argue, especially between 0 and 10, zero and eight, you need that flexibility and that and the evidence to show the data has shown that, like offering flexibility, offering the ability to work remotely does not decrease productivity. So this isn't about productivity. It's not about outputs. It's not about how many widgets we're creating.

00;10;47;24 - 00;11;07;21
Reshma Saujani
Right. It's really about the way we've done things in a an attachment to the way that it's been that has always disincentivize women. You know, I just gave the commencement speech at Yale Law School last week, and there's no better example of this than the law firms. You know, basically, for the past 20 years, you've had more women graduate from law schools than men.

00;11;07;23 - 00;11;29;03
Reshma Saujani
You know, most, you know, incoming classes at these major law firms, right? Have more women than men. But you invariably, you know, in that 56 years see that drop off. And it's because women choose to have children and it's not because they want to stay home. They want to work. Yeah, but there's no path for them because you're expected to be always in the office, always on, always available.

00;11;29;05 - 00;11;49;10
Reshma Saujani
And when you are caregiving and caretaking, especially for a young child, it's not possible. Right. And so and we know that and we and so that's what I think is very frustrating about this and and got, you know, God blessed us with it with the things with an opportunity for the past two years to say, let's just let's give you a test to see how it's going to go.

00;11;49;11 - 00;12;21;00
Reshma Saujani
And it went great. So all right, the market was thriving right. There was massive. I mean, the fed did a study showing remote work basically enhances productivity. Yes. But still. Right. We have this cultural bias. And and I do think it is it is I always it's so funny you mentioned Jamie Dimon. I always say he's my target and meaning like he's the guy that I want to be my poster child for moms first.

00;12;21;03 - 00;12;24;13
Reshma Saujani
Right? Because we because if he he if he doesn't about-face me.

00;12;24;14 - 00;12;29;25
Paul Sullivan
Like one of those like old western most wanted type posters with no matter what are we talking about?

00;12;29;25 - 00;12;41;06
Reshma Saujani
You know what I mean by that is I want him to be on stage with me being like, yes, we need to support remote work and flexibility if we want to basically have gender equality. I mean, if we want equity like and and I was wrong.

00;12;41;09 - 00;12;41;23
Paul Sullivan
Yeah.

00;12;41;25 - 00;12;52;26
Reshma Saujani
Right. Like we need that like we need. And he's a great example of some of that people really look up to it, admire and in many ways shifted. Right. The entire landscape.

00;12;52;29 - 00;12;57;23
Paul Sullivan
Yeah. I mean, he almost gives cover to two CEOs at lesser firms say, well, it's Jamie Dimon.

00;12;57;25 - 00;13;01;13
Reshma Saujani
Elon Musk talking how it's a moral hazard. Like, what are you talking about.

00;13;01;15 - 00;13;16;28
Paul Sullivan
Yeah I tell the story that my my middle daughter, her best friend, both of her parents are oncologist at Memorial Sloan Kettering. And the dad is actually curing cancer. He's trying to cure this form of cancer. And during the pandemic, he started working from home because he could run all of his trials, run all of his labs from home.

00;13;16;28 - 00;13;37;27
Paul Sullivan
And I said, this man who is curing cancer, trying to cure cancer, is able to to to be involved in his son's life and his daughter's life. Anybody who works in financial services can certainly, be more involved in caregiving. Yeah. But let's back up a second, because we're talking about, you know, white collar knowledge workers who, you know, should be able to work, wherever they want.

00;13;37;27 - 00;14;00;17
Paul Sullivan
You started, you know, moms first, you know, then call the Marshall plans for moms thinking about, you know, those moms of the girls that you were bringing through, you know, girls who code, you know, moms who were, you know, as you said, essential workers, frontline workers doing the types of jobs that you can't do from, you know, your apartment in New York or my home in, in in Connecticut.

00;14;00;19 - 00;14;13;00
Paul Sullivan
How do we, you know, help them and how do we make sure that there isn't in a greater equity for white collar workers? But, you know, hourly wage workers and blue collar workers lose out in this? Yeah.

00;14;13;00 - 00;14;34;23
Reshma Saujani
Because so many of these parents over the past few years have gotten fired because of childcare disruption, because for them, it's also about the fact of that if you work for a small business or if you work in a factory and your kid is sick, you know, or you're your daycare center shut down that day because there's a Covid, you know, epidemic, and you can't go to work for many of them, they get fired.

00;14;34;25 - 00;15;08;18
Reshma Saujani
Right. And so like to me, it's it's even it's it's creating opportunities. One, I think to make sure that we recognize that like childcare disruptions are invariably for women. It's a, it's a childcare and and basically the necessity of work. And so we have to kind of change the culture around that and, and offer flexibility. You know, if a parent is late or can't show up because they have a caregiving responsibility, and that needs to be a shift, you know, and you're then you're seeing companies like Walmart, I think, do really innovative things.

00;15;08;18 - 00;15;28;10
Reshma Saujani
I mean, one of the big things when you talk to salaried workers is that they basically imagine you're you're you're working, you know, in retail at a store and you show up for your shift and your shifts been canceled, and you have a child and you've already hired a babysitter, but you're now out money, right? And so even Walmart created an app that allowed people to kind of shift schedules with one another.

00;15;28;10 - 00;15;50;17
Reshma Saujani
So you can have more predictability, right? Because that is what hourly workers want. They need predictability in the way that salary workers need flexibility. So again, how are we changing and shifting the system to make it possible, right, for everyone to be able to both be a caretaker and be able to put food on the table?

00;15;50;19 - 00;16;09;07
Paul Sullivan
You know, one of the things we've advocated for, that was well received is something that we call care days, and they're apart from sick days or apart from personal days, they're sure as hell not vacation days. But essentially the care emergency comes up. You can take a care day, and it's a light lift, for companies that lifts a heavy burden off of families.

00;16;09;07 - 00;16;31;03
Paul Sullivan
But again, you know, I see it working fairly easily with salaried workers. When I've talked to, you know, crews, I is one gigantic, health company that everybody knows if is an off the record conversation said, look, it's pretty easy for us to figure out, you know, a caregiving plan for our salaried workers, because if one is out, somebody else can fill in.

00;16;31;03 - 00;16;54;12
Paul Sullivan
But for our hourly workers, if we give them those same benefits, we're paying double. We're essentially paying for that person to have that time off, to be a mom or dad, to be human. But we have to pay twice because we have to replace it. How do we get past, you know, something like that, like the economic reality of a company that would like to do the right thing but is stymied by, what it sees as the cost?

00;16;54;14 - 00;17;11;07
Reshma Saujani
I think the reality is we have to do the math. We there's enough data on this. And so one of the things that we're doing with our National Business Coalition for childcare is we're actually tracking the cost savings, you know, of offering childcare subsidies in workers who don't miss as much work, you know, on lower rates of attrition.

00;17;11;09 - 00;17;31;06
Reshma Saujani
And I think when you'll do the math right, you'll figure out that actually, it's it behooves you to offer these types of benefits. When you offer that worker a care day, you know, instead of leaving in less than 12 months. Right. She's going to basically leave, you know, in four years because you've offered her you've care for her family.

00;17;31;09 - 00;17;58;26
Reshma Saujani
You know, the cost of replacing a single employee on average is 20% of an an annual salary. It's really expensive. And part of what's happening right now, it's funny, I was I was talking to someone about this yesterday and we're saying like in this moment where, you know, you know, in the economy, you're having layoffs. There's like less of an incentive in, in thinking about how do you retain somebody or what type of benefits that you should be offering because you feel like employers feel like that's a buyer's market?

00;17;58;26 - 00;18;23;02
Reshma Saujani
I can do whatever I want, you know, and and it's going and and before that it was, you know, I'm, I'm a moment where people were quitting all the time. Right. And like, so that point is, is that things ebb and shift. And if you are a smart employer, you're going to recognize that and you're going to say, I want to create an environment where I can actually retain people as long as I possibly can, because talent is hard to get and it's expensive to replace.

00;18;23;04 - 00;18;41;03
Reshma Saujani
And what are the benefits here? I mean, what that I can offer to basically make that happen. And invariably we'll, as we've done our own kind of studies, is childcare. It's paid leave. Yeah. People care about how you take care of them. Their families, how you value them. And that matters to people.

00;18;41;06 - 00;19;06;19
Paul Sullivan
When you say, I'm, I'm wired to be an optimistic guy and a hopeful guy. When you look past, you know, back on the past, you know, three years, almost three years, what do you see as some signposts to to progress ism, some indicators that, you know, even if we're taking a step back every so often that we're genuinely moving forward when it comes to caregiving for both working moms and and working dads.

00;19;06;21 - 00;19;24;19
Reshma Saujani
Well, I think we've taken the conversation from the margins to the mainstream. Yeah. You know, the fact that we've launched a national business coalition on childcare and that we have 40 plus companies and we're doing, you know, pretty big events, you know, with pretty big leaders in the government in across the country, in the world means the conversation is expanding.

00;19;24;19 - 00;19;48;22
Reshma Saujani
You know, I'm leading the care council for Davos again, which is a sign you I mean, that business leaders are I know that they have to have this comment that the care crisis basically is a huge innovation issue. And that we need to basically think about what real solutions are with the fact that we were able to launch a bipartisan childcare coalition, you know, with Republicans and Democrats showing that there are people who want to work together to figure out how to fix this, I think are all good.

00;19;48;22 - 00;20;10;10
Reshma Saujani
Bellwethers the fact that our community of moms and moms was worth 750,000 moms, almost at a million shows that like even though this is something we've all and not just moms and moms and allies. Yeah, shows that like this is not something that, you know, these problems are not new, but the sense of that, like, I'm mad about it and I'm hopeful that we can do something about it.

00;20;10;12 - 00;20;11;17
Reshma Saujani
Pass me the ball.

00;20;11;19 - 00;20;14;10
Paul Sullivan
Right as opposed to I'm mad about it and I'm just going to accept it.

00;20;14;16 - 00;20;32;13
Reshma Saujani
And I'm just going to I'm going to complaint. And, you know, it's funny and it's so funny, Paul, because like, as I've been, I've gone around the country, I'm having dinners. I'm like talking to people about it. And it was a very senior woman in, in in finance been, you know, rush, when you first came talk to when you left, I was like, what is she talking about?

00;20;32;15 - 00;20;57;12
Reshma Saujani
And then I was sitting in the shower and I was like, oh, because often times these are conversations that we've had a girl with our girlfriends during drinks. Right? And now that has taken it from the up, the private conversations we've been having to a conversation in the public arena about what is possible. And so it's just taking a minute for people to get their head around that.

00;20;57;19 - 00;21;19;10
Reshma Saujani
In many ways it's like climate, right? 30 years ago when you said to people, we have to recycle like you're crazy, that's too expensive. I'm not going to do that now. It's like, because we've figured out that it is an economic issue. You know, the the growing bit, you know, the entire kind of industry on care is massive, you know, fantastic.

00;21;19;17 - 00;21;44;06
Reshma Saujani
And what's going to be happening in companies that are figuring out how to disrupt childcare. You mean how to disrupt you? I mean how to help companies offer these kinds of benefits, package them to I mean, it's happening, right? And there's real cost savings, you know, around a lot of these policies and it's going to allow us to get to, I think, a fully functioning, you know, workforce that is able to function in its fullest capacity.

00;21;44;10 - 00;21;50;07
Reshma Saujani
We we leave far too much talent sitting around you know, sitting around the table.

00;21;50;09 - 00;21;50;15
Paul Sullivan
Because.

00;21;50;21 - 00;21;52;22
Reshma Saujani
Refusing to solve this problem.

00;21;52;24 - 00;22;20;24
Paul Sullivan
You know, a couple months ago we had, Congressman Jimmy Gomez on our podcast. And for listeners, he is a congressman from Los Angeles who famously, voted with his son Hodge, sort of strapped to him in a little baby bhajan. And, and I'm sure, you know, this very restaurant, but, you know, it wasn't a stunt. It was a practical thing that he had to do because his wife at the time was a deputy mayor of Los Angeles, and the election of the speaker of the House took so damn long that she had to fly home.

00;22;20;24 - 00;22;39;28
Paul Sullivan
She had to go back to work, you know, as people do their to, you know, general income, working family. And he took Hodge onto the floor and vote again. And, you know, there are a couple other congressmen had their kids and it was a sweet moment. And it led to him being, you know, really elevating his own status and being one of the founders of the congressional dads, you know, caucus.

00;22;39;28 - 00;22;44;03
Paul Sullivan
But he was very humble about it. He got a lot of credit for doing something that if.

00;22;44;08 - 00;22;45;01
Reshma Saujani
We do all the time.

00;22;45;01 - 00;23;11;22
Paul Sullivan
Exactly. And AOC came up to him and, and sweet photos of them and all, but had it been the reverse, nobody would have cared or that or that that, that mom would have been criticized. So but he did it for a very practical reason. Need somebody to take care of his son? My question is when men want to be, you know, when working dads, we call dads when they want to be allies of, you know, working moms.

00;23;11;24 - 00;23;24;25
Paul Sullivan
What are some tips that you give them? One of the best ways to go about it, you know, believing that they want to do the right thing and perhaps they may have some blind spots, but what what what would you tell them as the best ways to be be true allies of of work?

00;23;24;26 - 00;23;46;09
Reshma Saujani
Well, I think it's always about recognize the power of your situation. So I love the fact that Jimmy acknowledged that if he was a mom, it would have been a non moment. But the the fact that but but he took that and he built something with it to elevate you. I mean conversations and policy around paid leave and affordable childcare.

00;23;46;09 - 00;24;07;10
Reshma Saujani
So I think that that's great. So I think in many ways what men need to do is step into their power and, and lead on these issues. So if you think about that work, you know, this happened with IVF. You know, many companies didn't offer IVF, but then women were like, what's your fertility best? But then men were like, bunch of fertility benefits.

00;24;07;12 - 00;24;42;07
Reshma Saujani
And you saw a sea change. So I need you want men to go in and say, what are your paid leave benefits? What are your child care benefits? Yeah. You know, because they have less at stake, you know, than we do. I think secondly, I think it's like, you know, when I launched Marshall Plan for moms, I had all these, like, Steph Curry, all these like, sports, you know, sports leaders who signed it, signed basically a petition that said, yes, mothers don't work for free because so many of them had single moms and they recognize that it's not about caregiving, it's about who's doing the caregiving.

00;24;42;10 - 00;24;59;29
Reshma Saujani
You know, I said, moms, what about the dads as a what about the dads? Because this is a perfect example. When you see dads doing caregiving work, they say, great job. Oh yeah. My sons, you I mean, feeding them a bagel on the street, the amount of people that was stopping, oh my God, so sweet. No one said to me, you.

00;24;59;29 - 00;25;03;16
Paul Sullivan
Even put the cream cheese on it. You're a genius. How do you do that?

00;25;03;16 - 00;25;04;13
Reshma Saujani
Great dads.

00;25;04;19 - 00;25;05;20
Paul Sullivan
Amazing.

00;25;05;22 - 00;25;28;04
Reshma Saujani
And so we have to sit with ourselves a little bit and say, what is that about? What is what really is that about? And so our I think our, our are wanting to basically rally around parenting, rally around caregiving is not actually going to get to the crux of the problem is we have a problem with moms why?

00;25;28;07 - 00;25;37;23
Reshma Saujani
You know, and so and I think the second piece of this, which I think is really important, is we have to, as a society, change the division of labor at home.

00;25;37;25 - 00;25;38;21
Paul Sullivan
Sure.

00;25;38;23 - 00;26;01;00
Reshma Saujani
And we have to reel in my ass and our perpetual you, I mean, couples counseling on this stuff, you know, because. And I'm married the I married the the a great dad. My husband's amazing. But I took paid leave and he did it, and suddenly I knew all the stuff was. And he did it. And we've never been able to get the ratio right.

00;26;01;07 - 00;26;05;18
Reshma Saujani
So it it's it's constant, you know, it's constant work.

00;26;05;21 - 00;26;12;04
Paul Sullivan
But yeah. Come on. We have a mutual friend in any you can go to Eve. So this is an idea a deck of the fabulous.

00;26;12;06 - 00;26;14;10
Reshma Saujani
Deck of cards. And I will.

00;26;14;12 - 00;26;15;07
Paul Sullivan
You'll sort of look.

00;26;15;08 - 00;26;46;27
Reshma Saujani
And we'll be fixed and. No but and but I think part of it is having the conversation without it leading to a tit for tat or a. But I did this or a, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah blah, and, and I and I do think that but but but I think the unpaid and this is why I think companies can do an enormous amount by simply having gender neutral paid leave, making sure that men take it, incentivizing bonuses around it, incentivize it, pay around it, talking about it, parenting out loud about it.

00;26;47;00 - 00;26;57;25
Reshma Saujani
You know, I really making it a company goal. Right. And and and so there's real I think cultural changes that have to be made.

00;26;57;28 - 00;27;20;29
Paul Sullivan
This has been a wonderful restaurant. Thank you. One one last question here that I think about this, and I agree with everything you said. But you know, that is a change coming from the top, in a way. And I always advocate that, you know, change starts in the middle. But I look at, you know, the employee resource groups known as ERGs, you know, there's parenting groups are 95%, you know, moms.

00;27;20;29 - 00;27;35;13
Paul Sullivan
And the 5% of dads who are there don't really need to be there because they already get it and they're already doing it. But, you know, I had a conversation with a gigantic life insurance company, and it went really well about stuff that we could do with them. But they came back and they said, you know what?

00;27;35;15 - 00;27;52;24
Paul Sullivan
We like this idea. We're going to have to kick it down the road for getting dads more involved and helping dads, because we help dads at work. You that you then start to remove the stigma around all caregiving being the default a default to to to worry moms, we have to focus more on our working moms in our parenting group.

00;27;52;24 - 00;28;09;20
Paul Sullivan
And I went back to them and I said, look, this is your prerogative. You can do whatever how you want. But the reality is, if you keep those parenting groups just filled with with moms, you're not going to get that full buy in. And I know from the research we've done that they're men in their 20s, 30s and early 40s who really want to be.

00;28;09;20 - 00;28;10;09
Reshma Saujani
Yeah.

00;28;10;11 - 00;28;22;24
Paul Sullivan
And so how do we, you know, change that dynamic? Not at the policy level. Okay. Here's your 20 weeks. Take it or else you can do that. But in the organic, you know, culture of a company level.

00;28;22;26 - 00;28;40;06
Reshma Saujani
I think is more organizations like yours. I think you do have dads groups. I think you do basically organize. And, you know, we think about like campaigns and we're going to be running more. We're work with you on them about kind of centering men and care work. You mean, and showcasing it. And, and and rallying around identity.

00;28;40;12 - 00;28;58;21
Reshma Saujani
Look, I bet you that same organization went and told the moms that they're, you know, focusing on dads. I mean, I just think that right now, none of this is really a priority. Yeah. I mean, and it needs to be and I think it needs to be a priority by us demanding it inside of workplace is and saying, these are the types of supports I want.

00;28;58;21 - 00;29;09;22
Reshma Saujani
This is the type of organizing. This is the type of conversations that I want. I mean, I'll say this as an activist working mom, I would love to see dads organizations in every company love it.

00;29;09;24 - 00;29;16;05
Paul Sullivan
That's where we're going to end. That's a great way. In response to Johnny, founder of Moms First, thank you for being my.

00;29;16;06 - 00;29;18;22
Reshma Saujani
Thank you so much for having me.

00;29;18;24 - 00;29;44;04
Paul Sullivan
Thank you for listening to the Company Dads podcast. I also want to thank the people who make this podcast and everything else that we do. The company dads possible. Helder Mira, who is our audio producer Lindsay Decker, handles all of our social media. Terry Brennan, who's helping us with the newsletter and audience acquisition, Emily Servin, who is our web maestro, and of course, Evan Roosevelt, who is working side by side with me.

00;29;44;04 - 00;30;01;24
Paul Sullivan
And many of the things that we do here at the Company of Dads. It's a great team. And we're we're just trying to bring you the best in fatherhood. Remember, the one stop shop for everything is our newsletter, the dad. Sign up at the Company of dads.com backslash. The dad. Thank you again for listening.