‘Motherhood is a job’—and these 50 leaders say you should get paid

Being a mom is a full-time job. Now there’s a plan to help us get paid for all the work we do.

It’s called the Marshall Plan for Moms.

Spearheaded by Girls Who Code founder Reshma Saujani, the plan is urging the government to pay mothers a $2,400 monthly stipend for their labor throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.

The plan also calls for paid family leave, affordable childcare and pay equity.

It’s modeled after the 1948 Marshall Plan, an initiative that provided financial investments in Europe to rebuild after World War II.

Today, Girls Who Code took out a full-page ad in the New York Times, calling on the Biden administration to implement the Marshall Plan for Moms.

50 prominent women signed on to the letter in support, including Eva Longoria, Amy Schumer, Gabrielle Union, Charlize Theron and Connie Britton.

Saujani argues that the Marshall Plan for Moms is long overdue. It’s not about handouts or rewards for simply bearing children. It’s about righting economic imbalances that have been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Since the pandemic began, over two million women have left the workforce. It’s a staggering number and even more women have been forced to cut back their hours or work around the clock in order to provide full-time care for their children.

With the closures of daycares and schools, families are without the support network that enables parents to work full-time. Women are bearing the burden of those closures.

American job losses are also concentrated in the service sector, where women are overwhelmingly employed. The U.S. has seen steep job losses in hospitality and retail, where women have been disproportionately laid off.

The pandemic has dealt American mothers a twofold blow: The industries where women are overwhelmingly employed are seeing record job losses. And mothers who haven’t been laid off are being forced to cut back their hours or leave their jobs entirely in order to care for their children.

That’s where the Marshall Plan for Moms comes in, argues Saujani.

“It’s time to put a dollar figure on our labor. Motherhood isn’t a favor and it’s not a luxury. It’s a job,” she writes.

In an op-ed for The Hill last month, Saujani explained why the plan deserves your support.

“A Marshall Plan for Moms will stimulate the economy,” she argued. “It will give women the support they need so they can— eventually—get back to work. And it will send a hugely important signal to little girls and young women across the country: that our society values the contributions of women, and that their careers, dreams, and lives will not be taken for granted.”

At Motherly, we support ideas to better value the critical paid and unpaid work that mothers do.