Last week, I wrote an open letter to Gwyneth Paltrow about some condescending comments she had made in an interview with E!, where she said moms with the “routine” of an office job had it easier than her, who had to spend months on a movie set.
In the space of a couple of days, I got hundreds of e-mails from working married moms, single moms, stay-at-home moms; divorced dads, finance dads, tech dads, female lawyers, ER nurses, teachers, one country-music star and a Congolese refugee.
With 3.6 million readers, the letter clearly struck a nerve. What gives?
Obviously there’s the celebrity angle, coupled with the specific “Gwyneth Paltrow schadenfreude” element. There were a lot of people who had been eagerly waiting for Paltrow to be taken down a peg, tired of her Goop pronouncement and kale recipes.
But there was more to it than simply a lot of people who were angry they paid good money to see “Sliding Doors” in the theater.
In fact, most of the responses I got weren’t really about Gwyneth Paltrow at all.
They were about the reality of being a parent in the US in 2014; the difficulties, the hardships, the desperate juggling act so many moms and dads perform between love and bills and family and work and what it means to live in a country that lags woefully behind in policies that support families and working parents.
I found myself having a really great dialogue with mothers — and fathers, too — across the country, most of whom just wanted to say, “Hey, thanks for giving us a voice.”
They also wanted to talk about their lives — not to complain, but to share their own stories.
Another big problem facing families is the epidemic of overwork — otherwise known as the only addiction that’s socially acceptable.
“As a mother of three children, wife of 23 years (husband facing yet another downsize starting Tuesday), your letter speaks to the work and challenges working mothers face,” wrote one woman in an e-mail.
“The pressure is daunting.”
“Thank you! I work two jobs at 70 hour per week just to pay the bills! #DivorcedParentsProbs,” tweeted one woman.
“The message being telegraphed to the little people is that if we would have tried harder to be a millionaire, life would have turned out fabulously,” wrote another.
Women make up roughly half of the workforce, yet in so many ways we are still treated like second-class citizens, Oliver Twists sidling up to the work table to meekly ask, “Please, sir, could we have some more?”
More paid maternity leave, for one. The United States is the only industrialized nation in the world — the world! — not to offer paid maternity leave.
Some companies cover up to six weeks paid, followed by a month or so of unpaid leave — essentially, giving you the privilege of returning to your job without actually paying you. Taking unpaid leave is a privilege many, if not most, American women can’t afford, which means they’re forced back to work before they’re physically or emotionally ready.
“Paid maternity leave costs too much and affects my bottom line,” the business owner might say. To which I answer: When employees feel valued and supported by their companies, they are much more likely to stay. High retention rates are good for employers; finding, hiring and training new employees costs a lot of money.
Another big problem facing families is the epidemic of overwork — otherwise known as the only addiction that’s socially acceptable.
Americans work more than any other developed country — according to the International Labour Organization, “137 hours more per year than Japanese workers, 260 more hours per year than British workers and 499 more hours per year than French workers.”
According to date by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, the productivity of the American worker has increased 400% since 1950. That might be good news for the company, but certainly not for the individual.
All of this — the lack of paid leave, lack of affordable child care, an accepted culture of overwork and businesses that are slow to embrace flexible or work from home arrangements — combines to create an atmosphere where many parents feel under attack as they go about the business of trying to raise kids who will grow up to become good future citizens.
And it boils down to one thing, whether they were women with high-powered jobs or women working two jobs to make ends meet: Working American parents feel like they’ve reached a tipping point in their attempts to balance life and work. They want — need — more support from their elected officials.
That’s a point that bears repeating again and again until things change. Even if it takes Gwyneth Paltrow to do it.
Mackenzie Dawson is a contributing editor at The Post.