Putting Families First

Other Mawrters are also taking on the lack of support mothers often face. Katrina Magdol ’04 helps workplaces develop and implement family-friendly policies as co-founder of the Boston-based startup Listen to Your Mothers (LYM) and as a human resources consultant for nonprofits. Elyse Shaw ’05, a policy analyst for the Women’s Bureau at the U.S. Department of Labor, researches wages and working conditions for women, particularly women of color. She coauthors reports that advance ways to disrupt occupational segregation and pay inequity and promote the importance of a more robust national family leave policy.

“There’s this care ecosystem failure,” says Shaw, who lives in Arlington, Va. “We’ve known for ages that working mothers have a lower labor force participation out of all groups, especially those with young kids.”

The Cost of Doing Nothing report from the Women's Bureau found that, among countries with the largest GDP per capita, the United States ranks last for percentage of women in the workforce (76 percent). Put another way, if U.S. women worked at the same rate as German (83 percent) and Canadian (85 percent) women—where national policies support paid leave and childcare—roughly 5 million more women would be in the labor force. According to the report, that would translate into more than $775 billion in additional economic activity per year.

“I think we’re seeing the conversation shift,” Shaw says.

“People are trying to reframe childcare not as a private need, where I figure it out on my own, but as a public good, like roads and bridges and internet for all.”

Shaw’s interest in the role gender plays in societal issues was honed at the College, where a patriarchal society and the hurdles posed for women are studied and discussed. “It’s part of the fabric of the Bryn Mawr environment to question these longstanding structures,” she says, “to look at it in a way that’s critical and say, how is this shaping our world for good or ill?” She adds that the Self-Government Association and courses such as "Introduction to Feminist and Gender Studies," one of her favorites, help shape strong, confident women ready to tackle the world.

Shaw’s research is helping to advance the Biden-Harris administration’s goals related to childcare needs for women working in advanced manufacturing, construction, and other nontraditional careers as a result of projects funded under major legislation (Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, CHIPS and Science Act). Shaw also has coauthored reports on ways to improve women’s earnings and job options, as well as family poverty.

“In every single conversation,” she says, “childcare comes up time and time again.” A national paid parental leave policy would prove a game changer, she says. But for now, “it’s a very local game. It takes organizations and companies coming together to figure out how to fill gaps for the workforce.”

Listen to Your Mothers is looking to lead the way in Massachusetts. Formed in 2023 by Magdol—who is raising 5- and 8-year-old daughters in Boston with her wife—and three other working mothers, the business aims to offer in-depth assessments of policies and benefits along with guidance on making family-friendly changes.

“I fully believe employers can do this,” Magdol says. “They need support. It’s not just writing a policy. It’s how you implement a policy and roll it out.”

So far, LYM has done one-off trainings as it builds its business. Earlier this year, it published a 17-page report, Working Mothers Speak, that captures the diverse experiences and voices of working mothers and the obstacles they face, to serve as a call to action for employers.

Ninety-two percent of 288 survey respondents said they stepped back at work (working fewer hours or turning down promotions, for example) once they became mothers, including a disproportionate number of Black women. One in four respondents left their jobs altogether. By one estimate, the economy loses $55 billion in lost productivity each year from conflicts between school and work schedules alone. Mothers felt most supported in workplaces with comprehensive benefits (paid leave, childcare benefits) and flexible workplace policies, but too few organizations offered such programs, the report found. “We want employers to think more creatively,” Magdol says. Flexibility can mean remote work or schedules outside the typical 9 to 5, but it also can include job sharing at senior levels or alternate career paths that don’t necessarily include supervisory responsibilities, she says.

“From an HR, workforce-planning perspective, you can’t plan for all the one-offs,” Magdol says. “But you can plan for a culture where there’s coverage when someone is on leave.”

At MCC, Fray wants to ensure that underserved women can “birth with dignity, parent with autonomy, and raise babies that are healthy, growing, and thriving,” she says.

To that end, Fray has made a strong commitment to diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice, evidenced in part by the adoption of a “theory of change,” a description that reflects the organization’s approach to services and its goals and provides a foundation for the strategic plan underway. She pushed for MCC to explicitly state that it serves Black and Brown families, who face higher maternal and infant mortality rates. Black women, the website states, die at three times the rate of white women from complications of childbirth, and the babies of mothers of color face higher rates of low birth weight and preterm births, with those in southeastern Pennsylvania particularly hard hit.

Fray also has worked to diversify the organization’s executive ranks, intent on families seeing themselves reflected throughout the organization. MCC continues to center its programs around the voices of mothers, down to the way it conducts research and develops programs.

Marjie Mogul, Ph.D. ’04, the organization’s senior director of research and evaluation, uses her Bryn Mawr doctorate in social welfare, policy, and research to study the communities MCC serves, often going on home visits. Her team measures program outcomes and identifies best practices while furthering thought leadership in maternal and child health.

“It’s very much an equity framework,” says Mogul, of Audubon, Pa. “We find out from staff and clients what they think is important to inform our evaluation.” Recent projects include measuring parental efficacy and evaluating new behavioral health initiatives.

For Fray, that culture of collaboration—both within and without the organization—is key to MCC’s success. In many ways, her model is grounded, perhaps subconsciously, in her experiences at Bryn Mawr. “It was a place to find myself, safely, in community with others who were like-minded,” she says.

“We would sit in Pembroke East and talk about who we want to be and what impact we want to have in the world.”

A class on African American literature taught by poet and activist Sonia Sanchez was a pivotal moment for the Literatures in English major. “She helped me find my voice,” Fray says. “I felt shame for so many choices I made, and Sonia was powerful and affirming. It was the first time being Black didn't feel like a bad thing.”

In other words, Fray found dignity at Bryn Mawr. Now she advocates for the dignity of mothers.

“Organizations like MCC,” she says, “must do this because every family matters. That is our raison d’être.”