America's War on Motherhood, w/ Reshma Saujani
It's Mother's Day — a good day to join the fight
🔔 Sree is emceeing this year’s Arogya World gala in Silicon Valley, with celebrity chefs and more on May 30 — tell your friends!
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👌🏾 Every word in this newsletter was written by a human being. We use Gemini for research, but not text generation. See tips from my 24-day, 5-country AI training tour of Asia.
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IT’S MOTHER’S DAY IN THE USA (my dad’s old joke: There’s no Mother’s Day in India because every day is mother’s day there. And there’s no Children’s Day in America because every day is children’s day here).
Today, I am sharing notes from my discussion with Reshma Saujani, founder of Girls Who Code and Moms First, and executive producer of the forthcoming film, “No Country For Mothers.” It’s a crucial piece of work at a crucial moment.
But first: Happy Mother’s Day to all of the mothers, motherly figures, mentors, and everyone else doing what only mothers can do.
Three years ago, I lost my mother when I was 53 and she was 73. My longtime newsletter partner, Zach Peterson, lost his mother when he was 18 and she was 39. We wrote about this shortly after the death of my mother—it’s one of our most-read newsletters ever, and it’s among our favorites as well.
Zach’s thoughts for today:
Not having my own mother around to see the mothers in my life is the great pain of this day. Losing one’s mother has this sort of impossibility about it. When you go on to have kids of your own, and those kids have an engaged, loving mother, it creates this revolving door of emotions—a stew of love, nostalgia, longing, missing out, appreciation, complete and utter sadness, and pure joy. It’s a mix that my mind has yet to figure out. The one person you want to share that one moment with just…isn’t there.
I do not understand how we, as Americans, continue to tolerate the way we treat families in this country. The fact is that it is becoming financially impossible for broad swathes of the population to raise a child in America. I was lucky enough to talk to Reshma Saujani about her forthcoming deep dive into exactly how, and why, we continue to cast mothers aside in America. Here’s the trailer for “Now Country For Mothers”:
The film counts a record 2,500+ mothers, caregivers, and advocates who signed on as associate producers. As Reshma describes it, “Motherhood in America is completely broken, and that’s by design.” The film is ground-level investigation into the how’s and the why’s of it all, and she, with Director Raeshem Nijhon, of Emmy-nominated Culture House Media, and Executive Producer Tan France, gets to the heart of it.
As Reshma puts it: “It’s never been more dangerous to be a woman in America. We’ve pitted women against each other for decades, and it needs to end. That’s what the film is all about.”
According to the Minneapolis Federal Reserve Bank, American mothers take an average of 7.2 weeks of leave after childbirth. Fathers take roughly three days. This is an abomination anyway you cut it. Reshma used the phrase “vomit-inducing” when we discussed parental leave in America versus pretty much anywhere else. In the Czech Republic, mothers can take three years of paid maternity leave. Across Europe, comprehensive support for families is essentially a given.
“Why is the richest country in the world unable to provide any real support for its families?” Reshma asks, on behalf of what I would say is nearly every parent in America.
“It’s a total con. Americans of all political stripes are much more aware of policies in Europe than in the past, and there’s simply no good answer to the question: Why do we continue to think it’s ok to stretch parents—especially mothers—to the breaking point?”
— Reshma Saujani
It’s not all bad news, though. I asked Reshma about the things that make her optimistic. Basically, can things get better, generally, for mothers in America any time soon?
“There has been significant progress in states like Vermont, New Mexico, and New York,” she tells us. “But, with parenting costs essentially doubling over the last 20 years, wages not keeping up, and a culture that preaches hustle over love, we are in a precarious spot.”
“Every time women make advances, there seems to be a new culture war that springs up to derail that progress,” Reshma says. “Tradwife vs. Girlboss screaming matches in toxic Instagram comment sections are not meer distractions—they are much more than that, and it’s very actively harming women.”
And it’s women harming women in so many ways. Mothers cutting down mothers in public for all to see. The fact is that the cultural shift must come before the policy shift, and Reshma sees that cultural shift happening, even if there is severe regression at the upper echelons of our political and private sector leadership. In many ways, a movement like Moms First is the logical response to this extreme swing.
“The anti-ICE movement in Minnesota was driven by angry mothers,” Reshma notes. She’s right. That’s what was so inspiring amid all of the—still ongoing—ICE terror exacted on Minnesota. Parents organized and support networks spawned out of almost thin air. But, it was really the countless videos of the most normal-looking white moms you’ve ever seen hurling a Samuel L. Jackson-esque soliloquy of verbal abuse at heavily-armed deportation agents that sealed the strength of the movement. It hasn’t won the battle yet, but wow, what an effort so far.
This Mother’s Day, be with the mothers around you however you can be with them—in-person, via a phone call, a text message, anything.
When you’re doing that, think about Reshma’s message and what you can do to build the movement that will bring some normalcy and accessibility to parenting in America. Women’s rights are under threat in a way that is very fundamental and very real.
Today, let’s make a firm commitment to something more like Mother’s Year, or even Mother’s decade. It’s all possible, and it will only strengthen our communities and our country.
— Sree / Twitter | IG | LinkedIn | FB | YouTube | Spread | TikTok
35% of 2026 is already over. What will you do with the remaining 65%? LMK and I’ll see you made it all the way down here.
Partner Message
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One of the Best Things I’ve Ever Read #3
We’re aiming to create the the best reading list possible. It’s quite simple—we are crowdsourcing the writing that has stuck with you, that one piece you read last month, last year, or 20 years ago, that has stuck in your brain. This week, it’s an excellent addition from friend of the newsletter, Jonathan Hoffmann.
Title: “A Murder Foretold” (Internet Archive link here)
By: David Grann, The New Yorker (2011)
From Jonathan:
I’m a sucker for quality long-form journalism, but there’s not another piece that I find myself recommending more than “A Murder Foretold,” by David Grann, for The New Yorker. Originally published 15 years ago, it’s completely evergreen. I read this for the first time on a flight and definitely disrupted the person next to me with my cartoonish gasps as I worked my way through it.
Though set in a country I’m largely unfamiliar with, and featuring protagonists I’d never heard of, Grann masterfully unfurls this incredible story. Now, my favorite part is sharing it with friends who haven’t yet had the pleasure of reading it and waiting for the incredulous replies once they finish it.
***
Jonathan Hoffmann is an American living in Prague who’s spent the last two decades working as a senior executive in international media and corporate communications.
If you have a story share, please do!
Have an idea for anything we’re up to? Let’s collaborate! sree.sreenivasan1@gmail.com
🔔 Sree is emceeing this year’s Arogya World gala in Silicon Valley, with celebrity chefs and more on May 30 — tell your friends!
✍🏽 Narratively Academy’s Socratic AI writing course kicks off on May 18—get your spot now!
🚨 Submissions are open for the India Philanthropy Alliance’s Youth Essay Competition!
👌🏾 Every word in this newsletter was written by a human being. We use Gemini for research, but not text generation. See tips from my 24-day, 5-country AI training tour of Asia.
🙏 Thank you to all our new paid subscribers! They and our sponsors help us do more! Here’s how you can support Sree’s Sunday Note, even if you can’t afford to pay.
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Great article! I just did a deep dive on whether or not AI will make motherhood easier and found a lot of the same things Reshma is calling out—our cultural conditioning must change to ease the burden.