timesonline.co.uk | Together we’re strong

American mothers lag behind the rest of the world in childcare provision, but a new internet-based pressure group is leading a spirited fightback

Article by Holly Yeager, 10 April 2007.

Organised groups of US women are actively lobbying state and federal governments for protection of working mothers' interests, including guaranteed paid sick days, time and appropriate space to pump breast milk during the working day, and extension of meagre state-sponsored childcare and healthcare provisions. Is this a chance for the US to reach the 20th century in terms of mothers' and young children's policies -- just as European governments (including the UK and Germany) are headlong into the 21st?