U.S. Can Do More to Support Families

Diane Halpern makes a convincing case in her April 16 commentary, “Create Work Policies Fit for a Mom.” What is missing is how other developed nations deal with the problem of a market economy that denies the basic biological and spiritual needs of women to bear and nurture children, demanding that they work for wages instead.

Women in other developed nations are helped to bear and nurture children with taxes: paid universal health care; paid maternity and paternity leave, as in Scandinavia, permitting the nonworking parent to bond with the newborn; adequate child care, as in France; public education, K-college; adequate after-school recreation programs; and transition from school to apprenticeship or a job. The precedents exist for public policy and parents, together, providing the essentials of meaningful, loving care of the young, which are denied working women and their children in the richest country in history.

Nicholas V. Seidita

Northridge