Episode 38: Advocating for Parental Leave in the US with Raena Boston

No One Told Us

Rachael Shepard-Ohta

Society & Culture, Kids & Family, Parenting

4.9 • 590 Ratings

🗓️ 9 May 2024

⏱️ 31 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Episode 38: Advocating for Parental Leave in the US with Raena Boston @theworkingmomtras Parental leave, or lack thereof, can be such a stressful part of the postpartum journey for new parents. That’s why this week Rachael has guest Raena Boston, co-founder of the Chamber of Mothers, on to discuss the importance of parental leave! Raena tells us about the work her organization is doing to advocate for better policies. She also shares her personal experiences with unpaid leave and the impact it had on her mental health. Raena highlights the barriers to passing legislation, including the lack of a strong lobby for parental care policies, and provides advice for parents balancing work and parenting. Raena is a writer, an HR pro, and fierce advocate for parental leave which has led her to become a Co-Founder of the chamber of mothers… a collective movement all about advancing maternal rights. Raena also founded The Working Momtras, which is a community designed to help empower moms to resign from doing it all and release themselves from the pressures of mom guilt, guiding moms toward becoming more of who they already are. Raena is a space-holder, cheerleader, and conscientious connection-creator. Raena is also a mom of three! Mentioned in this episode: Raena’s Instagram: @theworkingmomtras Chamber of Mother’s Instagram Page: @chamberofmothers If you enjoyed this episode, please rate 5⭐️ and write us a review! ⬇️ ✨For sleep support and resources, visit heysleepybaby.com and follow @heysleepybaby on Instagram! 😴☁️🤎✨ Rachael is a mom of 3, founder of Hey, Sleepy Baby, and the host of this podcast. Instagram | Tiktok | Website Episode Sponsored By: Mysteries About True Histories Podcast: Tune in every Thursday for a brand new episode of Mysteries About True Histories! This series is perfect for kids ages six and up. Even if your child hasn’t learned some of these concepts yet in school, the storytelling seamlessly plants the seeds for all kinds of math, history, geography and science lessons that will keep your little ones curious and excited to learn. Listen to the podcast here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome back to the No One Told Us podcast. I'm your host, Rachel, and today I'm so excited to welcome Raina Boston.
0:09.5	Raina is a writer, an HR pro, and a fierce advocate for parental leave, which has led her to become a co-founder of the Chamber of Mothers, which is a collective movement all about advancing maternal rights.
0:26.6	Raina also founded the Working Momtras, which is a collective movement all about advancing maternal rights. Raina also founded the Working Moms, which is a community designed to help empower moms to resign from doing it all and release themselves from the pressures of mom guilt, which I know we all feel sometimes.
0:32.6	She guides moms towards becoming more of who they already are.
0:36.6	Raina is a spaceholder, a cheerleader,
0:38.6	and a conscientious connection creator, and also a mom of three. So welcome to the podcast,
0:44.1	Raina. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you so much for having me. I'm delighted to be here.
0:49.5	My gosh, it's my pleasure. I love following you and all of your advocacy work. And I would love if,
0:55.2	before we dive into the main part of our conversation today, if you could just explain a little bit
0:58.6	about what the Chamber of Mothers is and how you first kind of started to get involved with
1:04.4	co-founding that organization. Yeah. So the Chamber of Mothers is, we are focused on uniting mothers as advocates to create a better America.
1:15.1	And our work centers around three pillars, so securing federal paid family leave, affordable and accessible child care, and improved maternal health outcomes.
1:26.2	And we broadly define maternal health,
1:29.3	physical health, mental health,
1:32.1	and we know that paid leave and child care impact our health.
1:37.2	And so we are focused on mobilizing moms to create the change
1:42.1	that they want to see in this country and bestow upon future generations.
1:47.3	And you asked how I came into this work. So I have three kids, as you mentioned, with my first two,
1:55.1	I didn't have any access to paid leave. With my first kid, I went back to work at 12 weeks postpartum,
2:00.7	all unpaid. Second child,
2:02.9	I switched jobs seven months into my pregnancy. And I was one month too short to qualify for
2:09.5	parental leave. So I ended up going back to work at six weeks postpartum. Oh my God. And I'm still
	...

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