Stephanie Coontz Quotes

But the problem is that when I go around and speak on campuses, I still don't get young men standing up and saying, 'How can I combine career and family?'

We are still behaving as if a worker really doesn't have a family because the work pattern really was meant for men who really were the financial support but weren't looking after their families. We need to change this, and we can easily do that.

It is easy but inaccurate to label any legislation which makes it easier for working families to combine family and work responsibilities 'job killers.'

I think parental leave is enormously important - and it's a personal decision. Part of building a company whose goal is to empower women in all aspects of life is that I've given my team some leeway to determine what parental leave looks like for each of them individually.

It's embarrassing to be in the only westernized economy that doesn't have paid family leave and flex scheduling, and that disproportionately helps women.

If you want to have high-powered career women who have families, you need to provide options for them in terms of childcare.

You shouldn't have to win the boss lottery in order to have a little bit of flexibility at work. Raising and supporting a family isn't just a financial obligation. What's important isn't just being able to put food on the dinner table - we want you to be at the dinner table, too.

I would be excited if we could reimagine workplaces that start from a premise that women are going to be a central part: Women are going to bear children, people are going to raise those children, and it's not going to be a nuisance - it's actually going to be understood as part of the deal.

Compared to some of our neighbours, it's not frowned upon to be a mother and work in France.

As a partner in a firm full of women who work outside of the home as well as stay at home mothers, all with plenty of children, gender equality is not a talking point for me. It is an issue I live every day.

I think somebody ought to do a survey as to how many great, important men have quit to spend time with their families who spent any more time with their family.

No work-family balance will ever fully take hold if the social conditions that might make it possible - men who are willing to share parenting and housework, communities that value work in the home as highly as work on the job, and policymakers and elected officials who are prepared to demand family-friendly reforms - remain out of reach.

I think the rules will change and I think more and more young women are going to decide that having a family and taking care of a home is not a bad choice, but how do we subsidize it - not necessarily European-style socialism. It'll have to be a new more creative, dynamic and local solution.

Quite a lot of British women stop working when they have children, and that is rarely the case in Denmark. We have a very flat, structured way of approaching everything. Nobody's the boss. In a sense, we're all equal.

Maternity leave and parental leave is absolutely vital for strengthening families. It's an issue for men and women.

There's also, I think more so in the music business and especially for women, this ceiling that people put on you if you have children or a family and decide to spend time with them.

I always supported the women I worked with having time off to go to parent-teacher conferences and doctors' appointments or bringing their infants into the office.

We need a national family leave policy that will allow both men and women to take paid time off from work to care for a newborn or a sick relative.

I have a supportive family and an outstanding team, but I also have a flexible work schedule that allows me, at least some of the time, to get to the kids' school program or the doctor visits when I need to. So family-friendly work schedules have become more of a passion of mine, and the cost of childcare is also a huge issue.

As women, we're presented this false choice that is either our children or our work. But I don't think I fully understood the paradox until I had a child. I bring my son to work and let other parents do the same. I am very intentional about the workplace that I create, and my son is a big part of that.

As intense as our work is, I try my hardest to live my life so that people in my office feel they can work at 'Frontline' and be parents if they choose to. This goes for the men as well.

To create a society that is supportive of child-rearing parents is a role of the government, and we are also working to realize a society where women can shine.

I have proposed maternity leave for mothers whose employers do not provide it.

One of the biggest challenges is for women to find an organization that's willing to accept them back after they leave the work force to raise children without taking a cut in compensation and responsibility.

Employee fathers need to step up to the plate and put their family needs on the table.