With Mother's Day Approaching, Tammy Duckworth Highlights Agenda To Help Working Parents

Press Release

As Mother's Day approaches, Congresswoman Tammy Duckworth (IL-08) today pushed for action on legislation to support working families, including on several proposals she has offered in Congress. Duckworth's proposals to help mothers include legislation to expand access to on-campus child care for the 1 in 4 college students who are also parents, to improve and simplify military parental leave policies for all new mothers and fathers and to ensure mothers are able use clean, safe accessible lactation rooms while traveling through our nation's airports.

"Each Mother's Day we recognize the important work moms everywhere do for their children and their families,"said Congresswoman Duckworth. "But I hope our action doesn't end at simply recognizing their hard work--I hope this Mother's Day also spurs us to act on the policies moms and all parents need to support their families. All mothers deserve equal pay, paid sick leave, and access to clean and accessible lactation rooms when traveling through airports. And moms, dads, and children across this country deserve equitable parental leave policies and the ability to focus on getting an education that will help them provide a better future for their families. It's time for Congress to act to help us achieve these goals."

Additional information about Congresswoman Duckworth's working family legislation follows:

The Duckworth-Clark Child Care Access Means Parent in Schools (CCAMPIS)Reauthorization Act would help increase access to on-campus child care for student parents, who make up more than one quarter of all college students in America. Despite the growing number of student parents enrolled in postsecondary education programs, access to affordable on-campus child care services has dwindled since 2003. This legislation would help reverse that trend by reauthorizing and fully funding the only federal program that supports on-campus child care services.

Duckworth's Military Parental Leave Modernization Act would help the DoD improve its ability to recruit and retain talented Americans by modernizing, expanding and simplifying the parental leave benefits provided to the men and women who choose to serve in our Armed Forces while also helping improve military readiness and workforce competitiveness. A factsheet about the Congresswoman's new legislation is available here.

Duckworth's Friendly Airports for Mothers (FAM) Act would ensure breastfeeding mothers traveling through large- and medium-sized airports have accessible, clean and convenient lactation rooms to use. The FAM Act, which has 62 bipartisan cosponsors in the House and is endorsed by several public health organizations, passed the Senate earlier this year and will now return to the House for consideration as part of the FAA Reauthorization Act.

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