The “why” behind Zorya Foundation’s advocacy for childcare
My annual salary when I had my first child was $57,000. To be clear—I’m aware this is more than many new mothers bring in annually.
But even so, after three months of unpaid maternity leave, 50% of my take home pay went to childcare.
Two years later when I had my second child, after a promotion and raise, I was spending more than half of my take home pay on childcare.
A pre-pandemic study by LinkedIn and Censuswide found that 49% of women do not immediately come back to work after childbirth, and that this break from the workforce is on average around two years. Of this group, 43% said they did so because they encountered unnecessary obstacles at work, and it was more cost-effective to stay home and care for their child than to work and pay for childcare.
I remember thinking: “there’s no way this can be right.” I was sure I must have been missing something that other working moms had figured out. How on earth could the world be set up so poorly for working parents? I had it better than most, and it was still one of the most difficult times in my life. I made the decision to quit my job more times that I can count during bleary eyed 2am nursings.
But when the sun came up each morning, I kept going. I wanted to work, and luckily had the support and choice to pursue what I wanted. There was (and still is) a massive amount of family and community support and sacrifice behind my career. A supportive husband, a traveling “Oldma,” a cheerleading group of mom friends and a supportive workplace.
American working mothers carry an outrageous financial, emotional and physical burden. And that sacrifice is often out of sight of those with the power to help at the system level.
Out of sight, out of mind.
My boys are school aged now, but by all accounts things aren’t much better for new mothers, especially those working in critical healthcare professions—and women make up nearly 78% of the healthcare workforce.
I have a debt to pay forward to others for my success, and I believe access to high quality childcare, among so many other things, has been critical to my career advancement. That’s why I started the Zorya Foundation, of which the Mothers in Medicine Fund is a part. The Zorya Foundation operates as a trust-based philanthropy, our funds are direct-action. Our team and board understand the challenges facing women in the healthcare industry. We believe them.
Motherhood in the US is a complex topic. I’m aware our little non-profit won’t solve such a big problem by itself.
But we can start by filling in the gaps for women in our industry to make this time of life just a little easier—to keep women from dropping out of the workforce because they lack the support to keep going and to help them overcome unnecessary obstacles to their career advancement. We need more women in the healthcare industry, especially in positions of leadership. The team at Zorya Foundation works to fill some of the gaps with these initiatives:
We provide grants to clinician mothers to help alleviate the costs of childcare via the Mothers in Medicine fund. Thanks to the team at Innsena for supporting us!
We provide financial support to women invited to attend professional conferences and fulfill speaking opportunities so they can advance their careers and grow their networks
We team with other non-profits to support their efforts to advance the careers of women in the healthcare industry—shout out to Civitas Networks for Health and the generous support of Castlemark Consulting that makes this support possible!
We’re just getting started. If you want to create an environment where more women can thrive in the healthcare workforce, join us! Give us a shout at hello@zoryafoundation.org.