WATCH: Prosperity and empowerment for working mothers

OPINION:

When I was pregnant with my second child, our family went bankrupt. Our car was repossessed in our driveway, and our future was very uncertain. I remember standing in our yard, thinking about our family, and wondering how we would recover and move forward. Thankfully, with the support of family and friends and a lot of hard work, we were able to eventually rebound and expand our small business into a successful global organization.

I know firsthand the challenges of raising kids and managing a business simultaneously, and while my family found ways to make it work, there are still many hurdles to success for working mothers today. Policymakers and employers must do more to create a culture that values care work just as much as employment outside the home and makes it easier for women to do both — and thrive.

Last week, the America First Policy Institute released our HOPE Agenda, a 20-point policy framework to promote health, opportunity, prosperity and empowerment for women, children and families. While much of the dialogue surrounding “women’s issues” has focused on abortion and reproductive care, America First policies support a woman and a child’s shared right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. For women who value both motherhood and the work that they do, we can and should promote a culture that doesn’t force them to choose.

To achieve these ends, policymakers at both the state and federal levels should pursue three primary goals: expanding access to paid family and medical leave, making child care more affordable and accessible, and ensuring employers offer just as many benefits to women who want to keep their children as they do to women who don’t.

First, policymakers should be creative in giving more employers incentive to offer paid family and medical leave. While the federal Family and Medical Leave Act provides 12 weeks of unpaid leave for many situations — including a new baby — many families cannot afford to go without a salary that long. Policymakers do not need to require a “one size fits all” approach for employers but can provide tax breaks or a statewide insurance pool to lower the cost of providing this benefit. New Hampshire has pioneered this approach, and states like South Dakota and Virginia have pursued similar policies that expand access to leave without burdensome new taxes or unfunded mandates.

Second, policymakers should pursue all available options to improve child care access and affordability. While some regulations are necessary to keep children safe, policymakers must ensure that it is not unreasonably difficult to start or expand a child care center. They should also consider ways to provide tax credits and other flexibilities to employers that offer on-site child care, stipends to their workers, and other employee benefits to reduce the cost of care. Policymakers, higher education institutions, and workforce development officers must work together to create apprenticeship programs and other targeted, cost-effective means of increasing the child care workforce.

Last, policymakers should require reciprocity from employers that offer abortion-related benefits so that they offer at least as much support to women who decide to keep their children or expand their families. Many employers have announced that they will provide leave and cover travel costs and other expenses related to abortion for their female employees, in addition to providing coverage for abortion. Policymakers should require that those employers also provide leave for new mothers and provide coverage for pro-family measures, such as fertility treatments and prorated adoption costs.

These are just three of many ways that policymakers and employers can collaborate to change the way we think about motherhood, work and culture. Women contribute to their communities in so many ways, both at home with their families and in the office with their peers. Our society’s structure ought to promote both — and with the America First HOPE agenda, it will.

• Linda McMahon is the chair of the America First Policy Institute and the institute’s Center for the American Worker. She is also the former administrator of the Small Business Administration.