Moms First

❌ Myth: Employers have to build a state of the art daycare centers to support working parents 💡 Reality: The tax code just made child care one of the smartest investments a company can make — without pouring concrete As Jessica Chang, CEO of Upwards (and a member of the National Business Coalition for Child Care!) lays out for Employee Benefit News, employers don’t need to build on-site centers to benefit. Supporting licensed child care providers, backup care, or reserved slots can now come with real tax relief or small and mid-sized businesses. The expanded employer child care tax credit now: 🏫 Covers direct subsidies to licensed providers 📍 Covers reserved child care slots 🆘 Covers backup care 🤝 Covers third-party care platforms 💸 Pays back 40–50% of qualified costs The tax code is finally catching up to what we already know: supporting working parents is = smart business. Are you excited for tax season now?

Supporting working families is an economic imperative. Yet it's still run as if a single income can support a family. Like someone (ahem: mom) is home at 2:30. Like child care costs don't eat up most of our pay. This structure is unsustainable. And it needs to change. When families can’t access reliable care, businesses lose workers, productivity drops, and the economy pays the price. That’s why Moms First joined Start Strong NJ, a campaign focused on making child care more affordable and accessible by strengthening the workforce and investing for the long term. It's also why we built the National Business Coalition for Child Care, to bring real, employer-driven insights to the child care conversation. On Think Tank with Steve Adubato, Moms First COO Molly Day breaks down why investing in child care is critical for employee retention, productivity, and New Jersey’s economic future, and how businesses can be part of the solution. Watch the full conversation with Molly, Steve, NJAEYC’s Meghan Tavormina, and New Jersey Business & Industry Association (NJBIA)’s Michele Siekerka, Esq.: https://lnkd.in/gtvxYA2D.

This morning, I was named one of TIME’s 2026 Women of the Year. I don’t have the words to express how honored I feel for my name to appear alongside brave women like Teyana Taylor, Chloé Zhao, and Mariska Hargitay. But this recognition doesn’t belong to me alone. It belongs to every woman who has kept building, caregiving, organizing, and leading through a moment that has tried, strategically, to exhaust us into silence. The last few years have been relentless. Most days have felt like pushing a boulder uphill while being told the hill doesn’t exist. That exhaustion is the point. If women are tired enough, overwhelmed enough, financially strained enough, we’re supposed to stop demanding change. We didn’t. There is something deeply meaningful about celebrating women—out loud—right now. So today, I’m grateful. But more than that, I’m energized. This moment is a reminder that our work matters. That women matter. And that the strategy to make us shrink hasn’t worked. This is for all of us. And we’re not done yet. Thank you to TIME's Rebecca Schneid for the kind words. Let's keep lifting women up. Who is your TIME woman of the year? Tag her here! ➡️ https://lnkd.in/duJCzkrR (Photo by Flo Ngala)

Big news we’re proud to share: Reshma Saujani, our Founder & CEO, was just named to TIME’s 2026 Women of the Year list. From Girls Who Code to Moms First, Reshma has spent her career calling out systems that quietly set women up to fail—and building movements that demand better. This recognition isn’t just about her (though we’re very proud). It’s about the work, the fight, and the millions of moms who are done being told to push through a broken system. Moms in America have been expected to carry everything—care, work, family, the economy—without real support. Moms First exists to change that. We name unpaid caregiving as the economic issue it is, and we push for structural solutions that give women real choices and real opportunity. TIME’s recognition is a reminder that this work matters—and that when moms, businesses, and policymakers come together, change is possible. Congratulations to Reshma and all of the incredible honorees. And thank you to every mom and advocate building this movement with us. We’re just getting started. #TIMEWomenoftheYear

Bounce-back culture has been prevalent for decades, and with GLP-1s everywhere, the pressure on moms to “shrink back” faster than ever is only intensifying. But this is the part we don’t talk about: childbirth can permanently change your body structurally, medically, and sometimes irreversibly. No amount of discipline, workouts, or willpower can fix that. This story, shared by an Associate Producer for our documentary, is a reminder: moms aren’t failing. We’re being asked to recover on a timeline that ignores biology—in a country that rushes us back to work and withholds real postpartum care. This isn’t anti-fitness or anti-health. It’s anti-pressure, and it’s long overdue. We’ll dive into this in this week’s issue of The First Word. Subscribe today so you don't miss it: https://lnkd.in/ePe7SUN2

In Crain's New York Business, we make the case that home-based child care providers—small business owners, mostly women of color—are the backbone of New York’s child care system. Yet they’re asked to deliver high-quality care while earning poverty wages and absorbing constant policy whiplash. New investments in child care are a critical step. But funding alone won’t fix what’s broken. If New York is serious about universal child care, we have to: → Treat providers like the small businesses they are → Pay the true cost of care → Make the system navigable for families → Protect infant and toddler care, not hollow it out The system failing parents is the same system failing providers. Fixing one means fixing both. Read the full op-ed by Erica Phillips of the The National Association for Family Child Care (NAFCC) and our Founder & CEO Reshma Saujani, and let’s talk about what it really takes to build child care that works: https://lnkd.in/gZf_PWqA

Our culture loves to praise “discipline” and “grit.” So much of what we celebrate as individual success is actually propped up by someone else managing the rest of life behind the scenes. And it’s usually women doing that work. This is exactly what we mean when we say the system runs on unseen care work. It’s time we shine the spot on this work—and start valuing it.

When the rules change, moms notice. From school funding to health care to who gets a voice at the ballot box, democracy shows up in our daily lives—whether we’re talking about it or not. If you’re trying to make sense of what’s happening to our elections right now, this is the conversation to join. Stacey Abrams is joining Moms First, Women's March, and We Hold These Truths for a special edition of Motherhood Live—a live, nonpartisan conversation about democracy, voting rights, and why moms are always among the first to feel the impact when the rules change. 🗓 Thursday, March 5 | 7 PM ET 📍 Virtual With Reshma Saujani, Ilana Glazer, Brad Meltzer, Tamika Middleton, Kalisha Dessources Figures, Ph.D., Angie Maxwell, and thousands of moms nationwide. Because history shows this clearly: when democracy is under threat, mothers don’t sit quietly. Save your spot today at https://lnkd.in/e2aKGYcY.

🚨 Big movement on paid leave in Virginia! 🚨 Both the Virginia House and Senate just passed legislation to create a statewide paid family and medical leave program. This moment is thanks to years of advocacy from Voices for Virginia's Children, Freedom Virginia, and so many organizers and families who have refused to let this issue be ignored. A special shout-out to a friend of Moms First, Orli Cotel, whose leadership and persistence helped push this forward. And to National Business Coalition for Child Care (NBCC) members Etsy, Patagonia, and Bobbie, who showed what it looks like when businesses step up to support working families. Once the Governor signs it into law, millions of Virginians will be able to take time to care for a new baby, a loved one, or their own health—without losing a paycheck. This is what progress looks like. 👏 Virginia, let’s get it over the finish line: http://bit.ly/3ZfILiq

"The hardest mental battle is just the day to day with my kids and trying to figure out how to make this all work. It took so many people just to get me to the starting line. And that was the biggest thing: I knew that if we could get to the starting line, that if we could get to this point, that we could make good things happen.” —Elana Meyers Taylor OLY Olympic athlete and mom of two deaf sons Elana Meyers Taylor just won gold at 41. Not in spite of being a mom, but because of the skills motherhood sharpened, and because a real community made it possible. Child care. Disability services. Support for families. A team that believed getting her to the starting line mattered as much as the finish. This win is what happens when moms are supported instead of sidelined. This win is bigger than gold. It’s proof of what’s possible when we invest in families. 🥇💚 Via NBC Sports