My first opinion piece in @usatoday on paid parental leave. It’s a national embarrassment that we continue to be one of a handful of countries in the world without such a program, but there’s one silver lining in having waited this long: we have the opportunity to do it right the first time around, and create a paid parental leave program inclusive of *all* parents. Such a policy would also make things right with the LGBTQ and adoption community—who are disproportionately denied paid time off.

Yes, we're about to have a divided Congress, but creating this policy isn’t a pipe dream—a majority of Americans (including Republicans) support paid parental leave, and different versions have come close to passage in the past. But the program keeps getting axed in favor of other priorities. This may be one of the ONLY issues the new Congress can find common ground on over the next two years. So it’s time the supporters of this policy in Congress (who have been very quiet on the subject since allowing it to be squashed in Build Back Better) finally fight like hell for it so parents can get the time they need to care for and bond with their kids—and so I can finally stop writing opinion pieces about it.