Paid family leave is undeniably a good thing. It doesn’t just help parents and caregivers, it helps our entire economy too -- but depending on their branch of service and family situation, many of our troops only receive 2 or 3 weeks of parental leave.
It’s completely unfair to military families -- especially to children who deserve time to bond with their parents. That’s one reason why I’ve introduced the Servicemember Parental Leave Equity Act, which would make sure that all caregivers in the military can access 12 weeks of paid parental leave.
Look, this is the right thing to do for military families -- but it’s also the smart thing to do.
If our military wants to compete with the private sector for the best talent, it needs to offer competitive benefits. That means paid family leave so we aren’t forcing people to choose between caring for their children at the start of their lives or serving their country.
The reality is, we can’t change all the operational requirements that take military parents away from their children. My proposed legislation has enough flexibility to avoid interfering with operational needs while still providing a military parent with 12 full weeks of paid leave. We can extend parental leave benefits to give all parents—not just birth parents—adequate time to bond with their children in the early days and set their family up for success in the future.
Every child deserves to bond with their parent, no matter the circumstances of how they came to join their family, or which branch their parent serves in. This shouldn’t be controversial.
Thank you.
All my best,
Tammy Duckworth
Paid For By Tammy For Illinois
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