When filmmaker Ky Dickens learned she was about to become a mother, her doctor advised her that she would need at least 12 weeks of maternity leave to heal after giving birth to her daughter.

Washington’s [state Senator Joe] Fain said when the Legislature looked at who had access to paid leave in the state and who did not, and which employers were able to offer the benefit and which were not, it was a “stark picture.”

With a wide gap between the have’s and have-nots, conservatives and liberals agree that expanding paid family leave to all is crucial to the workplace.

With America being one of only four countries without guaranteed paid leave, many are left vulnerable to their employer’s leave policy. If you’re a part-time or retail worker, that’s likely to be less than generous—if it exists at all.

If corporations want Millennials to apply for and stay in jobs while having kids, an ideal leave policy would grant parental leave to all employees welcoming a child.

If they work for a company with fewer than 50 workers, their bosses are under no obligation to continue to pay their health care benefits during their absence or give them their jobs back when they return.

Glacially, at a pace slower than the melting of the ice caps, we are moving toward an acceptance that fathers deserve to spend precious time with their newborn children.

“Here’s a very American masculine institution of baseball that is communicating that babies are men’s work as well as women’s work, and we need to support them becoming a father,” says Claire M. Kamp Dush, an associate professor of family science at The Ohio State University.

To address these inequities, we need a broad menu of solutions that addresses income and wealth. On the income side, that means pushing for pay equity, affordable childcare and paid family leave.

“Family lives have changed dramatically in recent decades but our policies have remained frozen in a Leave-it-to-Beaver 1950s world which no longer exists,” said Sen. Hannah-Beth Jackson (D-Santa Barbara).