You've come a Long way, baby

Michelle Obama feels my pain.

Last week my friend, coworker and fellow mom Brooke sent this article to me:

First Lady Michelle Obama says she knows the challenges of being a working mother, and the feeling that one is never doing enough.

"I call myself a 120-percenter. If I'm not doing any job at 120 percent, I think I'm failing. So if you're trying to do that at home and at work, you find it very difficult and stressful and frustrating," she told the annual meeting of the Corporate Voices for Working Families at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington.

Mrs. Obama gave a short speech to the crowd of roughly 85 members, whose organization focuses on working families and business competitiveness. She spoke about her middle-class upbringing, and the luxury of having a mother who stayed home.

"But things are very different today. One income really doesn't always cut it anymore," Mrs. Obama said. "Twenty-two million working women don't have a single paid sick day. That means they lose money any time they have to stay home to take care of their kids. You know, imagine making that choice. And we do it all the time. And even when I had sick leave, I found myself, you know, hoping that the kids would stay well, just I couldn't afford to take the day off because there was a meeting, or something was going on."

The first lady acknowledged that in her current role, she has more resources than most, joking that, "Everyone should have a Chief of Staff and a set of personal assistants." On a more serious note, she said that working parents should have more access to flexible work hours, paid leave and child care.

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2009/05/michelle-obama.html