Mother's Day—a time to show moms that you really care and appreciate what they do (i.e. not ignore their phone calls like you do pretty much every other day of the year.) America is great at celebrating mothers, except, you know, when it comes to giving mothers paid maternity leave to actually go raise children. In last night's episode of Last Week, John Oliver kindly reminded listeners that every country in the world offers some paid maternity leave to its workers—except the U.S. and Papau New Guinea. Come on, guys? REALLY?
But mothers aren't the only ones who should think about missing work to raise their children—Oliver says it's a dad thing too. Of course, we're a little ways away from that—for example, Major League Baseball players get all of THREE days off work when they become fathers. And even then, it's not chill for players to take it: Oliver told the story of Mets player Daniel Murphy who missed two games of the season for the birth of his son, and got slammed on sports radio.
Until moms can afford to take time off to be, well, moms, Oliver said we should prepare them for what's ahead—i.e. misery and awkward workplace interactions. Watch above to see America Ferrera throw a teddy bear against the wall in her new mother rage.
