This title offers a moving, cross-national account of working mothers' daily lives-and the revolution in public policy and culture needed to improve them. The work-family conflict that mothers experience today is a national crisis. Women struggle to balance breadwinning with the bulk of parenting, and stress is constant. Social policies don't help. Of all Western industrialized countries, the U.S. ranks dead last for supportive work-family policies: No federal paid parental leave. The highest gender wage gap. No minimum standard vacation and sick days. The highest maternal and child poverty rates. Can American women look to European policies for solutions? This book includes interviews conducted over five years with 135 middle-class working mothers in Sweden, Germany, Italy, and the U.S. It explores how women navigate work and family given the different policy supports available in each country and demonstrates that women need not accept their work-family conflict as inevitable.