The podcast host and activist for women discusses an issue affecting almost 30 million Americans—but also, all of us.
‘Girls Who Code’ and ‘Moms First’ Founder, Reshma Saujani, Wants You To Take a Day Off
Published on Feb. 21, 2025
When you cancel on your cleaning professional or when a server gets sick, in most cases that individual goes without that pay. This is often also true for the nation’s nearly 80 million freelancers.
The United States is the only industrialized, high-income country that does not guarantee paid sick time for its workers, leaving a reported 27 million workers choosing between a paycheck or recovering from illness. When rent, utilities, and food need to be paid for, it’s no question this creates hardship for millions in this country. (And really—during an historically high flu season, don’t you want the restaurant cook to recover before they have to return to the kitchen?)
Reshma Saujani is the founder and CEO of Moms First, the founder of Girls Who Code, and host of the podcast My So-Called Midlife. Saujani has spent more than a decade building movements for women and girls’ economic empowerment and working to close the gender gap in the tech sector and the maternal/caregiving space. Now she’s partnered with Theraflu and national advocacy organization, A Better Balance, in The Right to Rest & Recover, a multi-year initiative aimed at championing the right to rest and recover for all workers through legislation and microgrants to cover expenses for unpaid sick time.
The initiative also aims to raise awareness of resources such as the Workplace Rights Hub and Paidleave.ai, a first-of-its-kind tool to help people navigate paid time off benefits they might not know about.
Ahead, Saujani speaks with The Healthy by Reader’s Digest about the campaign and why every American should have an interest in this cause.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
The Healthy by Reader’s Digest: We love this partnership so much, putting a rockstar like you alongside Theraflu.
Reshma Saujani: Oftentimes, in our work culture, we’re just like, “What do you mean you’re sick and you’re not coming to work?” So I think that that’s so important about this campaign is really acknowledging the issue.
The Healthy: “The right to rest and recover”—it addresses a pervasive phenomenon that’s touching so many lives in the U.S. Was there a single element of this campaign, or a story you heard, that struck you and you just knew that you had to be part of this?
Reshma Saujani: Well, I knew from my work at Moms First that the United States being the only industrialized nation that doesn’t have paid leave, which leaves like 27 million workers behind, was really impacting moms. One out of four women go back to work two weeks after having a baby. The amount of moms I meet that are taking care of their elderly parents that don’t have paid leave, and that’s just missed the opportunity to be holding their father’s hand before he dies. When two-thirds of the caregivers are women and we don’t have paid leave, it is really, really, really impacting women and working families.
Sixty-nine percent of employed people in the United States have worked while they’re sick, rather than taking a day off in the past 12 months. And you often see this with women all the time, that “Moms don’t get sick.” We don’t get sick days. We don’t get to break. We will cancel our doctor’s appointments. We are last on the list, right? We take care of everybody, and so this idea of rest and recover—the right to recover, the right to rest—was so powerful for me as an activist and as a mom activist, because that’s revolutionary.
What I love about this campaign, too, is it’s about education. So 50% of workers are unaware of their paid sick time rights and the laws, so having this knowledge and then the micro-grants that they’re offering to pay for expenses of people who need unpaid sick time is just so important and such a signal in this moment of being kind and generous and taking care of your neighbor. It’s like the essence of the campaign.
The Healthy: As a business leader, philanthropist and a thought leader in society, what do you think is something that infrastructurally employers could do? Is there a policy that they could put in place that you think just makes sense right now?
Reshma Saujani: Well, listen, I always think about this: I talk to a lot of small businesses and they’re like “I can’t afford it. I want to do this.” There are nine states and D.C. that offer paid sick time, so I think this idea of being aware of what your rights are—whether you live in a state that offers paid sick time, whether you work for an employer that offers paid sick time—is really important. And most people don’t know.
I think it’s like, 1) Am I eligible? And then 2) I think it is about figuring out [and] continuing to push federally for paid leave, which is what we’re doing at Moms First. And then 3) I think it’s like, if you don’t live in a state that doesn’t offer paid leave and you are a small business and you are already strapping because of inflation and costs, to me, what I say is just offer grace. Create the kind of culture where people know if they’re sick, they’re not going to lose their job.
The Healthy: For those of us who are consumers, maybe we’re not the business owners, how can we be more supportive of our service workers?
Reshma Saujani: Well, I think, 1) Obviously, I think we need to take care of the people that take care of us, that feed us, that shelter us, take care of our children, that clean our streets. I think, to me, those are our teachers, our gods—so I think, again, shifting the culture that the people who take care of us are the most important, and what are we doing to take care of them? I think having that value is really, really, really important. I think we need to tell when we get a hotel room or buy a meal that we’re expressing that to business owners that we care about how you treat your workers. I’m willing to pay another 10 cents for my cheeseburger, or I’m willing to pay a little bit more money if that allows you to offer somebody paid sick time.
The Healthy: You seem like you take every opportunity you can to do good in the world. What is it inside of you that really drives you?
Reshma Saujani: I think God’s put me on this earth to do that. I feel like I’ve given so many blessings and gifts to do that, and especially when it comes to women and girls, right? I’m terrified right now, and we are not going back. We cannot let progress be dismantled. So I think in this moment, in all the ways, whether it’s pushing for policy, for paid leave, whether it’s convincing women in midlife when we really need women like us to be out there to say, “Here’s information about menopause. Here’s information about how to eat well, and yes, you can have the best time of your life in terms of your career.” And exposing the things that we think hold us back and making us feel empowered to fight is what we need to do right now.
I have two sons. I’ve been thinking a lot about the role of men, and I’m married to a wonderful “beta” man. How do we actually engage them in this moment, too, to kind of push things that we want? I love this campaign, too, like we’re pushing for dads and dads paid sick time rights, too. At Moms First, we’re running a campaign about one of the constituencies that take the least amount of advantage of paid sick times are men, because we also live in a culture that gaslights them, too.
The Healthy: What is one self-care habit that you refuse to skip?
Reshma Saujani: I go to the gym. To me, I need exercise. I need to move. It’s important for my endorphins. So it’s scheduled on my calendar. So often the first thing I’m like, OK, how am I fitting in a Pilates? Now we’re getting older, so we got to do that straight training. I’m making sure [of] that—and everybody knows, “Don’t schedule Reshma until 10” because I’m going to drop my kids at school and I get my workout in.
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