Mother's Day is that time of year when we celebrate mothers. Or, if you're a politician, you celebrate mothers, but also do your best to undermine them by denying any effort to offer workplace protections and paid leave.
As John Oliver pointed out on "Last Week Tonight," the same politicians applauding mothers also voted against a bill that would extend maternity leave and provide other benefits for working mothers.
“You can't have it both ways," Oliver said. "You can’t go on and on about how much you love mothers and then fail to support legislation that makes life easier for them."
As a result, the United States offers mothers some of the fewest benefits and legal protections in the world. In fact, only the U.S. and Papua New Guinea provide no guaranteed paid time off for mothers.
“Just us and Papua New Guinea," Oliver said. "That is as unlikely a pairing as Sofia Vergara and Reese Witherspoon. Separately, great -- but if it’s just the two of them with no one else, it makes you feel like one of them has taken their eye off the ball: Reese.”
(Vergara and Witherspoon are currently starring in "Hot Pursuit," a film that opened Friday to largely hostile reviews.)
Even the laws that do help working mothers by guaranteeing job-protected unpaid maternity leave don't apply to 40 percent of women in the workforce.
"If a worker with no paid leave goes into labor at work, she better hope it’s on her lunch hour and that her co-workers don’t mind if the break room gets a bit messy," he said.
Check out the clip above for Oliver's full take on the hypocrisy of politicians who claim to support mothers, but refuse to vote for guaranteed benefits.
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