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Why I Hate That NyQuil Ad

Better Than Nyquil Ad Screen Shot

I usually don’t watch ads on TV—that’s what DVRs are for. But when I do see live shows, say a Packers game or the nightly news, I catch that NyQuil ad every time. The one that says dads and moms don’t take sick days; they take NyQuil.

I hate that ad.

I get the point—the sick person is supposed to be a full-time parent and hey, the kid needs you all the time. And I appreciate that the parent is often a dad.

But I’ve met too many full-time parents (mostly mothers) who describe what it’s like to ache all over, and have no one to help at home because their partner has no paid sick days at work. If he doesn’t go in to work, the electricity goes out. If one partner misses a day’s pay, they risk being able to afford the medicine needed for the other to recover. Or perhaps the sick parent doesn’t have a partner, only a mother or sibling who likewise would end up without pay or without a job for stepping in to help.

What the parent in that ad needs isn’t NyQuil; it’s access to paid sick days—so that when they or their child is sick, they don’t have to risk an economic disaster for doing exactly what their doctor orders.

The good news is that this is exactly what the recent momentum behind paid sick days is guaranteeing. Not only are newly passed laws helping millions of people earn paid sick days for the first time, they’re also helping millions more who already earn paid time off, but aren’t allowed to use it to care for a sick family member.

This is why paid sick days are so popular with voters across the political spectrum. And it’s why President Obama in his State of the Union address called for action on paid sick days both from Congress and from cities and states. “Since paid sick leave won where it was on the ballot last November,” the President said, “let’s put it to a vote right here in Washington.”

I took that remark as a shout-out to the organizing and campaigns happening across the country. On a November election night awash with losses for progressives, paid sick days ballot measures sawa clean sweep. In 2014 activists also saw a string of legislative wins—in one year nearly tripling the number of locations with paid sick days laws and increasing fivefold the number of workers who will newly have access.

President Obama was also sending a signal to those considering running for President and other high office in 2016: highlight this issue.

Women, of course, are disproportionately impacted by the lack of paid sick days. And they also need men to share caregiving responsibilities—which many men want to do, and many more will do, when they stop being punished for it at work.

But President Obama is right that a paid sick days policy will strengthen the American economy. Members of Family Values @ Work, a network of coalitions in 21 states working for family-friendly policies, wrote to the President asking him to make such a call to action in his State of the Union address. They detailed the consequences when they’re docked pay or lose a job for being a good parent. A roof or car that goes unfixed. No new shoes. No dinners out. All that translates into less money going to small business and boosting the economy.

We now have a glimpse of what our future looks like. As a seamstress in Portland, Oregon, where a new paid sick days law was implemented a year ago, wrote to the President, “One morning I woke in so much pain, I knew I couldn’t get up without help. I had a few minutes of panic and anxiety. Then I remembered—now we have paid sick days.”

So we decided to make a“NyQuil” ad of our own. Only this time, the child responds to her sick mother: “What am I, chopped liver? Daddy … call your boss and use a paid sick day to look after me and mommy.”

The momentum that inspired President Obama’s remarks continues. Just this week, Tacoma, WA passed a paid sick days ordinance. In the coming months, we’ll see legislators in Philadelphia, Chicago, New Jersey, Vermont, Oregon, Maryland, and elsewhere take up the issue—and many of the bills will pass.

Because with children or without, we can’t avoid our own achy, sneezing, can’t-pick-up-my-head spells. NyQuil’s not the answer. Banding together for paid sick days for all is. 


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