Earlier this year, I made the difficult decision to step back from my career to spend more time with my family. A year prior, with the normal mix of apprehension and excitement, I returned to work after my second maternity leave. My employer granted 20 weeks of paid maternity leave, as well as two weeks of ramp-back time during which I could work part-time and earn full-time pay. My husband also received paid leave time to bond with and care for our newborn. Our family was incredibly fortunate to receive these benefits, especially in a country that doesn’t have universal coverage.

And yet, after our leaves ended, we struggled.

Adjusting to being a working new mom was tricky, and, to my surprise, more challenging the second time around. Trying to regain footing felt like climbing up a muddy hill without traction.

But I wasn’t alone.

As I pumped at the office, I commiserated with my colleagues through the curtains that divided our mother’s room stalls. And over the rasping of Medela Symphonies, what I heard were my own anxieties echoed back at me.

I began to dig into the data on working parenthood in America in the hopes of uncovering the ‘why’ behind it. Could it really be so hard to fully support families in the workplace?

As a millennial mother of two young children, I knew that simple black-and-white answers, while alluring, were never as straightforward as marketers lead us to believe so I appreciated the complexity of the problem. It would be naive and misguided of me to hope for a simple solution to building a career and a family at the same time.

However, the solution did seem frustratingly simple.

Other countries that implemented or grew supportive policies over the past 30 years had dramatic gains in the rates of women working, while the numbers in the U.S. actually lost ground. Once a leader, second only to Sweden — if you can believe it — the U.S. has been eclipsed by advanced economies that invested in better access to childcare, longer maternity leave, and greater flexibility in work arrangements. Last year, the International Monetary Fund delineated in their World Economic Outlook the U.S. now ranks near last in workforce participation rates of women aged 25 to 54 because of the lack of such policies.

Could supporting American families really be so black-and-white?

I expected to find an expansive, layered gray area of contributing factors — and there were some. But the bigger surprise was that being a working parent in the U.S. is as challenging as it feels. And your best bet for getting any sort of relief anytime soon may come down to who employs you, rather than who’s in office. In the absence of policies and programs that reach everyone, businesses and HR departments are shaping parents’, and particularly women’s, participation in the workforce.

There is real, measurable momentum around paid family leave in this country, with the percentage of employers that provide paid leave reaching 40% (15% growth over the past three years). Eight states now mandate it, and Oregon recently broke new ground in granting low-income workers 100% pay eligibility. The only industrialized country that doesn’t guarantee its citizens paid family leave time — our own — looks closer than ever to finally passing a law.

But longer maternity leaves alone don’t cut it.

While women who take paid maternity leave are far more likely to return to work and work longer hours one to three years after childbirth, studies show mothers who take longer leaves pay a penalty in promotion rates and are at a higher risk of being fired thereafter. Policies that make it generally easier to be a working parent — leave time for spouses, early childhood spending, and workplace benefits including part-time and flex schedules — have an even greater effect in reducing gender disparities than the length of leave time new parents are given.

The bottom line? Enabling all parents to thrive at work and at home is key.

Since 1991, the cost of childcare has more than tripled (though today’s wages provide no greater purchasing power they did 40 years ago), and access to early childhood programs is the U.S. is widely unavailable or limited. Only 24 of the 40 largest cities offer Pre-K to more than 30% of 4-year-olds. Yet when they do, the effect significant: Universal preschool in Washington, D.C., which covers nearly 100% of 3- and 4-year-olds, boosted the number of mothers with young children working by 10 percentage points.

When I quit my job because the tradeoffs favored staying home with my youngest, I sent a letter to the CEO proposing solutions that would help working parents nationwide. I recently shared my letter publicly so others could start a conversation with their company leadership about parents and caregivers in their organizations, too. Because employees and employers are disconnected on this issue.

According to research, employers underestimate the effect caregiving responsibilities have on employees, whereas the vast majority of employees with care-taking duties shared the role has affected their productivity. Companies around the country want to know how to compete for today’s talent. Let’s give them a roadmap.

I’m optimistic progress will continue. As paid leave plans become standard, I believe early childhood programs will be next. But implementation at a corporate or policy level will trail changing attitudes rather than lead to them. In the meantime, parents bear the pressure.

Since sharing my letter, I learned that it landed in the inboxes of the head of HR and Diversity and Inclusion at several major corporations. And startup founders have reached out to let me know they’ve implemented changes to their policies as a result of the research I presented.

As constituents and employees, we hear a lot of talk about leveling the playing field for women. What I’ve come to realize is that states and companies say more about their commitment to gender diversity with a comprehensive benefits package than through empty pledges. Companies are driving change, but only insofar as they have to, in order to attract and retain diverse talent and sustain record profits in a tight job market.

We can’t allow these legitimate — but reparable — anxieties to only be uttered within the flimsy walls of our mother’s rooms.

Write to your congressperson and your CEO. Implore them for benefits and policies that go beyond the black-and-white bare minimum to truly support working families in all their complexities.