Shakespeare’s The Merry Wives of Windsor, published in 1602, is cited as the origin of the saying: “Third time’s a charm.”
What about fourth and so on? Well, like the Powerball, we keep hoping that the next one will be the winner.
{mosads}I’m personally hoping that in the world of politics, of which I’m an outsider, the fifth is a charm. Jan. 18, 2016 marks the beginning of the 5th year to get Congress to amend the Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA) to add loss of a child.
Back in 2011, fellow grieving Dad, Kelly Farley and I, began what was then known as The Farley-Kluger Initiative to recognize grief and its impact in the American workplace. Nearly 99,000 petitions to Congress later and a new effort on Change.org, which has garnered nearly 3000 petitions in just two weeks, the hundreds of thousands of parents who lost children are hoping THIS is the charm.
2015 saw a major movement in our efforts as Reps. Steve Israel (D-N.Y.) and Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.), introduced a bi-partisan bill HR2260, called The Sarah Grace-Farley-Kluger Act to add child loss to a list of covered conditions. Give birth, adopt a child, care for a sick family member, injured service member: Up to 12 weeks unpaid leave. Lose a child? 3-5 days.
Dickens said: “It was the best of times, the worst of times,” and that’s what some people are telling us about 2016, an election year. Is it the best time, or the worst time, to get legislation passed. Theories abound but I like how things are lining up for us.
Newly elected Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) has said he’s pushing responsibility for bills back down to the committee chairs, in order to break the logjam. We have singled out three patriotic members of Congress to whom we have directed our petition pleas: Rep. John Kline (R-Minn.) who heads the Workforce and Education Committee; Rep. Tim Walberg (R-Mich.), who heads up the subcommittee where HR260 has been sent and Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), where the companion bill, S1302, sits.
The last time I spent any real time in Washington was as a college student in the mid 1970’s at American University. Back then, I never suspected I’d be trying to get support for a bill to help grieving parents; I was still hanging out at the tavern trying to get a date.
Times passes, people get married, they have kids. And then, sometimes they lose them. That was not even in my mind back in 1975.
I’m reading Robert Caro’s book about LBJ (pick any volume). There’s a story that when he wanted to call on senators and representatives to pass a civil rights bill, most of his staff counseled him against it. They said it was hopeless; that it would anger powerful Southern Democrats and committee chairmen; that it risked derailing the rest of his agenda. To which, it is said, President Johnson replied, “Well, what the hell’s the presidency for?”
I guess that’s my question to Congress. What the hell’s serving in office for, if not to fight for causes you believe in? Thousands of Americans are asking the same.
Kluger is a public relations executive in Scottsdale, Arizona. His daughter Erica died in 2001 and The Sarah Grace-Farley-Kluger Act (HR2260 and S1302) is for the parents of the thousands of Ericas, Noahs, Katies and Sarah Graces, who are gone.