I recently visited Sweden and Denmark. Working mom conversations are everywhere. Everyone talks about how it's not easy raising a family today and holding down a full-time job even in countries where there is more public family support than in a the USA. I spoke to several women about their maternity and paternity leave policies.  

I met a business journalist, Hanna Duner. Duner is married with a two year old and a second baby due in early 2012. I asked Hanna if she would share with me her biggest challenge as a working mom in Stockholm.

"As a working mother my biggest challenge is probably the same as for everyone else, to make it all work without having a constant bad conscience i.e. do my best and stay long enough at work, but at the same time not letting (my daughter) Edith stay too many hours at her day-care center.

Hanna talked about working mom guilt which she translated as "bad conscience.
"

"As much as I am excited, I (we) am also worried about the fact that there will be TWO. Everyone tells me (it’s a Swedish expression, I don’t know if it makes any sense in English), ‘one child no child, two children two children.’ It basically means one is nothing compared to two. I am worried about the stress and the logistics, and an even greater feeling of bad conscience of not being (good) enough.

“BUT at the same time, I want to be positive, it’s always been a dream to have a large family so I am very grateful for everything. And I think with the right attitude we can manage much more than we think."

Hanna continued, “Of course, Sweden has one of the world's best parental leave policies.”
 
Duner explains-her punctuation, not mine:

 " Sweden is amazing when it comes to maternity (and paternity) leave and public child care. When my second arrives I will take 12 months off, and my husband 3 (!!).

 We are allowed to take a total 18 months for each child. And the days we don't use (for instance, we will have 3 remaining months) you can save for a maximum of eight years and use whenever."

In neighboring Denmark, policies are still strong but different.
 I spoke with a woman obstetrician who has worked with new moms for more than 20 years. Her own two children are now in their 20s. She told me, maternity leave is all paid for, but to a maximum of 80 percent of your salary up to a certain ceiling. When men take paternity leave, they also receive 80 percent. She said that ceiling is “why most men take less time off. Since they often have a higher salary than women, the household economy will shrink much more if the man is off for a long period of time.”

She told me, in reality, single mothers might take off less time because of the 80% depending on their household income.

This info is from an official Denmark employment site:
Pregnant women can take leave for four weeks before the birth, and they are obliged to be on leave for the first two weeks after the birth.
•    After the birth, the mother is entitled to 14 weeks of maternity leave.
•    The father is entitled to 2 weeks of paternity leave within the first 14 weeks after the birth of the child. Altogether parents are entitled to 52 weeks paid maternity leave.
•    When the child is 14 weeks old, the parents are entitled to an additional 32 weeks leave between them. It is a condition, however, that both parents are working in Denmark.
Public employees receive full salary during maternity leave. As a minimum, private employees are entitled to a percentage of benefits (this is what we were told earlier), but they may be able to negotiate a higher pay.

Denmark has several other perks for parents relating to paid days off to be with children under 7 and, like Sweden, there is good public day care. For this obstetrician, as a doctor married to a doctor, both working on staff at public hospitals, she would try to arrange schedules so that one parent would be with their children on weekends or during overnight shifts, and at other times make arrangements for a family member to take the children for a weekend so they could plan another weekend off together.

Their lives just prove, even with lots of public support, including worldclass public day care, moms and dads still juggle.

For more about how other countries do it: read Everyone but U.S.