If you want to know how a workplace actually feels about working parents, don't read the policy. Look at the space they walk into.
That's the quiet, devastating thesis of Corinne May Botz's photo essay in The Guardian last week, which takes readers inside more than thirty American lactation spaces, from the wood-paneled suites of the U.S. Capitol to boiler rooms, basement corners, repurposed storage closets, a tent in a farm field, and an improvised station inside a prison. Botz doesn't photograph the mothers themselves. She lets the rooms speak.
And what they say is uncomfortable. Every workplace tells working parents what they're worth. And too often, what employers write in handbooks and values statements isn't what employees experience. The mismatch is its own grim message: not much What's worse is what Botz's photos make plain: that as a country, we are failing our working mothers.
54% |
of nursing parents said their employer's pumping spaces made them consider leaving their job |
At Milk Stork, we've spent the past decade closing the gap between what employers strive for in their values and how they show up in reality for their working parents. We built the category for breast milk shipping so traveling parents could keep nursing without choosing between work and family. Today, we help employers go further by auditing, equipping, and standardizing lactation rooms across their entire footprint, and giving HR and facilities teams the consulting they need to achieve PUMP Act compliance and beyond, into genuine support.
A room can technically check every PUMP Act box and still leave a new mom feeling stressed and unsupported while doing math in her head: how far is the walk, will I be late to my 2 p.m. meeting, is the room clean, can I actually access the room, is there a place to wash my pump parts, will I have privacy?
Each of those calculations is invisible labor. One mother interviewed in Botz's Milk Factory documentary estimated that she spends about four working weeks every year hooked up to a breast pump. Four weeks. Most of that time is spent during working hours, away from her baby. The room she does it in isn't a small detail. It's the architecture of whether she comes back to work after leave, whether she stays, whether her days feel focused and efficient or stressed and preoccupied with pumping logistics, and whether she tells anyone else at the company it's a good place to grow a family.
A genuinely supportive lactation program isn't one decision, it's three layered ones.
The first is the space itself: where the room sits, how easy it is to find, who can access it, and whether it's built to be used or just to be counted. (Hint: bathrooms aren’t compliant with federal law.)
The second is the equipment and supplies inside it: what's installed, what's stocked, what's available the moment a parent walks in versus what they're left to bring, request, or work around.
The third, which is the layer most workplaces underestimate, is the operational rigor that keeps the first two working: the maintenance that determines whether the room feels welcoming on a Tuesday afternoon in October, not just on the day it was photographed for the company intranet.
Every photo in Botz's essay is a memo to a workforce. The wood-paneled Capitol suite says: we expected you, and we made room. The boiler room says: we did the minimum because we had to. The tent in a field says: you were never really part of the plan.
Working parents read these memos. So do the people considering whether to join your company. So do the people deciding whether to stay.
The good news in the Guardian piece, even though the photos are hard, is that none of this is permanent. A room is a room. It can be rebuilt. It can be stocked. It can be reimagined as a space that says, very simply: we thought about you and we value you.
That's the message we help our employer partners send. And it's the one every working parent deserves to walk into.
What does the PUMP Act require employers to provide? At a high level, the Act requires covered employers to provide reasonable break time and a private, non-bathroom space for one year after a child's birth. How those requirements apply to your specific workforce, including your worksite mix, employee classifications, remote and traveling staff, and multi-site footprint, is what our expert team helps employers navigate.
What's the difference between PUMP Act compliance and a supportive lactation program? Compliance is the legal floor. A supportive program is what actually retains working parents. It spans the room, the equipment inside it, the supplies that keep it running, and the ongoing operational follow-through. We help employers move from one to the other.
Do PUMP Act protections apply to remote and traveling employees? Yes, but the way they apply, and the workplace responsibilities that follow, differ meaningfully for teleworkers, business travelers, and on-the-road workforces. We help employers think through each scenario so nothing falls through the gaps.
How many lactation rooms does a workplace need? It depends on the size, density, and distribution of your workforce. There's no single federal formula, which is why most multi-site employers benefit from a tailored audit rather than a rule of thumb.
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Milk Stork partners with employers to design, equip, and standardize lactation rooms that achieve and go beyond PUMP Act compliance. Our workplace solutions include lactation room consulting and compliance audits, hospital-grade multi-user pumps, pumping supplies, virtual lactation consulting, and breast milk shipping for traveling parents, so every working parent on your team gets the same welcome, no matter which location they walk into.