The rule-breaking founder of Moms First is exposing the lie that caregiving is a private burden—and rallying moms, dads and policymakers to treat it like the economic engine it is.
This piece is part of an ongoing series, “Redefining Power: How Indian American Women Are Rewriting the Rules of Leadership, Identity and Care.” The series explores what it means to modernize without losing our roots—through candid conversations with Indian American women reshaping culture, power and possibility.
Most women are taught to make motherhood look effortless. Reshma Saujani wants you to see that we were never supposed to do it alone.
In a country that still treats caregiving as a personal responsibility rather than a public good, Saujani is changing the script—not by asking for sympathy, but by exposing the architecture of the lie … and building something better in its place.
“I come from a long line of rule-breakers,” she told me. “My parents fled a dictator. They landed in Chicago with nothing. I grew up surrounded by refugees who were just trying to make it work. That kind of survival teaches you two things: one, that struggle is constant. And two, that silence is dangerous.” She was a rule-breaker long before she was a movement-builder—always challenging authority, always in detention. “I’ve never been good at following the script,” she said. And that’s exactly what makes her effective.
That dual inheritance—resilience and rebellion—has shaped everything she’s built. As the founder and CEO of Moms First (formerly the Marshall Plan for Moms), Saujani has launched a movement that spans policy reform, corporate accountability, pop culture disruption and digital innovation. Her mission: to finally treat motherhood like the economic engine it is—and to liberate it from the mythology that keeps women small.
She’s particularly adept at sensing cultural shifts before they go mainstream—which is clearly her superpower. “I’m very good at seeing the zeitgeist,” she told me. “The problem is I’m usually too early. I’ll be pushing, and no one’s with me yet.”
That instinct to move ahead of the curve is powerful—but she’s learned it needs the right scaffolding. “That’s where having the right team matters,” she said. “They help shape the message and figure out the vehicle.” For her, it’s not always about launching a new organization—it’s about choosing the right medium to shape behavior. A podcast, a speech, a summit, a magazine list, even a scene on television—each one is a delivery system for culture change. “You have to ask: What’s the message? And what’s the moment? Then you build the bridge between the two.”
So when I ask her about the first step, she says, “When you’re trying to create systemic change, the first thing you have to do is name the con. And then you have to make people feel it—not just intellectually, but emotionally. That’s the only way culture shifts.”
And the con she’s naming is this: that if you’re exhausted, burned out, or can’t do it all, it’s your fault. If you need childcare, the problem is your ambition. If you disappear in midlife, it’s just what’s expected.
Her work is not about offering tips for balance—it’s about blowing up the shame economy that women have been quietly absorbing for decades.
Moms First has brought caregiving to the main stage in ways few organizations have. Their AI-powered tool, PaidLeave.ai, helps women access state benefits buried in bureaucratic red tape. Their partnership with the Geena Davis Institute is redefining how moms are portrayed in television. And their 2024 summit featured leaders like Hillary Clinton, Sam Altman and Govs. Gretchen Whitmer and Kathy Hochul—all speaking to the care economy as a national priority.
But this isn’t Reshma Saujani’s first act. As the founder of Girls Who Code, she transformed a STEM gender gap into a viral call to action. “That taught me how to scale a message,” she said. “You help people see the con they’ve been sold.”
That word—con—comes up a lot when Saujani talks about motherhood, midlife and modern womanhood. The con that caregiving is a private issue. The con that asking for help means you failed. The con that midlife for women is a slow disappearance, while men get a renaissance.
“I hit 45 and felt really, really stuck,” she told me. “I looked around and realized the world was telling me to shrink. To stop dreaming big. To fade out. It wasn’t just me—it was everywhere. That’s when I said—no, we need a new playbook.”
So she launched a podcast, My So-Called Midlife, to say the quiet parts out loud—and to remind women that reinvention isn’t just for men in Patagonia vests. It’s for all of us.
Still, Saujani is clear-eyed about the limits of storytelling. “Policy doesn’t pass on vibes,” she quipped. “We need legislation. We need childcare. We need paid leave. And we need men in the room. Because this isn’t a women’s issue—it’s an economic one.”
The con she’s naming is this: that if you’re exhausted, burned out, or can’t do it all, it’s your fault. If you need childcare, the problem is your ambition. If you disappear in midlife, it’s just what’s expected.
And it’s not enough to win the policy. You have to make sure people actually use it. “If uptake is low, those benefits get cut or watered down,” she told me. “Politicians look at underused programs and say, ‘See? No one wanted this.’ That’s why building a constituency after the win is just as important as the win itself.”
That’s part of the thinking behind PaidLeave.ai, her tool to help workers access family leave. But the real unlock, she said, came when men started using it. “They didn’t even see it as something available to them,” she explained. “But they’re 25 percent more likely to be eligible—and 25 percent less likely to use it. That’s a huge chunk of benefits just sitting there, unused.”
Which is why Saujani isn’t just organizing women—she’s starting to organize men. “We spend a lot of time trying to convert conservative women. But what about all the men who are already on our team? They’re raising kids, they’re exhausted too—they just haven’t been activated.”
She recently hosted a national fatherhood summit to change that. “If we want to build a broader coalition for gender equality, for reproductive rights, for care—men have to be part of that story. Not just as allies, but as stakeholders.”
From making coding cool for girls to making motherhood visible on TV, Saujani doesn’t just point out gaps—she rewires the cultural circuitry that allowed them to exist in the first place.
That’s one of her bolder moves: actively organizing outside the typical progressive base. She’s engaging men. Building alliances with moderate conservatives. “If we want real wins, we have to build a bigger table,” she said. “And sometimes that means inviting people we don’t agree with on everything—but who believe in the value of families.”
There’s something profoundly Indian American about the way Saujani moves through the world: unapologetically ambitious, deeply rooted and allergic to both silence and martyrdom. “Our parents wanted us to assimilate because they were trying to survive,” she said. “But we’re not trying to survive anymore—we’re trying to lead. And that means celebrating our culture, not hiding it.”
That sense of cultural grounding shows up in more than her strategy—it shows up in her soul. “I love God. I was born loving God. And I was born wanting to fight for people,” she told me. What may look like confidence or charisma to others, she says, is something more ancient: “It’s dharma—it’s a duty. You can’t worry what people think, because that only distracts you from the fight.”
And part of what drives her fight is a truth many immigrants and their kids know too well: “Even though I was born here, I’ve always carried the feeling that people can be displaced at any moment.” It’s why she builds systems designed to last—because nothing was guaranteed to her, and nothing should be taken for granted by those coming up next.
There’s a quiet throughline in Reshma Saujani’s story that will feel familiar to many children of immigrants—especially South Asian ones. She was raised with tough love, where praise was rare and self-celebration wasn’t modeled. “Even after winning a high school debate, it was always: you can do better,” she told me. But instead of resentment, she speaks of that upbringing with respect. It gave her resilience. It kept her ego low. And most of all, it instilled a sense that there are no ceilings—no final destination where you’re done growing.
After spending time with Saujani and reflecting on her success across movements, I pieced together what feels like her implicit playbook—a repeatable framework for anyone trying to build something that truly changes culture.
- Name the con: Reveal the false belief upholding the problem. Don’t just describe the issue—expose what’s been gaslighting people into accepting it.
- Personal storytelling (not just a policy push): Use real, emotional storytelling—especially from lived experience—to shift hearts, not just minds.
- Make the alternative cool and simple to adopt: Design the new behavior, belief or norm to be desirable, easy and socially contagious.
- Craft the message: Language shapes belief. Frame the problem and solution with clarity, urgency and cultural truth so people buy in and want to repeat it.
- Pick the right messaging vehicle: Once the message is ready, choose the format that will move it best—speech, podcast, curriculum, media partnership or summit.
- Normalize it everywhere: Turn new values into language, rituals and imagery that show up in pop culture, institutions and everyday life.
- Build unexpected coalitions: Don’t just mobilize your base—expand it. Find allies in unlikely places: men, moderates, corporate leaders, even people who don’t agree with you on everything but share a stake in the outcome.
- Measure the uptake, not just wins: A passed policy means nothing if no one uses it. Invest in keeping it around.
In a year when reproductive justice, parental rights and workplace protections are all on the line, Reshma Saujani is betting that mothers won’t just quietly endure—they’ll organize. And if they follow her lead, they just might rewrite everything.
