ENGLISH SPEECH | ANNE HATHAWAY: Paid Family Leave (English Subtitles)

When I was a young person, I began my career as an actress.

Whenever my mother wasn’t free to drive me into Manhattan for auditions, I would take

the train from suburban New Jersey and meet my father — who would have left his desk

at the law office where he worked — and we would meet under the Upper Platform Arrivals

and Departures sign in Penn Station.

We would then get onto the subway together and, when we surfaced, he would ask me “Which

way is north?"

I wasn’t very good at finding North at the beginning, but I auditioned fair amount and

so my Dad kept asking “Which way is north?"

Over time, I got better at finding it.

I was struck by that memory yesterday while boarding the plane to come here.

Not just by how far my life has come since then, but by how meaningful that seemingly

small lesson has been.

When I was still a child, my father developed my sense of direction and now, as an adult,

I trust my ability to navigate space.

My father helped give me the confidence to guide myself through the world.

In late March, last year, 2016, I became a parent for the first time.

I remember the indescribable—and as I understand a pretty universal — experience of holding

my week-old son and feeling my priorities change on a cellular level.

I remember I experienced a shift in consciousness that gave me the ability to maintain my love

of career and cherish something else, someone else, so much, much more.

Like so many parents, I wondered how I was going to balance my work with my new role

as a parent, and in that moment, I remember that the statistic for the US’s policy on

maternity leave flashed in my mind.

American women are currently entitled to 12 weeks’ unpaid leave.

American men are entitled to nothing.

That information landed differently for me when, one week after my son’s birth I could

barely walk.

That information landed different when I was getting to know a human who was completely

dependent on my husband and I for everything, when I was dependent on my husband for most

things, when we were relearning everything we thought we knew about our family and relationship.