In the late 1970s, when Colorado Democrat Patricia Schroeder was in Congress, women leaders from other developed countries would ask her: “What are your work and family benefits?” She’d reply: “We don’t have any.” The women would laugh, thinking Schroeder was joking.

In the 1980s, Schroeder introduced a bill so radical that initially no one in Congress would co-sponsor it. Her proposed Family and Medical Leave Act granted men and women workers time off to care for newborns and ill family members.

In 1983, I had the privilege of working in Pat Schroeder’s office for three months, part of a congressional immersion program for journalists. I listened many times to the talks Schroeder gave about her proposed bill. She’d say, “If you pull the child and the mother apart right away, the mother is grieving. How focused are you at work if you’re there thinking about when you can get home?”

Schroeder heard every fear about the legislation. Men in Congress said they’d co-sponsor only if men were not allowed to take the leave, because it wasn’t manly to care for kin. Some legislators worried that couples would time their children to be born during hunting season. Others were certain employees would lie about their loved ones’ health and do cruises instead of caregiving.

In 1993, Bill Clinton signed into law the Family and Medical Leave Act. The legislation has not emasculated men or denuded companies during hunting season.

I tracked Schroeder down this week to tell her some culture-changing news from Washington state. The Legislature passed a bill allowing workers a $250 weekly stipend when they take time off to care for a newborn or adopted baby.

A task force is now studying how to pay for it, but it’s a done deal. Schroeder, who retired from Congress in 1997, is president and CEO of the Association of American Publishers. In a phone interview from her Washington, D.C., office, she told me she was happy to hear about Washington state’s bold move, but she wishes the federal leave act had paid time off in it, too. She wishes smaller companies were not exempt. She wishes business people would quit making the argument that family leave time creates an undue hardship.

“No one says you can’t have a heart attack, because it will hurt the small-business man,” she said.

When I worked in Schroeder’s office 24 years ago, women were beginning to make small strides in the political arena. But Schroeder was considered a freak of politics because she arrived in Congress in 1973 with two children, ages 2 and 6.

Last week, Washington Gov. Chris Gregoire and Senate Majority Leader Lisa Brown met with The Spokesman-Review’s editorial board. Like Schroeder, they have combined political life and motherhood. They understand these work-family issues from the inside out.

“If we can get it right in the beginning, we will over the long haul address the bigger social problems in the state,” Gregoire said. “Having parents really attach to the child and the child to that parent is one of the components.”

Enlightened men in politics supported family leave, but it took women gaining real power for real change to happen. For a decade, Schroeder fought for the right of United States workers to have what other developed countries took for granted. Now Washington state is leading the nation in guaranteeing financial support so that working parents can bond with their babies.

Employees have always subsidized the well-being of their fellow workers, from the executives sidelined by heart attacks to the laborers plagued by back problems. We accept this as part of life in our workplace “village.” Children, as we all should know by now, are the future of all our villages. Support them from their earliest days and ultimately, we all benefit.