The presidential campaign has been consumed in recent weeks by a series of manufactured political battles over motherhood. These conflicts, however, obscure the realities of what it actually means to be a mother in modern America, and how much — or how little — the government is willing to do to help parents across socioeconomic classes succeed in raising their children. In this respect, the United States diverges sharply from virtually the rest of the industrialized world.

For our show on motherhood on Sunday, we worked up a few charts which, we think, paint an especially striking portrait of the state of modern motherhood in America. In short: compared to the rest of the industrialized world, America isn’t nearly as hospitable a place for mothers as we like to think.

On Mother’s Day we exalt the cultural status of motherhood, and rightfully so. But as these figures suggest, our praise for mothers is so often mere lip service. What we actually do from a policy standpoint to make mothers’ lives easier is, in many cases, meager compared to the rest of the world.

For example, according to the annual “State of the World’s Mothers” report from the Save the Children organization, the U.S. ranks as the 25^th best country in the world to be a mother.

Happy Mother's Day! Today Chris shared his experience of raising a child and looked at how the government supports mothers and families. Also, a discussion about the political "mommy wars", "attachment parenting", and how parenting in the U.S. compares to parenting in other countries.

Joining Chris were:

Eve Ensler (@eveensler), Tony Award-winning playwright and author of The Vagina Monologues.

Michelle Goldberg (@michelleinbklyn), senior contributing writer for The Daily Beast/Newsweek and author of The Means of Reproduction.

Jamila Bey (@jbey), host of The Sex, Politics, and Religion Hour on the Voice of Russia Radio Network and contributor to the Washington Post blog "She the People". 

 Rep. Chellie Pingree (D-ME) (@chelliepingree), first woman elected to Maine's 1st congressional district.

Hannah Pingree,  Rep. Pingree's daughter and former Speaker of the Maine House of Representatives.

Katie Roiphe, contributor to Newsweek/Daily Beast and author of The Morning After: Sex, Fear and Feminism and Uncommon Arrangements.

:: Blogged by Brett Brownell (@brettbrownell), Up w/ Chris Hayes web & video producer ::

Saturday's show was devoted to gay rights, after President Obama's historic statement of support for gay marriage earlier this week. Chris and his guests discussed the history of the LGBT movement, discrimination the LGBT community still faces, and more. Joining Chris were:

State Sen. Thomas Duane (D-NY), New York Senate's first first openly-gay and first openly HIV-positive member who introduced New York's Marriage Equality Act in 2001.

Richard Kim (@richardkimnyc), executive editor at TheNation.com.

David Sirota (@davidsirota), contributor to Salon.com and author of Back to the Future.

Linda Hirshman (@lindahirshman1), author of Victory: The Triumphant Gay Revolution.

Jose Antonio Vargas (@joseiswriting), Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and founder of Define American, a new campaign that seeks to elevate the conversation around immigration.

Urvashi Vaid, director of the Engaging Tradition Project at the Center for Gender and Sexuality Law at Columbia Law School.

:: Blogged by Brett Brownell (@brettbrownell), Up w/ Chris Hayes web & video producer ::

MSNBC's Chris Hayes summarizes the news viewers should know for the upcoming week, including data from the Department of Agriculture that show the cost of raising a child spiked 25 percent in the last decade.

Government is often seen in America as a threat to family life. That's not the case, however, in most other industrialized nations — especially in Europe, where robust social welfare programs are designed not only to help parents care for their children, but also to help them maintain a fulfilling personal and professional life. To get a sense of how cultural expectations of mothers differ in countries like France and the United Kingdom, Up host Chris Hayes talks with Pamela Druckerman, journalist and author of "One American Mother Discovers the Wisdom of French Parenting."

MSNBC's Chris Hayes and the panel dissect a booming trend in child-rearing: So-called "attachment parenting," popularized in part by parenting gurus like Dr. William Sears. A buzzy Time magazine story about Dr. Sears' parenting philosophy — as well as a fiery new polemic called "The Conflict: How Modern Motherhood Undermines the State of Women" by French philosopher Elisabeth Badinter — has stoked a fierce debate about whether cultural expectations of mothers have rolled back many of the social and political gains of the Second Wave feminist movement.

Up host Chris Hayes talks to Rep. Chellie Pingree, D-Maine, and her daughter Hannah, the former speaker of the Maine House of Representatives, about their personal struggle to balance political ambitions and family life, as well as the current policy battles over motherhood.

There are, broadly speaking, two conceptual frameworks for how we approach child-rearing, politically speaking: The "village," as popularized by Hillary Clinton's 1996 book on parenting, and the "family," as conceived by cultural conservatives such as Rick Santorum. As part of our show on motherhood, Chris and the panelists ask: Which of these frameworks actually values and supports family life more? And why are Americans apparently so hostile to the model of government-supported child care that has taken hold throughout the rest of the industrialized world?

On Mother's Day, Up w/ Chris Hayes panelists Eve Ensler, author of "The Vagina Monologues"; Michelle Goldberg, senior contributor to Newsweek/The Daily Beast; Jamila Bey, contributor to the Washington Post's "She the People" blog; and Katie Roiphe, author of "The Morning After: Fear, Sex and Feminism," discuss the Romney campaign's latest attempt to revive the issue of Ann Romney's role as a stay-at-home, and examine how these kinds of manufactured political battles ignore the actual realities of motherhood.

For Mother's Day, Up host Chris Hayes shares his own experience in raising a child as he talks about how the US government supports mothers and families, and how that support compares to other industrialized countries worldwide. 

On Sunday at 8AM ET on MSNBC Chris and his guests will discuss issues affecting moms during this presidential race. Plus, Chris will share his thoughts on celebrating Mothers Day for the first time with his daughter.

Joining Chris will be:

Eve Ensler (@eveensler), Tony Award-winning playwright and author of The Vagina Monologues.

Michelle Goldberg (@michelleinbklyn), senior contributing writer for The Daily Beast/Newsweek and author of The Means of Reproduction.

Jamila Bey (@jbey), host of The Sex, Politics, and Religion Hour on the Voice of Russia Radio Network and contributor to the Washington Post blog "She the People".

Rep. Chellie Pingree (D-ME) (@chelliepingree), first woman elected to Maine's 1st congressional district.

Hannah Pingree, Rep. Pingree's daughter and former Speaker of the Maine House of Representatives.

Katie Roiphe, contributor to Newsweek/Daily Beast and author of The Morning After: Sex, Fear and Feminism and Uncommon Arrangements.

:: Blogged by Brett Brownell (@brettbrownell), Up w/ Chris Hayes web & video producer ::

Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist Jose Antonio Vargas joins Chris Hayes and his panelists to discuss the success of the LGBT movement and President Obama's evolution on gay marriage in the context of his questionable record with the country's undocumented community. 

Up host Chris Hayes along with panelists Richard Kim, executive editor at The Nation.com, David Sirota, author of "Back to Our Future," Linda Hirshman, author of "Victory: The Triumphant Gay Revolution," and Urvashi Vaid, author of the upcoming book, "Irresistible Revolution: Race, Class, and the LGBT Imagination," discuss the strategies that pushed the LGBT movement to the forefront and debate the best way to continue with the fight.