Questions of the House Not Being a Home

Once upon a time, having a young brood was an asset for a politician, just as motherhood and apple pie was a good campaign theme.

But ever since 34-year-old Jane Swift, a Republican candidate for lieutenant governor of Massachusetts, announced her pregnancy, she has taken heat from some unexpected quarters. In between fielding questions about taxes, state services and education reform, Swift has been publicly called to account for her breast-feeding plans, her child-care choices and her commitment to parenting.

And she is not alone. Throughout the country, in growing numbers, young female politicians are facing hostile questions about their efforts to juggle the demands of mothering small children with the rigors of campaigning and serving in public office.

What distinguishes this generation of female candidates is that many are launching political careers early in life during their child-bearing years. And, perhaps more telling, they are advancing their careers at a time when more people feel free to express the once politically incorrect view that child care, especially in the first three years of a child’s life, may be the best public service a woman can provide.

“I think this is the quintessential opportunity for a public profile person like [Swift] to say, ‘Hey, you know what, enough’s enough. The chase for the brass ring has got to stop in favor of parenting,’ ” said Dan Yorke, a talk-radio host in Springfield, Mass., and an influential voice with the state’s Republicans. “I won’t go so far as to say the child will lose. But the child will suffer. And it’s the middle ground between losing and suffering that is the problem for kids in this country today.”

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Yorke, who has called Swift’s decision to campaign “selfish,” acknowledges that his comments may seem out of step in an age when 63% of mothers of preschoolers are in the paid work force. But he insists that his public tongue-lashing of Swift resonates with Americans, including with many mothers who work.

“Professional women were calling in and saying: ‘I can’t believe I’m saying this but you are right on! I was too busy when my kids were little. And now, my doctorate, my law degree, my business is just not that important to me!’ I had women in tears, crying on the phone about how guilty they feel about the time they didn’t spend with their kids.”

Indeed, in one national survey, two-thirds of Americans said that, financial needs aside, it is better if women can stay home and care for their families. Half of those polled said they respect stay-at-home mothers more than those who work while their children are young. The poll was conducted by the Kaiser Family Foundation, Harvard University and the Washington Post.

“Essentially, we found that people are living the life of Murphy Brown but still hold the values of Ozzie and Harriet,” said Kaiser Family Foundation President Drew Altman, contrasting the single working mom of TV’s “Murphy Brown” sitcom with the married icons of 1950s values. “People want it all but they know they just can’t have it all. And if you’re a political consultant, you can exploit that internal conflict.”

Today, 14 of 62 women in the U.S. House and Senate have children under age 18. Gilda Morales of Rutgers University’s Center for the American Woman and Politics said that, until the last decade, only three women--former Reps. Patricia Schroeder (D-Colo.), Geraldine A. Ferraro (D-N.Y.) and Yvonne Brathwaite Burke (D-Los Angeles)--had young children while running campaigns and serving in Congress.

In 1974, Burke became the first member of Congress to give birth while serving in a federal elected office. In the last three years alone, by contrast, three congresswomen--Enid Greene (R-Utah), Susan Molinari (R-N.Y.) and Blanche Lambert Lincoln (D-Ark.) have given birth while in office. A fourth, Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.), adopted an infant daughter last year.

For the growing number of young female office seekers, the public’s ambivalence toward working mothers has created both dangers and opportunities.

In Arkansas, former Rep. Lincoln, running to fill a Senate seat being vacated by Dale Bumpers, regularly fields questions about her plans for the care of her 1-year-old twin boys. Lincoln had given up her House seat in 1996 when she learned that she was pregnant with the twins. But after a year of caring for them at home, she has said she is ready to return to Washington.

Now back on the campaign trail, Lincoln regularly argues that the Senate needs more mothers, and her television ads show her in a series of motherly duties. But she also has gotten so many questions about her child-care plans that she now flatly turns down interview requests on the subject.

In Massachusetts, some Republican strategists reacted to news of Swift’s pregnancy with glee, predicting that it would attract thousands of working mothers--a key swing vote in the heavily Democratic state--to the GOP ticket.

But like a bout of morning sickness, the second-guessing set in soon thereafter. First, Evelyn Reilly, a local Christian Coalition leader, expressed concerns about whether Swift would have enough time to spend with her newborn. Then, WHYN’s Yorke whipped up debate with his on-air blasts at Swift. Since then, the campaigning Swift, who is due to deliver two weeks before the November election, has received a steady barrage of questions--some friendly, some edged with concern--about her prospective motherhood.

“This whole debate about whether or not women should be able to combine work and family--I thought we’d moved past that at least several decades ago,” said Swift, who dismissed her critics as “a handful of women who aren’t happy about the choices they’ve made.”

Like many in a new generation, Swift acknowledged that the coincidence of her long-awaited pregnancy and her first big political break has made for some tricky timing. When she was tapped as a running mate by the state’s popular acting governor, Paul Cellucci, Swift told him that she was planning a pregnancy. And when she learned she was pregnant, she didn’t consider dropping out of the race.

“There are moments when I question my own sanity,” Swift says. But, she adds, after six years in the statehouse, she was not about to pass up the opportunity. “I’m at a time of my career where I have professional opportunities, where my husband and I have been focusing on my professional development.”

If voters can’t deal with that, Swift suggested, that’s their problem.

“The truth is, I’m pregnant and that’s a reality. This is something I chose to do and, if people want to embrace or reject me on that basis, that’s something they’ll have to do.”

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In Cleveland, Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Stephanie Tubbs Jones, running to fill the House seat vacated by Rep. Louis Stokes (D-Ohio), has learned to preempt questions about how her 15-year-old son, Mervyn, will weather her absence. On the stump, Jones now regularly lays out her caregiving arrangements--father, grandparents, aunts and uncles--and recounts her son’s reaction--”Go for it, Mom!”--when she nervously told him how much time she’d have to spend away in Washington.

In recent months, Rep. Mary Bono (R-Palm Springs) faced similar questions about her parenting responsibilities when she ran for husband Sonny’s House seat after his death in a skiing accident. Friends and critics alike questioned whether Bono, with children ages 10 and 7 who had just lost their father, could continue to offer them the support they would need and keep up with the demands of lawmaking at the national level.

In the end, it was Bono’s mother-in-law, Jean Bono, who most succinctly summed up those fears. In a letter to the Desert Sun published a week before the election, Jean Bono warned that her grandchildren “would essentially become orphans open to abuse by strangers” if their mother won the congressional seat.

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Jean Bono has since told her daughter-in-law that she “regretted” the letter, according to Rep. Bono’s spokesman, Frank Cullen, and that she now supports Bono’s decision.

Polls show that older Americans like Jean Bono feel most strongly that mothers should stay at home with their small children. But they are by no means alone. In the Kaiser/Harvard/Washington Post survey, half of all college-educated professional women said they believe it is better for women to stay home to care for their families. And among people younger than 30 years old, 45% of respondents said they respect mothers who stay home more than those who work.

Like it or not, one veteran of political motherhood said, female politicians had better get used to the questions--and craft their own solutions.

“People make political judgments in part based on whether they see someone as sharing their values,” said Greene, the Utah congresswoman who retired after the birth of her daughter almost three years ago. “If you as the elected official are willing to draw some boundaries--maybe you’re not going to be the committee chairman or the No. 1 fund-raiser--you can cut out the extraneous parts of the job. And I don’t think that makes you a less effective representative. Or a less devoted parent.”