Skip to main content

NPR: For Moms In Congress, Votes Mix With Diapers And School Pickup

May 9, 2014

(Click here to view the original article)

By Tamara Keith - 5/9/2014

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  For Congresswoman Linda Sanchez, a California Democrat, getting her son, Joaquin, ready in the morning and easing him to sleep at night are precious moments.

Joaquin is a super hero obsessed four-year old. And it seems like he never stops moving but it's bedtime so Sanchez scoops him out of the tub, wraps him in a towel and carries him off to put on his PJs.

For Sanchez, balancing her duties as a mom and a Member of Congress can be a struggle.  Her husband often travels for work and she says he was away during last fall's government shutdown.

"We were voting in session six days a week so we only had Sundays off, and I'll never forget there was a Saturday when we had votes at midnight"

She had to ask a neighbor to come stay with Joaquin. Often she races to pick him up from preschool and then brings him on the house floor for the last votes of the day. But for all the challenges, Sanchez realizes she's lucky to have the flexibility that comes with being the boss.

"I think about shift workers who are parents and how different it is for them, because if my kid has an epic meltdown in the morning and refuses to put his shoes on and we're late getting him to school I can kind of adjust my schedule."

But things inevitably slip. That's just the nature of trying to do it all.

"You can't be the perfect Member of Congress and the perfect mother 100 percent of the time. And probably you'd be a pretty annoying person if you were."

Sanchez says if she had known how much joy being a mom brings, she would have gotten started sooner.

(Click here to view the original article)

By Tamara Keith - 5/9/2014

For Congresswoman Linda Sanchez, a California Democrat, getting her son, Joaquin, ready in the morning and easing him to sleep at night are precious moments.

Joaquin is a super hero obsessed four-year old. And it seems like he never stops moving but it's bedtime so Sanchez scoops him out of the tub, wraps him in a towel and carries him off to put on his PJs.

For Sanchez, balancing her duties as a mom and a Member of Congress can be a struggle.  Her husband often travels for work and she says he was away during last fall's government shutdown.

"We were voting in session six days a week so we only had Sundays off, and I'll never forget there was a Saturday when we had votes at midnight"

She had to ask a neighbor to come stay with Joaquin. Often she races to pick him up from preschool and then brings him on the house floor for the last votes of the day. But for all the challenges, Sanchez realizes she's lucky to have the flexibility that comes with being the boss.

"I think about shift workers who are parents and how different it is for them, because if my kid has an epic meltdown in the morning and refuses to put his shoes on and we're late getting him to school I can kind of adjust my schedule."

But things inevitably slip. That's just the nature of trying to do it all.

"You can't be the perfect Member of Congress and the perfect mother 100 percent of the time. And probably you'd be a pretty annoying person if you were."

Sanchez says if she had known how much joy being a mom brings, she would have gotten started sooner.