Sara,

I agree. Although I am just a City Councilor, the experience has expanded my own children's view of politics. They were older than yours when I started, but it has made my daughters more interested in the world around them and has encouraged them to be more aware of events and politics. And, as a teacher, it has opened new doors for many of my students to meet and talk to various officials and politicians around the state.

my son is one of the few kids in the state whose resume includes interrupting the Governor during a news interview to ask him if he likes pirates!

Well, does he? How could you leave that out?!

%^>

I've always thought being the mother of several children was the perfect training for dealing with legislative bodies on every level. The next best is several years as a kindergarten teacher.

Heh..I've got both of those on my resume'. (I have two kids, which is less than "several". But they're both teenagers now so it sort of counts)

I don't know that I'll ever run for elected office. I'm not sure my personality suited for governance. But I love seeing mothers taking part in public service at all levels.

When I chose to go to work for Jeff Merkley's U.S. Senate campaign--I did a cost-benefit analysis of being away from my kids a lot for 16 months vs trying to really make a difference for our state and country. Micro vs macro, if you will. It's been a dream of mine to push myself beyond blogging into a campaign, to stretch myself into new areas and work for someone I really believe in. And while it has it's difficulties, it's worth it knowing that my work has a great likelihood of putting our country in the right direction.

As it turns out, my son has had the opportunity to volunteer for the campaign, participating in some really great stuff. He loves politics (apple doesn't fall far, don'tcha know). The hands-on experience he'll continue to get when coming to work with me will be invaluable to him.

I'd encourage any mom who has a passion for something to go after her dream. I've been doing it since August. My kids are proud of me and I'm proud of me for going after it. It can be a lot of extra work, but it's worth it.

Carla--Netroots Outreach, Jeff Merkley for Oregon

Thanks Sara, this is interesting and inspiring. You are absolutely right that we need women who are mothers of children as candidates and officials if the circumstances of their lives allow it.

Assuming that political women often will have political spouses, we should encourage activist men (or female partners) to give mothers the same support at home that wives of male politicians long have given them.

Conversely, we should honor decisions by either women or men to put families first at given stages, if that's what they decide works in their lives.

One of the key challenges in our system is that seniority makes a huge difference - either formally (in Congress) or informally (everywhere else).

I think it was Geraldine Ferraro who once noted that women tend to run for office after they've raised their kids while men... "graduate from law school and think they're ready to run for Congress."

That's a bit overstated, but not far off the mark. I'd love to see a study of the average age of rookie members of Congress - and our Legislature... I'm willing to bet the average age at election of women is much higher.

If we're going to see a politics where women and men not only hold roughly equal numbers of seats - but have roughly equal amounts of power... then we need to encourage women, as Sara does in this post, to run now. Don't wait!

I wrote an article on this subject for Mothers Movement Online in which I mentioned a poll done by Deloitte and Touche that said voters were more comfortable with fathers with young children running for office than mothers.

The article (if I can figure out this hyperlink thingy) is at

Nope -- I didn't figure it out -- someday I will...

Kristin:

Is this it?

Sara, good for you. It's tough doing a regular job with kids, much less serving in office. What did you do for child care--is the Legislature progressive enough to have child care onsite in the Capitol?

Carla,

Yes it is -- thanks so much!

Kristin

the people in Corvallis and Benton County who know Sara and her terrific husband know how lucky they are to have this wonderful team in their midst. the Gelsers are fortunate (i don't think i'm putting words into Sara's mouth) to have supportive family and friends, people who make sure they have the love and care they need to do what they do. the lesson is that a mom, even of young children, can do "big" and amazing things with the care and support of those around her. those of us who know such women (and men, too, of course; the experience of Barack and Michelle Obama, as they have shared it with America as they've campaigned, makes it clear that a loving father needs the active support of his wife and support network, too) should do all we can to support them as they pursue their dreams. Oregon is lucky to have Sara, but who knows what other great women leaders are out there and only in need of some good child support to step forward!

Sara,

That's a very disturbing story you tell about your community leader acquaintance. If I inadvertantly reproduced the canard and double standard applied to women that you describe, I didn't mean to do so.

In a funny way I think possibly women in public life end up becoming a focus of guilt on the part of many parents of both sexes who need to have two-income families and / or want to have meaningful work as part of their lives. Our social structure & the ways jobs are constructed push everyone to overwork relative to family life. But the way forward is not to try to impose historically misleading gender stereotypes that deny society the benefits of women's talents in addition to restrictions they place on individual women. It is to find ways to create more flexibility for individuals of both sexes and to get away from punishing people for the choices they make.

It's a tough nut to crack, because there are so many incentives for employers to make "putting work first" the criterion for rewards of different sorts.

My vague utopian ideas about it involve a stronger social wage to reduce dependence on specific employers, and a hope that the changes we will need to make to deal with the ecoological crisis will lead to paying people less in relation to making and selling stuff toward work that helps us cooperate with one another better or find joys in things that aren't objects. How to get from here to there I don't know and numbers of things seem to trend in the other direction, esp. the apotheosis of "business models" as the be all and end all of how to organize activities.

Anyway, keep doing the good work Sara.

I'd heard about Rep. Clem's new baby, but not about Rep. Shields. Congrats to his family!