Childcare in the Capitol: As more women run for office, some are bringing their kids

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — When Florida state Rep. Fiona McFarland's infant daughter, Grace Melton, crawled for the first time, the mom of four was right next door, hard at work with her legislative policy staff in the state Capitol.

Thanks to the on-site childcare available in the statehouse, McFarland didn't miss that magical first milestone in her 7-month-old's young life.

''The sitter I had with her just grabbed me out of my meeting right next door and I came over and got to witness it,'' McFarland recalled.

As more women and young people run for public office, they're bringing more than fresh policy ideas to statehouses — some are bringing their kids.

Like working parents across the country, some lawmakers are scrambling to find childcare that fits their often unpredictable schedules, at a price they can afford. Rushing back and forth from their districts, they juggle meetings with constituents and coordinate their children's drop-offs, power through late-night floor sessions and step out to pump breast milk between votes, hoping to make it home for their kids' bedtime.

''Looking back, I'm like, ‘How did I do that?'" Michigan state Sen. Stephanie Chang said, recalling those frenzied years when she was a new legislator and a new mom.

The Democrat used to race across the state with her baby and freezer bags of milk in tow, leaving her daughter with family members so she could make her 9 a.m. committee meetings at the state Capitol in Lansing.

In one of the few industrialized countries that lacks universal paid family leave, Chang says America's childcare crunch is keeping some parents from running for public office because they simply ''cannot make it all work," ultimately leaving young families with fewer advocates to help decide "what we're doing for the future of our children.''

Advocates push for more support, as more young parents get elected

Some state capitols, which were mostly built before women could vote, still lack enough accessible bathrooms, advocates say, let alone spaces to comfortably change a baby's diaper or nurse an infant.

"Legislators legislate based on their lived experience," said Liuba Grechen Shirley, founder of the Vote Mama Foundation, which pushes to break barriers that moms face while running for office.

''We have terrible policies that fail women and children across the country because we don't have enough moms serving at any level of government,'' she said.

As of this year, 33% of state legislators were women, according to the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University. Fewer than 8% of those lawmakers are moms of minor children, a Vote Mama analysis found.

Statehouses' childcare offerings largely lag behind other workplaces, but advocates say they're gaining some ground.

The Virginia House of Delegates now gives a childcare stipend to members with young kids to help cover their expenses during session.

At least two-thirds of states allow candidates of any gender running for public office to use campaign funds to pay for child care expenses after the Federal Elections Commission approved the practice for federal candidates in 2018.

A childcare space just for Florida lawmakers

Inside the echoing halls of Florida's Capitol, amid the chattering of lobbyists and the clicking of high heels, the voices of children like Grace can be heard as they play inside two on-site childcare spaces that were created just for the kids of legislators.

McFarland, whose four children are ages 5 and under, was elected for the first time in 2020, when she was pregnant with her first child. Since then, her public service has been fueled by ''caffeine and dry shampoo," she joked.

On early mornings before the Capitol's in-house day care opens up, McFarland plops Grace into a bouncy chair that sits on her desk in her legislative office, or holds the baby with one hand as she flips through briefing books with the other.

''Moms will always make it work,'' said McFarland, a Republican.

While the House is in session or committee hearings are in swing, McFarland is able to drop her daughter off at the childcare upstairs. The space isn't open every day and the hours vary, McFarland says, an experience many working parents can empathize with.

The staff working in the Capitol's childcare are paid out of campaign funds, spokespeople for the House speaker and Senate president said. The initiative grew out of the Legislature's program for lawmakers' spouses, many of whom travel to Tallahassee for session.

After the day care has closed for the afternoon, Grace comes back downstairs to nap and play in a nursery McFarland has set up in the room next door to her office. McFarland also hires sitters to take care of her baby when the childcare space isn't open, a cost she pays for herself.

Every working parent has to make tradeoffs, McFarland said, but having childcare in the Capitol means she doesn't have to make quite as many.

''That's what makes Florida stronger, right? Is when we have good representatives and we have good parents — who are able to do both,'' McFarland said.

Florida's Capitol childcare is an ''informal'' approach, but could serve as a model for legislatures across the country, Grechen Shirley said.

It's a ''first step'' she said, that states should bolster with other supportive policies like allowing proxy voting, paying lawmakers a ''livable wage'' and letting candidates use campaign funds to cover childcare expenses.

''If we want a legislature that actually reflects our society, we have to make it easier for young families to run for office and to stay in office," Grechen Shirley said.

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Associated Press writers Olivia Diaz in Richmond, Virginia and Isabella Volmert in Lansing, Michigan contributed to this report. Payne is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.

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