Colleagues advise Congress’ new mom

WASHINGTON – For one member of Congress, this Mother’s Day has special significance: Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers’ son, Cole, will be 2 weeks old. Her first child puts her in an exclusive club. Only four other women have given birth while in Congress.

Rep. Yvonne Brathwaite Burke’s daughter Roxanne, born Nov. 23, 1973, was the first baby. A sign of how attitudes toward balancing motherhood and professional life have changed: When Speaker Carl Albert granted her the first congressional maternity leave, Burke downplayed her historic role, calling it “a dubious honor.”

McMorris Rodgers’ office issued a press release when she delivered her son. In an e-mail, she joked she was buoyed in her pregnancy by “having 434 colleagues comment on my not-so-gradual weight gain.”

McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., says she has gotten advice from congressional mothers of young children, including Melissa Bean, D-Ill.; Mary Fallin, R-Okla.; and Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla. New mothers are still “an underrepresented minority” in Congress, says Wasserman Schultz, who works constituent demands around the schedule of her daughter’s Brownie troop, which she leads.

Says Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas: “I have found myself editing a speech while making a peanut butter sandwich.”

Moms in Congress say their children make them better legislators.