The Worst Workplace to Become a Parent? Congress.

Rep. LaMonica McIver of New Jersey gave birth to a baby girl last week, becoming just the 15th voting member of Congress in history to give birth while serving in office.

But months before, the freshman lawmaker was already worried about how she would be able to raise a child while also serving in an institution that has no flexibility for working parents.

“That really keeps me up at night,” McIver said.

McIver told The Washington Sun in mid-August, when she was eight months pregnant, that “this is my first job ever where I don’t get any support as an expecting mom when I deliver my kid.”

“I’ve been spending most of my time trying to plan what that looks like, so I’m there healing properly, spending time with my incoming child, but also how do I continue to show up for my constituents and and be present in voting, because I know that this workplace doesn’t support me having a baby,” McIver said.

Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-Washington), the mother of a young son, told the House Rules Committee recently that “the representation of the body is improved when we have a more representative body. I believe there are fewer than 10 members of Congress who have a child in day care. Is it any shock then that day care has not become a priority of this body?”

Mothers of young children are underrepresented in Congress: While 18% of all U.S. adults are mothers of children under 18, only 7% of members of Congress — 39 lawmakers — are mothers of young children, according to data from the Vote Mama Foundation.

AOC and Other Lawmakers Publicly Talk About Decisions to Plan for a Family

In recent years, more female House lawmakers have opened up about their decisions to start a family. Rep. Sara Jacobs (D-California) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York) have talked about their egg-freezing journeys. Ocasio-Cortez documented her procedures on social media, sharing a lot of personal details about the process.

Rep. Kat Cammack (R-Florida), who gave birth to her son last year, revealed that she had an ectopic pregnancy. Rep. Sydney Kamlager-Dove (D-California) disclosed that she’d had a miscarriage.

The Washington Sun spoke with four lawmakers and candidates from both parties who opened up about their reproductive health decisions, and juggling becoming a parent and serving as a member of Congress. They all focused on the same message: More parents of young children should run and serve in office.

“There are a lot of issues and, respectfully to my colleagues who are on the back nine here, some of them, they certainly have grandchildren, and in some cases, great-grandchildren, but I don’t think they can fully appreciate some of the challenges of parenthood today,” Rep. Mike Lawler (R-New York) told The Sun in an interview. “Having young parents in Congress matters. It’s important for the debate, for the discussion, for public policy.”

Lawler, who is the father of two young daughters, has talked about his and his wife’s struggle to conceive. He told The Sun that he and his wife had a second miscarriage this year. His experience led him to co-sponsor legislation aimed at expanding access to assisted reproductive technologies, such as in vitro fertilization.

Renewed Push for Proxy Voting for New Parents

Lawmakers still get paid if they’re absent, but they cannot vote on legislation if they’re not present in the House chamber. In 2025, a bipartisan effort to allow new parents to vote remotely for 12 weeks after birth failed after Speaker Mike Johnson called proxy voting “unconstitutional.” Lawmakers renewed the push last month, when they urged the House Rules Committee to consider adding proxy voting for new parents in the rules for the upcoming Congress next year.

“For many of us on the West Coast, we are on round-trip flights for 12 hours total, often two, three, sometimes four times a month. You literally are not allowed to fly at some point in your pregnancy; imagine doing that with a newborn who needs their parent around,” Jacobs said at the hearing.

“Proxy voting is so important, for me it’s literally going to decide if or when I can start my own family, and I know that’s true for many others,” Jacobs added.

Rep. Hillary Scholten (D-Michigan) didn’t give birth while serving in office but said she has school-aged children, “and the demands on our time for being in this body and also being at home should not be understated. And I’ve heard many say, ‘Well, then maybe you should choose a different profession.’ That would be an incredible disservice to the American people. They are underserved when they don’t have voices like ours in Congress to speak on them.”

Lawler, who represents one of the most competitive districts in the country, said that his second daughter was born eight days before the 2024 election. He joined Reps. Brittany Pettersen (D-Colorado), Anna Paulina Luna (R-Florida) and Jacobs in co-leading the failed resolution to allow proxy voting for new parents.

“Not only did I obviously have to campaign in that final week, but then I had to show up and be back on the House floor the following week. So I never had a week or two weeks or even a day off in that immediate aftermath,” Lawler recounted. “For my female colleagues, that’s obviously even worse.”

Pettersen made history in April last year when she held her newborn son, Sam, during an official floor speech. He was just 9 weeks old.

Rep. Brittany Pettersen made history bringing her infant son, Sam, to the House floor for a speech in April 2025.(Francis Chung/POLITICO via AP Images)

The congresswoman first brought Sam to the House floor when he was 4 weeks old, traveling to the Capitol to vote against President Donald Trump’s One Big, Beautiful Bill. Pettersen told the House Rules Committee in September that by the time Sam was 6 months old, he had taken 24 flights. While infants can physically withstand flying after the first week of life, medical experts recommend waiting until a baby is 2 to 3 months old, when they’ve developed stronger immunity.

“It’s the system that makes it so difficult to get there to begin with and continue to serve as a mom that we need to change,” Pettersen told The Sun.

Pettersen said that it was important for her to share her experience to inspire “people to believe that they can also continue to step into these roles even when they have children.” But she admitted her public push has subjected her to a lot of backlash.

“The amount of people that have said that I should be home, I should be taking care of my kids, I shouldn’t be in Congress, is shocking how pervasive that is,” Pettersen said. She added that the criticism has come from Republicans, online comments and even current members of Congress.

McIver, who faces up to 17 years in prison after being indicted over an incident outside an immigration detention center, recalled that after she announced she was pregnant in May, she started seeing people make “memes” of her “with a baby bump in a prison suit behind bars.” Others said “cruel and racist things as well, like, ‘Another Black ghetto baby coming into this world.’ I mean, you name it, you can take a walk if you like through my social media comments. They’re honestly disgusting,” she said.

Candidates See Running as a Parent as a Positive

While Pettersen and McIver said they’ve met moms who’ve told them that they don’t believe they could run for office, some candidates are touting their roles as parents on the campaign trail.

Rebecca Bennett, the Democrat running against Rep. Tom Kean Jr. (R-New Jersey), has made her role as a mom to two young daughters, who are 4 and 7 years old, a major pitch in her campaign. She includes capping child care costs, providing 12 weeks of paid family leave and providing funding for universal pre-K among her policy priorities.

“There are currently only five moms with kids under 6 in Congress right now,” Bennett said. “This is why we need more people in office that really understand the challenges that families are facing. When people are talking about the affordability crisis, those are not talking points for me. This is my life.”

Her campaign organizes meet and greets at playgrounds on Friday afternoons and Saturday mornings, “because if you have young kids, it’s very difficult to come out to a political event at seven o’clock in the evening.”

As a former Navy helicopter pilot, she thinks a lot about the high rates of infertility among veterans. She told The Sun that after having her first daughter, she had a miscarriage.

“When I started sharing with my friends that I had one, they all told me they had one too, but it’s one of those things people don’t talk about because there’s such stigma. So I think the more we can to help break that down, I think the better we’ll be longer term,” Bennett said.

“The more we can share our stories and be able to have people see themselves in our elected officials, I think, is important,” she added.

Lawmakers are helping their colleagues push to change the culture on Capitol Hill to allow for better work-life balance.

Last week, McIver’s staff sent other member offices talking points about the congresswoman’s new baby, according to an email viewed by The Sun. The email contained tweet drafts, graphics templates and video scripts for lawmakers to show support for McIver.

“LaMonica McIver isn’t the first woman to give birth while serving in Congress, but she’s a part of a really small group … Congress isn’t set up for new parents,” one of the video scripts reads. “Let’s stand together and demand inclusive work environments for mothers nationwide and right here in D.C., so we can help the people who count on us.”