The other day, on our weekly podcast, we had Councilman David Alvarez on. At the beginning of our discussion, I asked him about his own family. He and his wife are expecting their second child. They have a 4-year-old at home.
The baby is due right after the final election. That could be a pretty amazing month for him.
His rivals Nathan Fletcher and Kevin Faulconer have two kids at home. Mike Aguirre has two adult children.
I joked about it with Alvarez. But having your second child is no joke. It’s a startling disruption.
I am rounding out my first year with two kids. I feel a very real sense of accomplishment every day that I’m able to get out of the house properly dressed for work.
I absolutely love my kids and I know that I’m very fortunate. But having the second seemed like a bigger change than even having our first child was. And this is with everyone healthy and all things in as much order as possible.
I laughed off the impending birth with Alvarez. But after the radio show, I got to thinking: If Alvarez were a woman expecting a baby right at the same time she were hoping to be elected mayor, I don’t think we’d just laugh it off.
I suspect it would be a big issue.
I’m acutely aware that men and women have very different experiences when a baby is born. The birth of our second child was jarring and I can’t imagine adding a major campaign and new job to the moment.
I have to wonder why I instinctively laughed off the difficulty a man might have balancing it all.
Were a prominent woman to decide to run for mayor after a sudden vacancy in that office, how would we take it if she were five months pregnant?
I don’t know. What do you think?