After being a stay-at-home mom with her five children, Nancy Pelosi decided to bring her experience as a mother to a new field: politics.
In a new episode of The Huffington Post's parent-child interview series Talk To Me, the House Democratic leader opened up to her documentary filmmaker daughter, Alexandra Pelosi, about her struggles and accomplishments as both a mother and a politician.
The former Speaker of the House explained how her experience as a mom influenced her transition into politics and the public policies she fought for. "It always bothered me, my whole life, that one in five children in America lives in poverty," she told her daughter. "For me, [politics] was not a change but an extension of my role as a mom, to make sure that we had public policies that gave opportunity to all of America's children."
Asked by her daughter about the so-called "mommy wars" between stay-at-home moms and working moms, Pelosi said that with five young children, she felt she wasn't capable of juggling both roles simultaneously. But she emphasized that it's a decision every woman must be empowered to make for herself.
"We shouldn't be making judgments about how other people choose to balance career and home," she said. "I'm speaking of myself because I went from being a housewife to the House Speaker, a homemaker to a member of Congress."
Before she first ran for office, Pelosi asked Alexandra, who was in high school at the time, for approval. If her daughter had said no, "that would have been fine with me." Instead, she recalled with a smile, Alexandra approved and told her, "Mom, get a life. What teenage girl wouldn't want her mom out of the house three nights a week."
Pelosi was also candid when asked about the millions of dollars that have been spent attacking her in recent years. "I consider that a badge of honor," she said. "If I were not an effective person, they would not be spending that money... When you go into the arena, you expect this. When you throw a punch, you expect to take a punch."
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