When U.S. Sen. Tammy Duckworth gave birth to her first daughter in 2014, a measly 8 percent of U.S. airports had a lactation room onsite.
Duckworth, who frequently travels between Washington, D.C., and her home state of Illinois, found herself pumping breastmilk in bathroom stalls and charging her breast pump next to a line of cell phones.
“We would never ask our fellow travelers to eat their sandwiches in a bathroom,” she wrote in a 2017 op-ed. “But there I was, expressing milk for my child on a toilet seat.”
In 2022, thanks to Duckworth’s bipartisan Friendly Airport for Mothers Act, all medium and large airports in the U.S. are required to provide clean, accessible lactation rooms. All small airports must include them by 2023. It’s a huge victory for moms who travel or work in the airline industry — and for the babies they’re nourishing.
“I tell people, ‘If you don’t care about the wellbeing of some kid who belongs to somebody else, but you do care about our nation’s security, then you should want universal pre-K.’”
“Trying to be the best mom I could be for my brand new baby led me to pass a whole slew of legislation and speak out on issues that I supported, but was never a leader on,” Duckworth told me. “If you ask anyone, ‘Who’s Tammy Duckworth,’ they would say, ‘Oh she’s the veterans person, she’s the military person.’ But now I’m leading on issues of family and supporting parents because that became my reality.”
As a member of the Illinois Army Guard, Duckworth was deployed in 2004 to Iraq, where her helicopter was hit by an RPG. She lost her legs and partial use of her right arm and has worked as a fierce advocate for veterans and their families ever since. In 2009, President Obama appointed Duckworth as an Assistant Secretary of Veterans Affairs.
Four years ago, Sen. Duckworth became the first woman to give birth while serving in the U.S. Senate when her second daughter was born.
Convincing some of her fellow legislators—and the American electorate—that family-friendly policies are worthy of robust, bipartisan support can be a tough sell.
“I tell people, ‘It’s not a handout to parents. It’s about our nation’s economy.’
Duckworth said it’s gratifying to see companies offering family-friendly policies to attract and retain talent, but she’d like to see employers offer those same benefits to workers across income brackets.
“We’ve got to see that permeate to the people who work at the lower end of the income scale,” she said. “And we’ve got to make it so that those businesses both understand that and can afford to provide it. When we make those investments—in paid family leave, in good quality childcare, in universal pre-K—it frees parents up to work and pay taxes and make our economy more productive.”
Duckworth said she frequently cites Pentagon data showing 71% of young people are ineligible for the military because of a criminal record, no high school diploma or a health condition that often went untreated during childhood.
“I tell people, ‘If you don’t care about children, if you don’t care about the wellbeing of some kid who belongs to somebody else, but you do care about our nation’s security, then you should want universal pre-K,’” Duckworth said. “Because universal pre-k is correlated to literacy at the 4th grade level and literacy at the 4th grade level predicts high school graduation.’
“I tell people, ‘If you don’t care about the wellbeing of some kid who belongs to somebody else, but you do care about our nation’s security, then you should want universal pre-K,’” Duckworth said. “Because universal pre-K is correlated to literacy at the 4th grade level, and literacy at the 4th grade level predicts high school graduation.’
“So when I talk to folks who say, ‘This stuff is all women’s issues,’ I say, ‘Well, the military is concerned about it. The military thinks it’s an issue,’” she continued. “By not investing in early childhood, by not investing in healthcare, we’re affecting the readiness of our military to fight wars. Because what’s the point of buying a $300 million fighter jet if we don’t have the people to fly or repair them? That’s a topic I feel uniquely qualified to speak to.”