Transcript of Pelosi Moderated Conversation at POLITICO ‘Women Rule’ Summit

Washington, D.C. – Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi joined her daughter and filmmaker Alexandra Pelosi for a moderated conversation led by POLITICO's Lois Romano as part of summit on the contributions and leadership of women – Women Rule: Marks of Leadership.  This event was entitled "One Generation to Another: Advice That Goes Both Ways."  Below is a transcript of the conversation:

Lois Romano.  So we're hoping to have a conversation this morning on what you learn from each other, how advice goes both ways.  And also, I want to know what it was like growing up in Nancy Pelosi's home.

[Laughter]

So, I'm going to start with you, Alexandra, on that note.  Your mom has been a noted advocate for women since she's been in Congress – and probably before.  She wrote a book on it, and she has said in her book: "For our daughters and our granddaughters, now the sky is the limit."  Is that the message you had growing up, or did that message come later?

Alexandra Pelosi.  Ok.  So…

Lois Romano.  Let's just talk.

[Laughter]

Alexandra Pelosi.  I feel like we have to set some picture of what it was like.  First of all, what you might not understand is that she was not working until I went off – wait.  She went off to Congress when I was a…

Leader Pelosi.  Senior in high school.  Well, let's put it this way.

[Laughter]

You answer, and then I'll tell you when I went off to Congress.

[Laughter]

Alexandra Pelosi.  So, she wasn't working when we were growing up.  She was a stay-at-home mom.  She baked cakes, and made Halloween costumes, and she cooked.  She was a stay-at-home mom, and that's all I knew her as.  I was the youngest of five children, and we only knew her as the woman driving the carpool.  And when she was 46 years old – well, you tell them the story.

Leader Pelosi.  Well when I was 46 years old, which they refer to as "late in life"…

[Laughter]

I had the opportunity to run for Congress.  I had absolutely no interest in running for Congress, or running for any political office, for that matter.  I had been active in the political party; I was Chair of the California Democratic Party.

Alexandra Pelosi.  But she was all volunteer.  So, we didn't think of her as someone who was working because she did it while we were in school.

Leader Pelosi.  So in any case, the opportunity came to run for Congress.  The person who was a Member insisted that I run in her place.  It was a whole new thought to me, because that was not my idea or thought; it was out of the question.  But since she asked me, and she was insistent, and this or that, I went to Alexandra.  Our four children were in college.  Mind you – five and six years – the day I brought Alexandra from the hospital, my youngest, our oldest turned six that week.  So this was close in age.

So anyway, four are in college, and I go to Alexandra, who was sixteen.  She was young but she was going to be a senior in high school.  And I said: "Alexandra," with all the sincerity and authenticity really, "Alexandra, mommy has this chance to run for Congress.  It would be better if it were one year from now when you were going to be in college.  But, it's now.  I love my life.  It's up to you if you want me to be home with you.  That's perfect for me.  Otherwise, I have this opportunity to run for Congress," thinking this was really a sincere question to her.  To which she looked up to me and said: "Mother, get a life."

[Laughter]

And I was like: what teenage girl wouldn't want her mother out of the house for three or four days a week?

[Laughter]

And it was so stunning to me because it didn't take her a nanosecond to respond.  So I did.  I mean I had a life.  But I got another life by running for Congress.  But that was the breakaway for me, I think was harder for me than it was for Alexandra.  It wasn't hard at all.

So, then I went on.  But when I was first in Congress, for a few years Alexandra told me how proud she was of me.  Because I was a pioneer.

Alexandra Pelosi.  Right, because she stopped cooking before all the other moms did.

[Laughter]

She used to cook, and then one day she just stopped cooking.  And she decided she was going to go, and it wasn't takeout like fast-food – she started by getting food to bring home from nice restaurants and then putting it on the table as if she had cooked it.  And then eventually over time, she just sort of gave up on that.  And there were certain pieces of evidence that she was sort of moving on with her life.  I thought going to Congress was like her "empty nest" syndrome.  It was like she had some time, because everyone had gone away to college, and it was just the two of us, and my dad.

And so I think she had more free time on her hands.  So when you have that conversation about work-life balance, I don't know that she really understands it the way it is today because now she has a life that's all consuming.  But it's the second act of her life.

Lois Romano.  Right.  So you've had it all, but in two segments.

Leader Pelosi.  And that's a different generation of course.

Lois Romano.  Right.

Leader Pelosi.  I'm in awe of the young women today.

Lois Romano.  And that's what I was going to ask you.  If you were raising your daughters today, and you raised four daughters…

Leader Pelosi.  And one son.

Lois Romano.  And one son.  Sorry, I don't want to leave him out.

[Laughter]

Lois Romano.  How would you do it differently?  I mean, what advice would you give them?  I mean they have to work today almost to kind of make it.

Leader Pelosi.  Well, they also want to work because they have their own aspirations and the rest.  But I am in awe of all of you: Terri McCullough, who used to work for me, headed up my San Francisco office; My four daughters who work and who have children.  I just could never have done that.  But here's what I would say to you, because I was listening to the previous conversation: do not ever underestimate the quality of the time that you spend with your family as part of your career.  This is one of the hardest jobs in the world, to raise a family.  It really is.

I mean you have so many personalities to deal with, you have schedules, and you have tasking.  You're actually an editor because you're making choices and editing out certain things.  You're an engineer, a house-keeping engineer.  You're so many things.  And don't ever let anybody trivialize that time.  That counts on your resume as something very, very important.  Should you decide – because everybody's decision is the right one for them – should you decide: "I'm going to have my babies, I'm going to get them off to school, and then I'm going to have a career or go back to a career," or "I'm going to do a career for a while and then have children, and then go back."  Whatever it is, whatever works for you, is the right way to go.

And as I say to people: "You may want to have mentors and you may want to admire some other people for what they have done, but understand the authentic you, and whatever works for you in your timing, in your schedule, in your life, in the choices that you have."

And with this balance of home and work, I say to my kids, I've said it to them then, about me, and I'll say it to them now, and I'll say it to you:  you do the best you can.  It may not be the best you know how.  You may say: "If I really had this under control I could be doing this, that and that, baking three cakes a day, and all that."

But that's okay, because, on balance, it will all turn out to be the best that you can do.  And that's really a good thing.  But don't try to idealize it and say: "You know, if I had this a little better under control, I could do these other five things."  That doesn't matter.

Alexandra Pelosi.  But you always say that we made a mistake because we didn't get help.

Leader Pelosi.  Oh, get help.  That's two words: get help.

[Laughter]

I didn't get help.  But see I always thought: I want the best for my children.  And that means their mom taking care of them all the time.  So I had one, and then two, and then three, and by then I really needed help.  But they don't come anywhere near your house – no babysitter, no housekeeper, nobody.  And I remember once pushing my stroller, in New York City, three little girls, all smocked in dresses, you know.  I paid the lady in the basement to iron them, who worked for somebody else in the building – in New York.  And this woman came up to me.  She had twin boys.  And I was expecting what would be my son, the fourth.  And she came up to me, and she said: "I watch you come and go, and I just have two words to say to you: ‘get help.'

[Laughter]

‘Get help.'  Borrow money from a bank, sell your furniture, do whatever you have to do, but get help."

And you know, it was really good advice.  Because, by the time I had the fourth and then the fifth, people would not even come near your house.  They would come for interviews.  You know: "Would you like to be an au pair, or live with us or something?"  But then they practically run out the door.

[Laughter]

And then maybe you'd see them on the street or something, and they'd go blocks away to avoid even having to face you, because they would never.  If you could work with a family with one child, or two children, or maybe even three, why would you even go near a house with five kids, six years apart?  So really, it doesn't mean that you have to get help for the children.  But there are other tasks in the house that have nothing to do with the character building of your children, and get help with some of that.  I always thought, if I had somebody who drove and cooked, that life would be beautiful.  But life was beautiful anyway.

Alexandra Pelosi.  Remember that time when that woman came to the house?

Leader Pelosi.  So I said to the kids…

[Laughter]

This was horrible.  I shouldn't even tell this in public.  Promise me you won't tell anybody.

[Laughter]

Alexandra Pelosi.  But, how do you know she's not here?

[Laughter]

Leader Pelosi.  No, she's not here.  So I said to the kids, you know: "We have this beautiful life.  And you all take care of your room.  You fix up your rooms, even as little kids."  In fact, one of my friends said to me when I went to Congress: "I knew you were going places when you had your three year old children folding their own laundry out of the dryer."

[Laughter]

But they were all very well organized, and they had their responsibilities.  But when I would be interviewing someone to come, you know an au pair or whatever, they would go wild.  They would be running around the house or this and that – well, maybe they always were – but I noticed it more then.  And I said: "It's a little overwhelming to people, so when we have somebody, when mommy's interviewing someone, just remain calm.  Just remain calm."

So Jerry Brown was Governor at the time – my friend.  And I was State Chair, maybe Northern Chair.  And he said: "This lady has used your name as a reference, will you interview her, because she wants to be appointed to a Commission?" – an important Commissionship, they're like the Chair of the Commission.  In California, it's a very big job.  I couldn't really remember her.  And he said: "Well interview her, and let me know what you think."  So she comes to the house, and we're sitting there in the living room.  And two of them come in, my son and two of my other little girls.  And they come in like this: "Good evening, mother."  And then they say to the lady: "Are you going to be our new maid?"

[Laughter]

And of course we never used the word "maid."  We were never looking for a maid.  So it was like: "Oh my God!"  She said: "I don't think so."

[Laughter]

Alexandra Pelosi.  She was one of the most glamorous – she still is – one of the most glamorous, wonderful, well-dressed women.

Leader Pelosi.  But tell them.  I'm so proud of my daughters, how they manage it all.  It's just a remarkable thing to me.  I'm in awe of all of you.  I could never have done that.

Lois Romano.  I wanted to ask you about that.  Alright, so you grew up in this home – and we're underestimating her a little bit.  Mrs. Pelosi was extremely active in the ‘80s, and she didn't just dabble.  She was running Democratic politics.

Alexandra Pelosi.  But she did use us as her catering, like she would have events.  Now in hindsight, I think about it.  She had events at the house, because I remember Jerry Brown being there, where she would make us be the catering department.  And she would send us to the bagel store to get bagels, and then one person would be in charge of the bagels, and putting the cream cheese on the bagels.  She did have little events and we would walk around serving at like five, six years old.  I'd be walking around the party serving people.  But it wasn't all consuming that way, and she didn't talk about it that way.

Lois Romano.  But you looked at her as a home maker.

Alexandra Pelosi.  Oh, yeah.  I still do.  We were just at Thanksgiving, and she has – it's in her.  It's the ‘50s housewife.  She just automatically goes back to it.

Leader Pelosi.  I was a ‘50s teenager.  I wasn't a ‘50s housewife.

Alexandra Pelosi.  Okay, ‘70s housewife.  She would go into the kitchen and she would be serving, and everybody would be there, all twenty of us.  And every meal, all she did was cook one meal, then clean up, then prepare for the next meal.  That's why her nails aren't...

Lois Romano.  This was just last week.

Alexandra Pelosi.  She still has it in her that when she goes home.  People think that in our house we have the most interesting political conversations at the dinner table.  And people don't understand that when she gets home, all she wants to do is just relax, and talk about the kids, and retreat into her family life.  And so she cooks and cleans, and she just reverts to that.

Leader Pelosi.  Well, not so much on the cleaning anymore.

Alexandra Pelosi.  Well, last week she was all over it.  And so, for example, on Thanksgiving, she made the kids go to St. Anthony's dining room.  So my little kids, who are six and seven – they were out serving the little kids.  And she's teaching them about how lucky we are and how grateful we should be, and all the good lessons that she wants to teach them about being a member of society.  We didn't do that when we were kids.  We were more sort of – she wasn't that politically active, or socially active.

Lois Romano.  I wanted to ask you about that, because that's a very good point that you're on now.  Mothers sometimes impart different wisdom to grandchildren, and you have one vision of her.  Now she's this powerhouse, so how is she interacting with her grandchildren?  What does she tell the grandkids that she didn't tell you?

Alexandra Pelosi.  Well, she tells them about the world.  My five year old was in TIME Magazine last month talking about Iran, because they have conversations.

[Laughter]

Leader Pelosi.  Syria.

[Laughter]

Alexandra Pelosi.  Oh Syria, sorry.  She has real conversations with them about what's going on in the world.  And she wants them to know about the idea that there's one in five children that don't have a meal at night, and how lucky they should feel about that.  When we were little she wasn't – I wouldn't say it that way.  She was really focused on just doing our homework.  She baked.  She won prizes for her cakes, in the cake baking contests.

Leader Pelosi.  Second place.

[Laughter]

Lois Romano.  We want recipes after this.

Alexandra Pelosi.  So there's definitely two different...

Lois Romano.  Expectations.

Alexandra Pelosi.  Right.  But she has four daughters, and all of her daughters have children.  And they found work situations that worked for them.   And so I think everybody role-modeled themselves after the first version of their mother, not the "I'm going to go take over the world" second act version of their mother.

Lois Romano.  Okay, so that's what I was going to ask.  But, still, everybody developed careers.

Alexandra Pelosi.  Everybody developed careers, but in their own time, and in their own way, and with things that made them so they could stay near their kids.  And I wouldn't say that anybody has – nobody has gone to the nine to five situation where nobody has a nanny.  Everybody secretly retreated to their own.  They idealized – or romanticized –  the stay-at-home mom version that they got.  And they all took that into their career life.  Wouldn't you say?

Leader Pelosi.  Well, I think they all understand.  It's really an important responsibility to have children.  They are not accessories.  They are people, and the investment that you make, and the time goes by quickly.  And I always say to them, you know: "Enjoy every single minute of it."  But it is really an opportunity that you just can't get back.  And you don't want to have any regrets about that.

Alexandra Pelosi.  What she really doesn't understand in this conversation, is how, for us in this generation that have been working, if we had to stay home all day we might not keep our sanity.  Work is something that we do.  I tell me kids, you know: "Mommy has to go to work today."  "Why do you have to go to work?"  I say: "I don't go to work because I have to, I go to work because I want to."  And that's something that they need to understand, that the reason I go to work is in some way – I have to have some identity still.  But that's what happens when you have kids when you're forty.

Leader Pelosi.  You didn't have kids when you were forty, you were thirty-five.

Alexandra Pelosi.  Thirty-seven.

[Laughter]

Leader Pelosi.  Well, okay.

Lois Romano.  Well you know, you don't want to say – it makes her older to say forty.

Leader Pelosi.  Right, because she's the baby.  But on that score, in terms of the children, one of our daughters – Jacqueline, who is the middle child – she started, it was her dream, she started a school called "Art Mix," which teaches children about art, art appreciation, art in all kinds of mediums and the rest.  And it's called "Art Mix" because her passion is to teach children with special needs, but her idea is to teach them in a setting with other children.

And this is what she really wanted to do.  And she has three sons.  They're now twelve, fourteen, and sixteen.  But, at the time, they were obviously younger, eight to ten years ago.  And she thought it was really important that, as little boys, they saw their mother working – and that they understood that that is what the world was about.  And so she didn't think: "Oh, I wish the kids were bigger so that I could do this."  She was like: "I think this is an important part of raising my sons."  And they helped her at work.

Lois Romano.  Did you worry about that when they were younger though – about that you weren't working, about the girls seeing that you weren't working and being a role model?

Leader Pelosi.  Let me tell you what it is to have five children in six years.  You don't even wash your face.

[Laughter]

Anything that you might want to do behind a closed door – be that personal or otherwise – forget about it.  So it's a complete – you know, you are totally immersed.

Alexandra Pelosi.  And she really, really deeply loves these kids.  Like my kids: when she comes over to play, and my little son said to her last week: "Mimi" – they're playing with Legos on the floor – and then they say: "Mimi, why you don't you just…"  And she said: "Oh I have to go to work now."   And Thomas said: "Mimi, why don't you just stay here and play with us?"  And she just said: "This is the best invitation I've ever gotten."  And she sat back down and played more Legos with them.

I mean, she genuinely has – in this generation where we're all stuck on our Blackberries, and we're all a part of the conversation, it's hard to disconnect that way.  She can really disconnect and get into those Legos that way.  I think she likes kids more than most people do.

[Laughter]

No I mean when she talks about her whole thing, about why she does what she does, because she really cares about children.  She really does.  She loves other peoples' children more than, I think, most women.

Leader Pelosi.  Well my whole motivation in politics has always been the one in five children who live in poverty in America.  And it's really a stunning thing in a country as great as our country – that one in five children go to sleep hungry at night, maybe now one in four.  And so what drives me is that – is that I wanted the best for my kids.  That meant my taking care of them at the expense of washing my face sometimes – but also that they should live in a society where other children have a chance.  And that's why…

Alexandra Pelosi.  But when you're on the airplane, and there's another baby crying the whole ride, my mother is the one that would say: "Oh let me help, let me get in there."  Where I'm sitting they're going: "How long? I'm going to put on earphones."  Do you see what I'm saying?  She has a certain generational…

Leader Pelosi.  Well, I have a touch.

[Laughter]

I know that I can make that baby stop crying.

But you know these days you can't – but I want to say two things.  No, I mean I'm a mom.  After all is said and done, I'm a mom.  There are two things, Lois, that I think are really important.  And one is, for women to truly unleash who they are, the missing link in our society and in our policy and all the rest is the issue of childcare.  Ninety-some years ago, women got the right to vote.  When they did, the papers said: "Women given the right to vote."  Women weren't given the right to vote.  They fought, they starved, they argued, they travelled, they worked really hard, and it took decades for women to have the right to vote.

And then during World War II, a couple of decades later, women were in the workforce.  Imagine – they had left home, and now they're in the workforce, helping to win the war.  Left home – this was revolutionary.  And then the higher education of women, and now women in the professions or women staying home, or women in the workforce in whatever level they are.  But the missing link in all of that was the issue of childcare.  And it is something that most other developed countries have recognized the need for.  And we have an agenda called, "When Women Succeed, America Succeeds."

It's about equal pay in the workplace.  It's about paid leave.  And it's about childcare, affordable.  It's now called "Early Learning."  When children learn, parents earn, and this is from the earliest stage - so that women don't to have to worry: "Who are these people that my children are with?  I just dropped them off."  It's something very high quality and worthy of the children.  If we had that – and it's something we've been going all over the country with a crusade practically on it – it would really make a big difference, to not only the women and their families, but to our economy in general.

And the second thing and this is really important – because both of these things are sort of structural changes that we have make – the second thing is that we need many more women in elective office and in policymaking positions.

[Applause]

I promise you this: I know it for an absolute fact, that if you reduce the role of money in politics, and increase the level of civility in politics, you will elect many more women.  Many more women will come forward.  Because you all have options, and we want people with options.

So who with options would say: "Let me see, I want to subject myself to somebody spending $5 million to misrepresent who I am, to mischaracterize."  And this is just for one Congressional race, not to mention the Speaker of the House or something, which would be a couple hundred million dollars against you.  But, the civility is really important, and the debate has to be on a level that is dignified, instead of this back and forth.

Because if men run, they're "strong."  But if women run, it's like: "Oh my God."  That's scary right, to them?  But this is really important.  We have to do it, we will do it, we must do it.  And when we do, we'll have many more women, again, in leadership.  It will benefit women in the military, women in government, women in the corporate world.  How could we have a Fortune 500 and have 20 [women] CEOs?  It's not about lack of talent.  We just have to have that recognition that a woman's approach, and whatever time she may have spent at home, counts on her resume.  That's not a blank.  It's a gold star.  It's a gold star.

Lois Romano.  All right.  With that, since we are being recorded by C-SPAN, I'm going to have to pause.  And we're going to bring Susan Molinari, a former Member of Congress, who would like to ask you both a question.

Susan Molinari.  I had a baby in Congress.  And Leader Pelosi, when I would walk out in the aisle to vote, and my daughter would be crying, would put her hands out and take my child and get her to stop crying.  So she does – I bear witness – she's got a gift.

Thank you so much Leader Pelosi, and Alexandra, for being here with us, and for sharing those wonderful stories and memories – an inspiration.  When you leave this stage, we're going to talk a little bit and go into our mentoring sessions.  Around each table are ambassadors, and we have ladies set up with people that they think can connect based on the interests that they have brought to this breakfast.  Well, I guess we're going into lunch.  And so as we get into the mentoring session – a session where we talk about how you can help to inspire other young women coming up – before we let you go off the stage, we wanted to ask if you had, I'm going to start with you Alexandra, if you had a mentoring inspirational story that you can sort of kick us all off with.

Alexandra Pelosi.  Well, for the last twelve years, I've been working at HBO.  And there's a woman that runs the documentary unit there whose name is Sheila Nevins, and she just embraced me and supported me the entire time that I was there.  And she likes to make jokes like: "What have you done for me but have babies?"  Because I have, you know, and that's a really hard challenge – doing the children and the work.  But she's been really supportive, so I'm really grateful to her, I would say.

Leader Pelosi.  Well, just in terms of Alexandra and her career, I never – in other words, you noticed that she didn't say that I was her mentor.  Because I make it very clear to my daughters: your decisions are your decisions.  I wouldn't even dare to express a point of view about it.  But my mentor was my mom.

[Laughter]

Lois Romano.  More on that later.

[Laughter]

Susan Molinari.  I sure hope C-SPAN got that.

[Laughter]

Leader Pelosi.  Did you make a face?

[Laughter]

Alexandra Pelosi.  No.  You have never inserted your opinions, judgments – I mean opinions.

[Laughter]

Leader Pelosi.  Never.  After the fact, maybe.  My mother had seven children, six boys.  I was the youngest – only girl.  But she was a wife.  My father was mayor for twelve years.  He was in Congress before that.  Susan, you know what that is, having grown up in a family where you father was in Congress as well.  And she was just the most strategic thinker, politically, very strong in the church and all the rest of the Catholic Church.

And yet, when that door closed, she was a mom.  She was a mom – and that, just having to be able to balance it all, put certain things on a shelf when you're doing this and others then.   And so, in any event, I would say my mother was a mentor – having no idea that I would ever run for Congress – but just as a person who kept a lot of balls in the air.

But if I could just say this about Susan: so Susan comes to Congress from a very distinguished family in Staten Island.  The rest of us had been there.  I happened to be the first person whose father served and his daughter served – many fathers and sons have, and the rest.  And so we had to wear dresses.  There was a dress code –  you had to wear dresses.  So Susan arrives, this young girl, young woman, coming to Congress.  And we had our Italian-American heritage, and I immediately embraced her, even though we were of different parties.  We had so much more to love about each other.  And she comes in pants.  And it was like, no questions asked.  She changed everything the day she walked on the floor.  And not that it was just about the pants.  It was emblematic of a new generation, of a young woman coming in who would have babies when she was in the Congress of the United States.  So she really was our…

Susan Molinari.  Not five though.

Leader Pelosi.  Not five.  But even one – even one is a lot.

Lois Romano.  Anyway, thank you both so much.

[Applause]