You hate to see it when a visible working mom makes the lives of us invisible working moms harder than they already are. But that’s what Massachusetts’ Lt. Gov. Jane Swift did recently. Swift, for those of you not familiar with her story, provoked a storm of Bostonian outrage when it was reported that she used state employees as babysitters and errand-runners and that she took a state helicopter to her rural Massachusetts home when her 14-month-old daughter had pneumonia.

Swift was controversial before she ever took office because six months before her 1998 election, she announced that she was with child. Her decision to stay in the race, big belly and all, rankled conservatives who believed that motherhood and career shouldn’t mix. But those of us out here in the real world who have been combining diapers and briefcases for years were heartened that, not only would a mother seek public office, but a mother of a very young child.

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