Blogging By Request: Transitions (ETA something I nearly forgot about)

In the comments on the last post, Susan asked

"Well, I'm curious about what it's like to go from a family w/o an elected politician to a family with one. Not sure you can blog about that, now that I think about it, but I'm curious what that transition has been like."

The answer is, it's been both easy and hard. Easy, because running for office, from the point of view of the spouse, is an incredible amount of work for both the candidate and the spouse. Back-to-school nights, weekend events, door-knocking, phone-calling...I hadn't known before MS did his last campaign that I was expected to do these things too! We had babysitters about three nights a week there at the end, as well as most weekend afternoons. So MS actually holding office is much easier on our family, though he's still out at meetings at least two nights a week, and more often three or four.

At the same time, the transition is hard, because holding office can take as much time as the office holder will let it. There isn't an amount of time that would be considered too much time to give to the job - especially during budget season, which happened right after MS took office last year. MS got (and still gets) calls late into the evening and all day on weekends from constituents, and it was hard to set boundaries in our family about that.

Also, I've had to learn how to state my opinion outside the family in a way that doesn't commit Mr. Spock to MY position. I generally say, "I'm not speaking for MS, I won't say what his position is, if you want to know what he thinks, you'll have to ask him. But if you're asking me for my opinion, here it is:" insert relevant opinion.

Now most of y'all know that I am not afraid of offering up an opinion on just about anything, so the preamble there had to get memorized pretty darn quick.

Muffin Man definitely prefers being the son of an elected official to being the son of a campaigner (more at-home time with both mommy and daddy) and isn't terribly thrilled about a return to campaign status. He didn't like all the work I did for Obama either, but he loved the outcome. He's becoming quite the little partisan, though, so maybe I'll take him walkingwalkingwalking with me sometimes this Fall.

Do you have anything you'd like me to post about? Make a contribution and leave your post idea in the comments!

Thank you again, Susan!! I really appreciate it!


Oh! it's my birthday! Thanks, Magpie, for the b-day wishes!!