Mary-Charlotte Domandi:
I wanted to ask you, one thing that we haven’t talked about at all, is your family life, your relationship, like, how are you balancing all of that, is work-life balance even a thing?
Teresa Leger Fernandez:
It is a thing because otherwise I think you burn out. I’ve always had a wonderful work-life balance. I’ve been really pleased at the way that I’ve been able to have three sons and really give them a lot of attention. And, you know, I ski and I kayak and I walk in our mountains and I do things with family, and I go to feast days, and I go to a rodeos, and I dance, and all of those things that feed me. And so we cannot ignore those things that give us joy and give us happiness and help describe who we are. We cannot set those aside because we are elected officials. That said, we have to be very deliberate about it because there was less time to do it. And so we have set aside that Sunday mornings, they can’t schedule anything from me Sunday morning, nor can they expect that I will have a bunch of work to do Sunday morning, because that is time that me and my partner sit and go through a whole bunch of newspapers together. And we do the acrostic and we sit on the porch and we enjoy time together. And so that’s kind of like one of our mornings, and we keep that. Things with my family, I try to have time. We started doing a game night, different things that we could do because it’s important. I still eat dinner together with my sons, maybe three, four nights a week, if I’m home, where we’re actually all gathered together for dinner. We’ll wait for my son who works up on the ski basin to come down; my other son makes dinner cause he’s into culinary and he’s unemployed—hopefully going back soon, now that things are opening up. But so we just eat these delicious dinners that he makes for us and we do it together. Now the difference is I’ve always been the one who cooks in the family. So now I don’t have time to cook, and since he’s interested in being culinary, he does all the cooking. So little things like that. When we were going through orientation, the Congresspeople who came and spoke to us, always emphasized, find the time, because then you won’t be miserable. And they both say they have a wonderful program that they’ve been doing for the spouses or partners, where all the spouses get together and are giving advice to the new spouses and partners about what’s available and how do they stay sane through all of this. So it’s, it’s a key thing. It just means you have to be very deliberate about it. But you can’t give up who you are.
MCD:
The spouses probably in a previous era, not too long ago, were mostly female. And now it’s probably more mixed, I would guess, spouses and partners.
TLF:
Yeah. The first meeting of the spouses/partners, you had Nancy Pelosi’s husband participate. You had Kamala Harris’s husband participate. If you look at the leadership in the house right now, you know, we have lots of women on leadership roles and their husbands participate. So I asked about that, and yeah, there were a lot of men in the mix. We have not quite enough, about a quarter of the members, a hundred and some women. Not all of them have a partner or husband. A lot of them do.
MCD:
Are your kids getting more interested in politics?
TLF:
Well yes, definitely. I mean, like we started watching the impeachment cause I had so much work to do yesterday. So we watched it, after our conversation actually. And one of them watched several hours with me. And then one of my sons pointed out that his group of friends in the college he went to, that they had placed him somewhere along the spectrum, like they were very active, both Republicans and Democrats and people on the spectrum. They said, and you’re here. And he goes, I’m not on that same place anymore. Because his involvement in active participation and opinions about things is much bigger now. So yes, they have been transformed by this. My oldest son who’s not living with us cause he’s launched, he’s working in California, he watches C-SPAN now they say, Mom! Are you watching the impeachment? He texts me.
So, you know, they weren’t doing that before. They were always aware. We used to have democracy parades, I called them democracy parades. They were just friendly. We went to go vote. Like sometimes we walk to our location, we only did it two or three times, but you know, it was like, Let’s do a democracy parade, and we walked and people stopped. So we’re having a fun time walking and people are stopping and talking to us and joining us. And you know, so the idea that voting is a celebration has been something we’ve always had in my house.
MCD:
So the democracy parade was basically walking to vote?
TLF:
Yes, me and the kids, me and the boys when they were smaller. And we got joined a couple of times.
MCD:
Do you think any of your sons might go into politics? I mean, it’s too early to tell, but—
TLF:
It’s way too early to tell. My oldest son has introduced me at several of the events and does a beautiful job of it and has this really deep voice. And always does the thing where he naturally makes a joke, has everybody disarmed, and then tells a story. And some of his stories get repeated by others, like, “and her son said this.” So he’s been the one most comfortable with giving the speeches. But Abelino was the son, my middle son, who made the most phone calls. He wouldn’t give up on people. He’d answer the questions and answer the questions, and 10 minutes later he goes, mom, I think they’re going to vote for you. And that takes patience to sit there and have long conversations with somebody who’s not sure and uncertain and explain who I am and what I stand for. And he was fine with that.
MCD:
And in terms of the spouses and partners, do they then bond with each other? I mean, I’m sure that they all are missing their partners because you guys are so busy.
TLF:
I think they do. I mean, I don’t know because we’re coming in, in this weird COVID space. But as I understand it, and as Matt has told me about what’s happened, in these Zoom meetings that they talk about, that they do a lot of stuff together. And like even in the Zoom they’ve had where the Library of Congress has come in and met with them. And so normally they would have gone and people would have been invited saying, Hey, you want to come and go to the Library of Congress? And I did that when I was a White House Fellow and, Oh my God, the Library of Congress, in heaven. Anybody who loves books and who loves the idea of archiving our history. So he loves that because what he writes on is really about history and ancient history. And so he was in heaven.
MCD:
Anything else on the personal level?
TLF:
I’ll say this on the personal level. It’s also—the difficulty comes with it as well. I was interviewed today about what it was like on the 6th. And so that brings back, especially watching the impeachment, you know, that I had my son here and how scared and worried they were. And I also had to have a session where we had some security people and we had law enforcement meeting with me, with my sons, about the threats. And that is something I didn’t quite grasp when I ran, that there is a level of risk that I have now placed all of us at. And I really didn’t understand that aspect to it when I ran. And I think that that aspect was always there. It’s more apparent after the sixth, but from the briefings we’ve gotten that aspect of Congresspeople having people who are angry at us and threaten us is clearly something I had not understood. And the importance of having them sit here with me while we’re getting this law enforcement briefing. I mean, that’s the sad part of it that I had never, ever contemplated that I’d be putting them at risk because of my decision to serve.
MCD:
I wonder, I can’t help but thinking if I were in your shoes, would I be more cautious? Would I measure my words more because of the crazy people out there?
TLF:
You know, you have to be who you are. And so I anticipate that a lot of what I say and talk about, you’ve got to be who you are. And so I’m not sure that I would. I mean, I haven’t changed what I say and think and believe so, when you think and believe something, that’s what you’re going to end up talking about.
