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On Tuesday, Allegheny County Executive Sara Innamorato went public with some personal news: her pregnancy. The first female to lead the county will also be the first to give birth in office.
Her pregnancy brings personal relevance to a policy proposal she introduced in May.
"I want to make Allegheny County the best place to raise a family possible, and paid parental leave is a critical piece of that effort. A lack of paid leave keeps workers on the sidelines, slows the economy and holds us back as a region," Innamorato said in a May 13 statement.
But the executive doesn't have to depend on the 18-week policy she has proposed. She already benefits from the 12-week leave afforded to county government employees -- and says she will use it.
There is a common trope of government leaders taking action when something affects them. It's a political stereotype as old as kissing babies.
It's not necessarily a bad thing. It can be the catalyst for positive changes.
The Virginia Graeme Baker Act changed pool safety regulations after former U.S. Secretary of State James Baker's granddaughter drowned. Federal handgun background checks were instituted after White House press secretary James Brady was paralyzed in the Ronald Reagan assassination attempt in 1981.
Pennsylvania Senate President Pro Tempore Kim Ward, R-Hempfield, introduced legislation covering screenings and imaging for high-risk breast cancer patients after her battle with the disease.
All of these identified problems and addressed them. But there are too many problems -- and not enough turnover in the halls of power -- to rely on a legislator or a governor or a county executive to experience them firsthand.
No one person's experiences and exposures can produce a 360-degree appreciation of the world around us. You don't know what you have missed until you learn something new.
That's why it's important to have a mix of perspectives when it comes to government, whether elected or hired. And we have to listen to those voices. It's how we realize that the view from one window isn't the view from all of them.
That isn't to say policies such as Innamorato's parental leave are easy or even feasible. There is a lot of daylight between a proposal and a law.
The important thing is there is an issue to address. Parental leave is not just a hurdle for businesses. The need is a reality for many families -- and especially for many working women. Just because filling a need may be difficult doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
But these issues have to be discussed to be solved.