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Professional Women Honor Jane SwiftBy Tammy Daniels
03:47PM / Friday, October 26, 2007
 | | Former acting Gov. Jane Swift visits with guests at a dinner in her honor. |
WILLIAMSTOWN - Jane Swift had a good reason to be late for a dinner celebrating her accomplishments - she was busy finishing up a newsletter for her daughters' school.
"I'm sorry you had to wait," Swift said as she went table to table Wednesday night greeting guests at the Northern Berkshire Business and Professional Women's dinner meeting Wednesday night at the Williams Inn. The former governor was there to be honored as the group's 44th Woman of Achievement for both her past and present work on education, working families and women's leadership, as well as her impressive list of "firsts" in politics.
The problems of working parents are issues Swift doesn't just give lip service to - as evinced by her 45-minute delay at Williamstown Elementary School, or as she says, "the best school in the nation."
While Swift may be best known for her meteoric rise from state senator to governor in a decade, and her just as precipitous fall, she's continued working on family and education issues, from leading local Girl Scout troops to giving presidential candidate Sen. John McCain advice on education policies.
"It really is humbling to receive any award but particularly this award from women who are really the leaders in our community," said Swift. She spoke of how difficult the integration of family and work can be, and what kind of example this generation of women is leaving for the next.
"When I meet with young professional women, some are turned off by the choices we've made," she said. The last generation had charged into the work force with high hopes only to find "society hadn't really changed. ... It's really hard."
Her work involves travel and when she would have to leave her three girls whined and cried, as young children are wont to do. She found herself giving excuses - "Do you want to be able to eat?" - that were more about sacrifice than reward. It was when the girls started asking her to work at Stop & Shop that she realized the message she was sending.
"I chose the work that I do because I like it, because it's rewarding and fulfilling," Swift said. "This is the message we should be giving the next generation."
If there is anyone who could speak on the demands of motherhood and career, it's Swift. Seven years ago, she was very much a symbol of the perils of "having it all." Elected in her own right as lieutenant governor, the young mother found herself in the cross hairs of the pugilistic Boston media when she stepped into the state's top office on the resignation of A. Paul Celucci (to become ambassador of Canada).
She was not only the state's first woman governor, she was the first governor in the nation's history to give birth in office. Always ambitious, she had not one child but twins.
But the rising Republican star found herself on the defensive, her initiatives on education and working families overshadowed by political missteps as a working mother. She was hammered over using a state police helicopter to get home to her sick daughter's bedside in Williamstown and was fined for using state employees as baby-sitters. She was shunted aside by her own party to make way for Mitt Romney, who would use his one term as governor as a launching for higher office.
Through it all, Swift said, she loved what she did.
"Almost everything I've done has been hard," she said, recalling standing in the freezing cold outside GE to greet workers in the 1990 state Senate election, governing the state in the fearful days and weeks after the Sept. 11 terror attacks and being mother to three girls. "I would not have changed anything I've done."
Sister Eunice Tassone, left, and Nancy Lescarbeau, former honorees, listen to Swift. |
The North Adams native urged a commitment to education and community and bemoaned the lack of civility in the current political discourse. Democrats U.S. Rep. John Olver of Amherst (whom she unsuccessfully challenged in 1996) and Mayor John Barrett III sent letters and resolutions of appreciation in Swift's honor.
Barrett's letter lauded Swift's civic and community leadership and advocacy for children and families across the state, ending with "The only negative thing I can say about Jane is that she is a Republican, but hey, we all make mistakes in life." That drew a roar of laughter from the crowd and the former governor.
"He and I probably represent what politics used to be like but really aren't, unfortunately, anymore," said Swift. The current poisonous atmosphere is clouding political discourse, she said. "We need to change the discourse in our own living rooms if we want good people to run." |
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