After having a child, many parents struggle to find child care when they return to work, or don’t have adequate paid time off to spend with their newborn.

Rep. Jimmy Gomez, D-Calif., knows the pressures of being a new parent all too well: He and his wife Mary recently welcomed a son, five-month-old Hodge.

What You Need To Know

  • Rep. Jimmy Gomez, D-Calif., and 22 other House lawmakers launched the Congressional Dads Caucus, a group which seeks to give members of Congress a place "advocate for legislation that supports working families"

  • Gomez went viral earlier this year for wearing his son, five-month-old Hodge, in a baby carrier on his chest while on the floor voting for the speaker

  • The added attention following Hodge’s trip to the House floor got the wheels turning for Gomez, who wanted to turn this attention into an opportunity to do more

  • While there are no Republican dads in the group just yet, Gomez said he hopes to convince some dads across the aisle to join him

“The minute he was born, and I got to hold them, it was like, something strange clicks in your head, and everything starts changing,” said Gomez in an interview with Spectrum News.

“What I do for work, it's impressive, and I always thought that would be my legacy," Gomez continued. “Then I realized after being with Hodge that how I raised him and the values I instill in him, that will be my true legacy – if he can take on the mantle of fighting for people that have less than him.”

Gomez and 22 other House lawmakers launched the Congressional Dads Caucus, a group which seeks to give members of Congress a place "advocate for legislation that supports working families."

"Caucus members believe in policy solutions that help working families thrive, including paid family and medical leave policies for all, expanding the Child Tax Credit, increasing access to childcare, and supporting other policies that reduce poverty and ease the burden on working parents," according to a statement.

Gomez went viral earlier this year for wearing his son in a baby carrier on his chest while on the floor voting for the speaker. His whole family had flown in to watch him be sworn in, but baby Hodge was the only one that was able to stay until his dad was sworn in; the rest had to return home.

“All of a sudden, [Mary’s] going back without me and I was going to be the caregiver on Friday. So we just decided, you know what, I'll just take them for the rest of the week, and then hopefully, this doesn't go on too much longer,” he said. 

Hodge became an internet sensation with his big smile and unruly hair. Gomez started posting photos of him to his social media pages as the pair worked their way through the week. 

“I'm getting a lot of praise for things that women naturally do, and, at the same time, are criticized for it,” Gomez said. “If a woman takes a kid to work, then their commitment and their dedication is questioned. When it's a man, it's like, ‘oh, that's just good parenting.’ Well, I think in the end, we got to do more.” 

Gomez has long been a champion for family rights, including working to improve access to paid family leave and state disability insurance in the California state legislature for lower-and-moderate-income workers and fighting for the Child Tax Credit. He was a major advocate in the previous Congress for the Child Tax Credit.

“When I was invited to the White House to negotiate Build Back Better back in October 2021, that was one of the issues I brought up. Because I knew it [would] cut child poverty from 40%-60%, depending on the area of the country you lived in. So huge to little changes in that existing program lifted so many kids out of poverty. So I was pleased. But now it's like, what are we gonna do to keep that policy on the agenda, but also get it over the finish line?" he said.

He also told Spectrum News about a childhood family crisis, which influenced and prepared him to look at the big picture of family needs. When he was seven, he was hospitalized because of a case of pneumonia, and his parents, who immigrated from Mexico, missed multiple shifts at their jobs and had no health care to help with the skyrocketing bills.

“It almost bankrupted our family. I knew that because that happened in the summer, and that Christmas, my siblings were saying we weren't getting presents for Christmas because I got sick,” explained Gomez. 

“I cared about health care, but then I learned about other issues like paid family leave; if paid family was around when I got sick, that financial pressure wouldn't have been there,” he added. 

The added attention following Hodge’s trip to the House floor got the wheels turning for Gomez, who wanted to turn this attention into an opportunity to do more.

“I had no idea it was going to raise so many questions, right? What's the role of a father? What [is] you know, co-parenting, equitable parenting, default parenting, all that kind of just came forward," said Gomez. "Why am I getting praised and women don't? And I think that people just appreciate it. And I realized, you know...how we gonna harness this?”

As a result, Gomez, launched the Congressional Dads Caucus. One of the group's members, Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., lanched the Congressional Mamas Caucus with other Democratic women when she entered Congress in 2019.

While there are no Republican dads in the group just yet, Gomez said he hopes to convince some dads across the aisle to join him.

“I'm looking at Republican bills, that I think if maybe there's a slight tweak here and there that Democrats could support [it]. I don't care if it's a Republican bill if it's a pro-family, pro-mother bill, and I can encourage them to tweak it in a certain way, and they’re willing to take those suggestions, then maybe the Dad Caucus and the Mama Caucus can support it in order to get it over the finish line.”