Most Americans use respectful titles like “representative” and “senator” when referring to their elected officials. For some members of the Stanford community, though, these figures are better known as mom or dad.

Last Thursday Jackson Sierra ‘10 was on Capitol Hill to attend the swearing-in ceremony of his mother, newly elected Congresswoman Jackie Speier (D-Hillsborough). After a life-long career as a prominent California politician, Speier was elected to Congress in a special election to fill the seat left vacant by the late Rep. Tom Lantos (D-San Mateo).

Winning an overwhelming 77 percent of the vote, Speier became the newest member of the U.S. House of Representatives.

“It was so exciting to be there,” Sierra said. “I’m very proud of my mom and happy for her. She has had many trials and tribulations in her political career, and I’m looking forward to seeing what this experience does for her and the family.”

Sierra noted that families often play a large role on the campaign trail. Christine Foster ‘09, whose father Bill Foster (D-Ill) was elected to Congress on Mar. 8, agreed and highlighted the unique role that children of candidates often play.

“Being the child of the candidate puts you in a unique place because you know the candidate better than anyone else on the campaign staff,” Foster said. “You have the best intuition for what keeps him motivated to keep making phone calls when he’s been doing it for the last seven hours. My dad credits my brother and me in a big way for helping him through the ups and downs that come with a congressional campaign.”

But in addition to motivating her father, Foster was heavily involved in the day-to-day operations of his campaign as well.

“I spent last summer at home to work on the campaign,” Foster said. “Some of that was typical volunteer work: phone banking, door-to-door contact and getting up at 6 a.m. to circulate petitions at train stations. Seventy thousand of my closest friends and neighbors heard my recorded voice on their answering machines reminding them to vote the night before the election. And, of course, I did the same tried-and-true thing everyone does to help win elections: pounding the pavement, talking to folks and listening to their concerns.”

During Speier’s two month campaign period, Sierra also became involved with his mother’s campaign, most often making phone calls to constituents encouraging them to vote.

“This campaign was a unique [one] in that it was held in just two months” he said. “I called constituents in the district to encourage them to vote. However, being that the campaign took place while I was at school, I didn’t get to participate as much as I wanted to. I’m hoping that the incumbency holds precedent when my mother runs for re-election this fall.”

Acknowledging the considerable time commitment, Foster said she is unsure of the degree of her involvement in her father’s campaign this fall, given the challenges of balancing academics with campaign commitments.

“I will certainly come home for election weekend,” Foster said “But while campaigns are great for learning stuff, they’re also pretty good at taking your GPA for a ride through the mud.”

Foster said she had to retroactively withdraw from all of her classes last quarter because she became more involved in her father’s campaign than she initially anticipated.

“Being a full-time Stanford student and working on a campaign is a balancing act,” Foster said, “and I’m going to try to lean more toward classes next time around.”

In addition to the significant time commitment campaigns often demand, being the child of a candidate presents other responsibilities as well.

Foster said that she has to constantly monitor what she says or does in order to ensure that nothing could be quoted out of context. Foster carefully monitors her Facebook profile, has changed her privacy settings and disabled all public directory information to avoid harassment.

But she notes that the hardest part of her job comes from the emotional attachment to the campaign.

“I dislike listening to my dad being lied about, or people twisting his words so it sounds like he was in favor of something terrible, when the point he was making supported the exact opposite,” Foster said. “It’s one thing when it’s a politician you like. It’s quite another when that politician is your dad.”

Sierra acknowledges that candidates’ children can often find themselves in a difficult position.

“Often a child can be very biased because the candidate is not just someone you support but your parent,” he said. “I think emotions can definitely get the better of you so there is a limit of what you can offer to the campaign.”

Despite their pride and involvement in their parents’ congressional careers, neither Sierra nor Foster intend to enter politics in the future.

“I’m more bent on following my father’s footsteps as a doctor rather than entering the political realm,” Sierra said. “I think this mostly has to do with the circumstances around my father’s life and what really interested me at an early age.”

Foster, who is majoring in Science, Technology and Society, also aspires to have a career in science.

“I don’t intend to enter politics as a career,” she said. “Some people can tolerate spending seven hours on the phone every day calling everyone they know and begging them for money. I’m not one of those.”

Foster noted that though her father is a politician, he neither encouraged nor discouraged her from pursuing a similar career.

“He did teach me to look at the world from a scientist’s perspective: to keep asking questions about the world, look at the facts first, analyze really carefully whether the conclusion you come to makes the most sense,” Foster said.