Sen. John Hickenlooper is opening up about his experiences as a late-life dad, pointing to his infant as proof that miracles can happen.
“I think in a funny way, by having a child so late in life, I’m like the proof that everybody has at least one more miracle inside them,” the 71-year-old Colorado Democrat said in an interview with Yahoo Life published Wednesday.
Hickenlooper and his wife, Robin Pringle, welcomed their son, Jack, via a surrogate in early December.
The 2020 Democratic presidential candidate has since been seen cradling the almost-4-month-old on the Senate floor.
“The parliamentarian and the clerks on the dais, they thought it was so much fun,” Hickenlooper said, with staffers in the upper chamber quipping that the youngster “was going to vote.”
“Does he have his ID?” one of Hickenlooper’s colleagues in the Senate, joked, according to the lawmaker.
Hickenlooper, who also has a 20-year-old son from a previous marriage, said that the “public sentiment isn’t with us yet” in terms of federal paid family leave.
Paid family leave was originally included as part of President Biden’s Build Back Better plan last year but was pulled from the legislation following a standoff with Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.).
“He and I have a special relationship,” Hickenlooper remarked of him and his youngest son, saying, “and you really get an understanding why most pediatricians, most child psychologists believe that having both mother and father able to spend important quality time in those first three months, why that matters so much.”
Hickenlooper also told Yahoo Life that personal experience has led to a desire to consider if in-vitro fertilization treatments should be covered by Medicaid.
“I think the miracle of life is something that we should be willing to invest in as a country, for everybody,” he said.