Family life and political life are a toxic mix. After over a decade as a member of the Ontario legislature, including seven as a cabinet minister, I retired from politics in 2014 because I couldn't take it any more.  I had two young kids that I simply never saw.Don't get me wrong. I was there for the big moments – the special school events, music recitals and open houses, although I often had to run off right after. But I wasn't there for the day-to-day stuff that builds close relationships.My kids didn't necessarily miss me. They didn't start crying when I left.  In fact, my boys barely knew that I existed. And so it fell to my poor wife to shoulder most of the burden of raising them.My story is pretty standard. So much of elected life is about showing up.  It's about attending countless meetings and events, at all times of the day or night, seven days a week. Things aren't much better when you return to parliament. Separated from your family once again, you face even more meetings as well as hours listening to mind-numbingly boring debates in the House.And you can never complain. Let's face it, you are a politician and your job is to be liked. More than once, I remember trying to weasel out of some community dinner because I hadn't been home in many days to see my family. It never worked. The organizers would insist that I come to the dinner but, wanting to be sympathetic, they would suggest that I bring my family.Yes, political life can be brutal. It can destroy family relationships, upend marriages and take a huge toll on your health. It makes it tough to recruit candidates, especially women with kids, and probably fuels some of the toxicity in the political system.To their credit, the media has taken an interest in this issue. Numerous profiles of elected politicians, particularly of women with young families, have helped shine a spotlight on the struggles of a political lifestyle.The Trudeau Liberals have also offered hope, mandating the Government House Leader to create a more family friendly House of Commons and tasking a parliamentary committee with making recommendations. And a few months ago the government helped usher in a system that would allow MPs access to short-term childcare while on Parliament Hill.The momentum, however, seems to be fading. The parliamentary committee's report, issued at the end of the last session, was nothing short of laughable. Calling for more early and predictable voting times, its other main recommendation involved making the ever-changing calendars of elected members more readily available to their families.  Now, instead of knowing that mommy or daddy is coming home late on Friday night, families can know that mommy or daddy is coming home really late.In fairness, it was an “interim” report and the committee promised to continue its work.This inaction is easily explained. Average people simply don't like politicians — seeing them as lazy, entitled and always trying to play fast and loose with the rules. Although individual media profiles may garner some sympathy, it doesn't extend to the political class as a whole. Many will point out that lots of ordinary Canadians also work long hours, never see their families, and earn a heck of a lot less money than an MP.A proposal to eliminate Friday sittings of the Commons, for example, to allow MPs to be close to home in their ridings, went over like a lead balloon. Although House Leader Dominic LeBlanc continues to push for the idea, implementing it over the criticism that MPs don't want to work is never going to be easy.Maybe we need to turn the discussion around. Politicians really do work for us — it is not just a cliché. Like any employer, we want our workers to be at their productive best in order to get the job done properly. Our country is facing some grave challenges and we need some smart, focused people concentrating on those issues. Exhausted, overworked representatives concerned about tensions with their spouse and family are not going to do the best job. It is also going to be difficult to find good replacements for them when they quit or get defeated.In the face of the general antipathy that exists towards politicians, there is nothing easy about this approach. It does, however, probably hold out more hope than a “my life is harder than yours” contest between politicians and ordinary Canadians, or the prospect that the slogan “politicians are people too” might catch on. It may be only the germ of an idea, but the next time people demand more of their politicians, let's find a way to ask them whether they are prepared to give elected officials the working conditions that they need in return.John Milloy is a former MPP and Ontario cabinet minister currently serving as the co-director of the Centre for Public Ethics and assistant professor of public ethics at Waterloo Lutheran Seminary, and the inaugural practitioner in residence in Wilfrid Laurier University's Political Science department. He is also a lecturer in the University of Waterloo's Master of Public Service Program. Milloy is the editor of, and a contributor to, Faith and Politics Matters (Novalis, 2015).