Rep. Mai Xiong (D-Warren) gets sworn into the Michigan House of Representatives on April 30, 2024 joined by her family on the Michigan House Floor.
Michigan is leading the nation with one of the largest jumps of mothers serving in its Legislature, doubling from about 6% in 2022 to more than 13% in 2024, according to the Vote Mama Foundation, which tracks data on representation of moms in politics.
The Vote Mama Foundation released its latest report Monday, stating that as of February, Michigan ranks fourth in the nation for highest concentration of moms of children under the age of 18. Currently, 20 moms serve in the Legislature.
As a part of a multistate look by States Newsroom in May at moms in state legislatures, Michigan Advance found that over the course of Michigan’s 100 year history of women serving in the Legislature, only 27 women legislators have ever been mothers of school-aged children while serving, while at least 27 men currently serving in the Legislature are fathers of school-aged children.
See analyses from States Newsroom on motherhood in state legislatures in Michigan, Ohio, Rhode Island, Indiana and Georgia.
When moms have voice and representation in arenas of decision-making like state legislatures, issues important to moms and families like childcare, education, health care and housing get the attention they deserve, Liuba Grechen Shirley, founder of Vote Mama, told Michigan Advance earlier this year.
And moms get things done.
“When you talk to men about why they ran, they say ‘I thought I would be good at this job’. When you talk to a woman, a mom with young kids in particular, there’s usually one particular issue that they reached out to their local representative to get help with and either never heard back from their representative or didn’t get the help that they needed and they said ‘you know what, I can do this job better,’” Grechen Shirley said.
Of the 7,386 elected lawmakers in state legislatures around the country, 582 are moms with children under the age of 18, Vote Mama found in its report.
About 86% of women in the U.S. will give birth and become moms by age 44, not including women who become mothers through adoption or other means, according to the Pew Research Center. With moms of minor children making up 7.9% of state legislators, Vote Mama reports that 763 more moms with young children would have to be elected to state legislatures to achieve proportional representation to moms of small children those lawmakers represent.
Though the number of moms elected to legislative offices nationwide jumped 48.6% from 2022 to 2024, Vote Mama found, there is still a lot of work that needs to be done if moms are to achieve representational equality.
Before Mother’s Day this year, several state lawmakers in Michigan shared their own experiences as moms in the Legislature with Michigan Advance, why they ran for office and the challenges of making it home in time for bedtime routines.
Among the chief reasons for entering into politics, mothers that spoke with the Advance said they mobilized for the sake of the future they want their children to inherit.
The national increase in moms of young children being elected to state legislatures is the result of moms taking stock of how policies have been failing families for generations, Sarah Hague, chief program officer at Vote Mama, told the Advance.
“Every legislator legislates based off lived experience. So that means when there’s a mom at the decision-making table, that mom’s are legislating on child care, affordability, on inflation, on housing and accessibility on paid family leave issues. They know because they’ve lived it, and they’re struggling through the American experience of economic policies failing women and children,” Hague said. “I think that we are seeing more moms step up and run because they know that they can fix the problem. We always say, ‘if you want something done, you ask a busy mom’.”
And moms run together, Hague said. When one mom runs, moms across the political spectrum follow suit, seeing the possibilities for problem-solving.
Michigan has a lot of things going for it as a state right now that help moms run for the Legislature, Hague added, pointing at Michigan as one of a handful of states where the role of legislator is a full-time job paid a livable wage, at a state Capitol which is fairly centralized for lawmakers to commute. However, Michigan could maintain its upwards trajectory of moms of school-aged children serving the in Legislature if it allowed campaign funds to be used towards child care costs, like the majority of states allow.
Given that Michigan has been the backdrop to threats and attacks on several moms elected to political office in Michigan, including the 2020 plot to kidnap Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, Hague added that Michigan, which is a leader in enacting improving policies for moms to run for office, should clarify that campaign funds can be used for security costs on the campaign trail.
Vote Mama’s report says that a lot of the systems for operation for state legislatures date back to the Colonial era “which were designed for white, wealthy, male landowners”. These processes pose specific consequences for women as the report reflects women legislators are less likely to be married than their male counterparts and serve shorter lengths in office. Women are on average five years older than their male counterparts when they are first elected to office and “women who have or want children are less likely than their male counterparts to consider running for office if they have a further commute to their state capitol”.
“These differences point to deeper, structural factors that prevent otherwise ambitious women from seeking and staying in elected office,” the report says.
Yet as of 2022, only 23% of state legislators nationwide were moms and 5% were moms of children under the age of 18, according to a report from the Vote Mama Foundation, which also tracks data on motherhood in office.
Looking towards the upcoming election, where moms across the country are running for state offices, it’s important to acknowledge all the ways women are expected to step up as mothers and mother figures within their families and communities, Hague said.
On a national scale, former President Donald Trump’s running mate J.D. Vance has slammed single women voters as “miserable” people working against progress in the U.S. and dismissing Vice President Kamala Harris’ motherhood status as a stepmother of two.
“Moms look a lot of different ways”, Hague points out, and women contribute the majority of caretaking responsibilities in society. She says if more women and younger candidates are going to run for office, the efforts and needs of all the faces of motherhood need to be recognized and addressed.