When Judy Schramm, a mother of five who lives in Fairfax, Virginia, heard Vice President Kamala Harris was running for president, she felt “so excited.”
“I wasn't expecting to be,” Schramm said. “I have been feeling so down over the past few years seeing the country sliding backward and watching women lose one right after another.”
But Harris's bid for president has given Schramm “faith” in American politics again. “I didn't realize how down I had been until I felt hope again,” Schramm said, adding that the talk of Harris not being a “real mom” is “nonsense.”
“My stepdad was every bit as much my parent as my mom and dad,” Schramm said. “The point is that she ‘gets’ it, and JD and Trump don't.”
Indeed, despite the intense focus from the right on the fact that Vice President Kamala Harris doesn’t have any biological children of her own — although she is a stepmom — many American moms could care less. In fact, for the first time during this election season, many women with children, like Schramm, feel more energized and more hopeful about the 2024 election than ever before. In part, it's because they see Harris as a candidate who understands American mothers' unique challenges. It's also because they see her as someone who has used her platform to promote clear policies that would help with issues that are crippling American mothers, like a lack of affordable childcare and no paid parental leave.
“Kamala Harris has been one of the first and only politicians to center issues relevant to moms,” Daphne Delvaux, an employment attorney and founder of The Mamattorney, told Salon. “In her 2019 campaign, she proposed a bill that would align the school and the workday, and otherwise provide access to childcare; she also ran on a six-month paid leave plan, the longest paid leave proposal to date.”
The proposed plan Delvaux referred to was The Family Friendly Schools Act which would have extended the school day three hours during the school year, from 8 a.m. to 6 in the evening. It would have also authorized $1.3 billion annually to allow more children to access summer programming. For working parents, paying for childcare and juggling schedules, especially in the summer, is a major challenge. According to the U.S. Department of Labor, childcare costs for one child take up between 8 percent to 19.3% of the median family income — and that’s if it’s available to a family in their region. An estimated 51% of people in the U.S. live in a “childcare desert,” which the Center for American Progress defines as a place that has either no childcare providers or few options.
Delvaux said when President Biden and Donald Trump were asked about childcare during the 2024 presidential debate, it was a very disappointing moment for mothers in America.
“They bickered back and forth about their golf game and talked about who was the worst president,” Delvaux said. “It was offensive and infantile, especially as the moms were all trying to figure out childcare during summer break.”
Delvaux added that mothers in America are tired of seeing their issues be constantly “ignored.”
“Mothers have been subjected to attacks on IVF, reproductive limitations, and countless insensitive comments,” Delvaux said. “Moms also saw the Build Back Better bill, which had a paid leave proposal, crash and burn in Congress due to GOP opposition.”
But many see that Harris has been consistent in her approach to supporting American mothers. While in office, she introduced the Momnibus Act, which addressed maternal mortality, morbidity, and disparities in the United States. She also hosted a Maternal Health Summit, the first White House “day of action” focused on maternal health. She even met workers in the summer 2022 who were helping to deliver infant formula during the formula shortage.
Harris and President Biden announced a Maternal Health Blueprint with a goal to make the U.S. the best country in the world to have children.
"We have appreciated that she has specifically shined a light on the need to improve Black maternal health outcomes in America," Erin Erenberg's, founder and CEO of Chamber of Mothers, told Salon. "We feel hopeful that immediately after taking over the Democratic nomination, VP Harris publicly spoke about the need for paid leave and affordable childcare, and how that is a key part of her policy platform."
Nora Brathol, a mother of a 9-month-old in Wisconsin who conceived her son in vitro fertilization (IVF), told Salon she sees Harris representing a “freedom” of how her son can choose to live his life in the future. “I'm looking forward to a future where my son where my son can decide who to love, how to build a family, or if to start one, and what he wants to be,” Brathol said.
Many mothers who spoke to Salon mentioned that Harris’s support of reproductive rights is an important issue to them. Despite trying to position himself as someone who is family-focused, as Salon previously reported JD Vance and Trump are a massive threat to the future of abortion access and reproductive rights. Despite advocating for parents, Vance once said that universal daycare is a “class war against normal people” and has called for the defunding of Planned Parenthood. At the same time, he has described himself as “pro-life as anyone” and someone who wants to “save as many babies as possible.”
Shannon Bonardy, a mother of two and member of Mothering Forward in Florida, told Salon Harris understands what’s at stake because she’s a woman.
“She has the body parts that the government is trying to control,” Bonardy said, adding that her family is multi-racial, Black, Indian, and Asian. “My daughter can have somebody to look up to, and hopefully see a woman finally that looks like her.”
Indeed, many reproductive rights advocates see Harris as a candidate who supports a “holistic strategy” to removing multiple layers to accessing healthcare. In other words, it’s not just about restoring access to abortion care.
“It also requires policies that protect voting rights, economic security and prosperity, affordable child care and housing, and our ability to pursue and pay for higher education,” said Regina Davis Moss, President and CEO of In Our Own Voice Action Fund said in a statement. “All of which Vice President Harris is fighting alongside us to secure.”
Tracy Wemett, who was a “lifelong Reagan Republican” until 2016, told Salon she relates to Harris as a “bonus mom” herself, as in “someone who did not have biological children of her own but who loves my stepchildren as my own.”
“There are plenty of women like me, people like me, who appreciate the way she and her husband have navigated their blended family,” Wemett said. “Kudos to them; perhaps they can help with our own country’s ‘blended’ family? We sure need that right now.”
