We’ve all heard the reasons why we should vote, exercising our hard won rights and having a say on important issues, but today, in honour of Mother’s Day, I want to talk about why Mums should vote.
As mums we’re not only at the center of our families but often also at the center of our communities so we are particularly affected by so many of the issues that fall under the remit of central or local government.
We’re the ones sat for hours in A&E with poorly toddlers in the middle of the night.
We’re the ones choosing between overstretched local schools and then wondering if we’ll be able to afford to send our kids to university.
We’re the ones trying to fit in visits to elderly relatives and neighbours between the school runs.
We’re the ones struggling to get a pushchair and four bags of shopping onto an overcrowded bus.
We’re the ones most affected by changes to things like child benefit, carers allowance and tax credits.
We’re the ones looking for those illusive ‘flexible’ working patterns and then loosing most of our wages to expensive childcare.
Yet because we’re so busy doing all of those things (and for lots of other reasons) you won’t see many of us sitting in parliament or on local councils. Until that changes, and it is slowly changing, the only way to remind politicians what mums really want on all these important area of policy making is to vote.
Over 9 million women didn’t vote in the last election and changes to the registration system this time round mean that thousands of previous voters have now dropped of the register, probably with out even knowing it so if you care about these things too I hope you’ll:
- Make sure you are registered to vote www.gov.uk/register-to-vote
- Vote on May 7th
If you don’t think you’ll make it to a polling station on Election Day, and lets be honest our best intentions can go out the window when there’s a family emergency, you can always register for a postal vote so you can complete it and send it back at a time that suits you.
