The Impact of Parenthood On Political Participation

Abstract

dren in the home.1 The role of motherhood and the attendant responsibilities of child-rearing were cited frequently by women who were political party activists as making political office holding unlikely. Lee's work is not the first to note the presence of children as an important restraining condition. Kirkpatrick's study of women state legislators found that most women postponed running for office until their children had left home or were at least in school.2 Both Lee and Kirkpatrick stress that this late start, caused by waiting until children are grown, figures importantly in not only reducing the number of women who run for office, but also in curbing their opportunity to achieve higher elected office or important positions in the legislatures. As Lee notes: The discouraging effect of children on women's desire to seek public office also greatly restricts their ability to run for office after the children have left home. Because of children, women may fail to gain the experience in their twenties, thirties, and early forties that their male counterparts are acquiring. When, at last, they are free, they may lack the political know-how and NOTE: The data used in this paper were collected by the Center for Political Studies of the