Parenting

Daughter Records Mom As She Bursts Into Tears: 'I Got To Vote For A Woman For President'

by Jerriann Sullivan
Updated: 
Originally Published: 

“I got to vote for a woman for president” is a phrase we couldn’t utter before

One woman perfectly captured how so many of us are feeling after this election cycle, excited and stunned. “I got to vote for a woman for president,” she said after breaking into tears in her car after casting her ballot.

It’s happening. It’s finally happening.

“It hit me how important this was. I’m 60 years old and this is the first time in my life, and anybody’s life here, that we’ve actually had a viable woman candidate for president of the United States,” Vickie Wilkinson told The Huffington Post. “And she has a good shot at winning!” We’re less than a week away from Hillary Clinton (hopefully) breaking the ultimate glass ceiling and becoming the first female president-elect.

And while the Democratic nominee has had a long fight that just doesn’t seem to end or evolve past emails, women in the U.S. have been fighting for this opportunity for more than 200 years. Wilkinson said that long road to Americans casting ballots for a mom in the White House was on her mind the day she voted. “To think about how far we’ve come,” she shared. “The fight and struggle just to vote for an intelligent, qualified, viable woman ― it was just sort of overwhelming to me on that morning. And I was thanking God that I was able to do this.”

For so long we weren’t able to do this, which reminded Wilkinson of what life was like for her mom when her parents got divorced in the 1960s. “My mother couldn’t get credit,” she explained. “She couldn’t buy a car without a male signature. She couldn’t get an apartment without a male signature.” Wilkinson’s family memories and emotional response to voting prompted her daughter, Sarah Dean, to capture the moments they shared at their polling place in Bozeman, Montana last week. “I watched her hand in her ballot and took a picture of her,” Dean recalled. “And when we got back in the car, she was just so emotional.”

Her mom’s reaction also reminded Dean of how important this election is for women all over the country. “I had forgotten what was happening. This has been such a circus of an election cycle,” she recalled. “But when my mom started crying, I thought, ‘Oh yeah, this is an incredible thing that is taking place right now. We should be really excited that we get to do this.’ So that’s why I took a video of her.”

It’s since been shared all over the internet and is going viral. We’re expecting to see similar ones in the days ahead as America elects it’s first Madam President.

We can do it!

[free_ebook]

This article was originally published on