Character Analysis
Winifred Banks is a trailblazing feminist, who fights for women's right to vote…and ignores her kids, Jane and Michael. She can't even pick a decent nanny—all six of her former nanny choices all drop out. Yes, in this Disney movie, there's a not-so-subtle implication that Mrs. Banks should spend less time winning liberty and equality for all, and more time making sure her kids aren't shooting pigeons with B.B. Guns and smoking drugs. (They're not, but how does she know?)
Winifred expresses her passion for the right to vote in song:
WINIFRED: We're clearly soldiers in petticoats, and dauntless crusaders for women's a-votes! Though we adore men individually, we agree that as a group they're rather stupid.
Obviously, making Winifred look especially neglectful demonstrates a kind of outdated attitude on the part of the moviemakers. Nowadays, it's not cool to suggest you should ease up on the whole women's suffrage thing and just relax. When, at the end of the movie, Winifred takes off her "Votes for Women" sash and uses it as the tail of a kite, that's so much to say—"Fine. I give up. Family is where it's at."
On the other hand, maybe the movie is just suggesting balancing your schedule, but not completely giving up on women's rights?
Interestingly, Winifred isn't really the main parent in the movie. The movie actually isn't suggesting that only the mother should spend more time with her kids—it's focusing on the fact that the father should.
So, this actually goes against the 1950s and early-1960s era idea that the Mom should be supervising the kids, while the Dad goes out and conquers the world of banks. Winifred's character, instead, is pretty narrowly focused on suffrage. We don't really learn all that much else about her, beyond glimpsing this suffragette persona, and getting the sense that she does love Jane and Michael, despite not spending time with them, and continually rushing out the door to new meetings.
In the end, Winifred goes along to fly a kite with George and the kids, and we get the sense that they're a family that really gels, that knows how to have fun and stick together. We can only assume they had a family game night in the evening, and all played Apples to Apples together.