"Childless cat ladies" claw back :)

A lot sure can happen in a couple of weeks...!  

I'd barely settled in at my parents' house in Manitoba in mid-July when things started happening very quickly in the U.S. presidential election campaign: 

• First, Donald Trump barely dodged an assassin's bullet. 
• Then he nominated "Hillbilly Elegy" author and Ohio Senator J.D. Vance as his running mate.
• Bowing to pressure after a disastrous debate performance a few weeks earlier, President Joe Biden announced he would not run for re-election after all, and Democratic support quickly consolidated around his Vice-President, Kamala Harris. 

It wasn't very long before comments Vance made in a 2021 interview resurfaced, in which he disparaged "childless cat ladies" -- naming several Democratic politicians who are not (biological) parents, including Kamala Harris (who does not, I believe, own a cat). He also suggested that parents should get more votes than non-parents (one extra for each child).  I posted about these remarks at the time, here. 

Perhaps not surprisingly, when confronted with the resurgence of these remarks, Vance doubled down, quipping, "I have nothing against cats." (!!!)  

Needless to say, his words have been both infuriating and painful for many in the childless-not-by-choice community, as well as others who don't have children, for whatever reasons. Overall public reaction has been uniformly negative (albeit sadly, there have been some pretty nasty comments on articles and social media posts -- **caveat emptor**...!!).

Being at my parents' house during this time, my online/reading time was limited -- but I did manage to bookmark some things to share here later (and went back to look at others later on).  (And wow, there were a lot!! -- Enjoy!!)  

(Note: Some of these articles were paywalled;  some may have been free when I read them but are not free now. If so, I've found that saving the link to Pocket and then opening it there to read sometimes acts as a workaround.)  

For starters, some basic news articles & analysis:  

• CNN revealed that "It’s not just ‘cat ladies’: JD Vance has a history of disparaging people without kids." (July 30/24) 

• Canadian journalist Justin Ling deftly connects the dots between J.D. Vance and... Pat Buchanan (!) in his Substack post "J D Vance's Natal-Futurism."  (Quote:  "Here’s a spoiler: It all comes back to white babies.")

• A Vox article traces the Hungarian roots of some of Vance's extreme pronatalist comments. 

...for Vance, the policy isn’t just about ensuring fairness for families: it’s about punishing childless adults. Vance sees Demeny voting as a tool for creating two-tiered citizenship, one where parents have more and better political representation than other adults.

And now on to some reactions:  

• From HuffPost via Yahoo News: "JD Vance Faces Backlash For 'Childless Sociopaths' Remark" features a selection of commentary from Twitter/X.   

• CNBC poster girl Jennifer Aniston made a rare infertility-related comment on her Instagram Stories. You can see a screenshot in this story from Entertainment Weekly.  
• Aniston's comments made headlines in traditional media outlets such as the New York Times.  
• The Washington Post also noted the reaction from Aniston as well as other public figures (including Pete Buttigieg, one of the childless Democratic politicians targeted by Vance -- albeit he and his husband have since adopted twins).  

• CNBC political commentator Ana Navarro blasted Vance on "The View" ("How dare you?!"). (I also saw her on Abby Phillips's show on CNN a few days later, and she still hadn't cooled down...!)  

• (Perhaps the world's most famous childless cat lady, Taylor Swift -- who posed for the cover of Time Magazine with a cat draped around her neck -- hasn't weighed in (yet?) -- but her fans definitely have...!  ;)  ) 

• "The Republican party’s obsession with families has taken a fanatical turn," observes the wonderful Moira Donegan in The Guardian. 

• "The GOP's "incel platform" repels voters," writes Amanda Marcotte in Salon.  

• "Dear J.D. Vance, Childless Cat Ladies Are People Too," writes Sarah Jones in New York Magazine's Intelligencer. (It's free for now, but if it's paywalled, try saving it and then opening it in Pocket.com.)  

By attacking childlessness, the right cheapens parenthood, too. The act of having children is no longer about joy but conquest. I can’t imagine anything sadder, though I am but a childless cat lady. Vance’s worldview is poisonous to parents and children, too: Babies should be loved and wanted for their own sake, not because they’re future nationalists or tradwives. The right offers a small and selfish vision that is authoritarian to its core. Their America belongs only to the righteous few, but my America belongs to everyone. I may never give birth, but I too have a stake in this country. We’re all responsible for creating a future worth living in. It will belong to somebody’s children, if not to ours.

• Yahoo News reposted an opinion piece from Buzzfeed by a childfree writer -- whose byline was inexplicably omitted!  Excerpt: 

This is an American take if I've ever seen one. Vance's hyper-focus on the individual and the nuclear family is nothing new in this country. But in many cultures, including my own, the emphasis lies on the extended family and wider community. While I don't have children, my cousins do, and I certainly have a vested interest in my nieces' and nephews' futures. Beyond that, I want to see my communities flourish — not just while I'm part of them, but after I'm gone because I am a human being with empathy and compassion for others in this world...

This is such a heinous notion that it's hard to believe a politician would even think this to himself, let alone say it out loud. I was born in the United States. I work and pay taxes here — hell, I even interned for a senator in college (without pay, I might add). My vote should hold the same weight as any other person's. Though this country certainly wasn’t built on equality, the US claims to stand for it now, and this flies in the face of that. It’s a betrayal of American values.

I shouldn't even need to say this, but having a child doesn’t magically transform someone into an exemplary citizen. While parents have an important and often thankless job, the decision to have kids should not automatically give them a greater voice in our democracy. And aside from all the childfree folks, what about families struggling to conceive? Parents who’ve lost children? Queer couples who want kids but can’t yet afford adoption or fertility treatments? The simple act of voting would always remind them of their hardship — and how the government punishes them for it. 

• While I was still visiting my parents, Jen Zoratti, a childfree-by-choice columnist in the local Winnipeg Free Press, offered her thoughts: "It takes a village of respectful opinions." 
• "It takes a village," she writes.  "Beware of politicians trying to burn that village to the ground."   
• Sample passage:  

Imagine having such impossibly narrow definitions of love and fulfilment, as well as what women’s lives can look like. Imagine being unable — or unwilling — to consider that people are capable of caring about kids who don’t share their DNA. Imagine being so casually and needlessly cruel to women who are navigating pregnancy loss and infertility.

From where I’m sitting, that’s far more pitiful and selfish and miserable than a woman living the life she wants to live.

• Thank you to Sandra McNicol at Childless Life on Instagram for flagging this opinion piece from the Marshall (MN) Independent by Sheri Ayaquica:  "All citizens — even those without kids — have stake in future of country."  Worth a read! Here's just one observation, with which I think most of us CNBCers will heartily agree:  

JD Vance has said, “having children, becoming a father, becoming a mother, I really do think it changes your perspective in a pretty profound way.” While I fully believe that this must be true, and I accept that parents have experiences and insights which are beyond my purview, I would also like to assert that childlessness, infertility, pregnancy loss and child loss also change one’s perspective in a deeply profound way, and I would dare to assert that they likely change one’s perspective in a way beyond most parents’ purview.

• Sarah at Apricot Lane Coaching in the UK commented on the Vance kerfuffle with a post titled "My (Apparently) Miserable Life." 

I wonder why the assumption persists that the life of a "childless cat lady" is a life of misery, Do people that have given birth to children have lives of constant joy and elation? 

Yes, I sometimes feel sad that I didn't have children. Clients often begin coaching with me when they are in the depths of misery and, yes, they do sometimes feel like they will never be OK again. But we find ways to process grief and sadness and move forwards towards fulfilling and happy lives. 

If we are lucky, we all have times of happiness, contentment and joy that outweigh times of sadness, frustration and even misery...whether we are parents, step-parents, childless, child-free, cat-lovers or not.

• From Christy Staats, a single, childless-not-by-choice, former Christian missionary, in the Akron Beacon-Journal (in Vance's home state), via Yahoo News:  "JD Vance speaks with contempt about childless women: We don’t deserve it." 

We have a problem of lazy elected officials who use fear and contempt to run for office instead of good policies and problem solving, hope and future building. We do need to solve the housing crisis, but blaming Haitians in Springfield is not going to fix it. We do need to solve the demographic decline, but criticizing childless women will not solve it...

Politicians need to stop oversimplifying hard problems and throwing people under the bus who don’t deserve that. 

• "JD Vance is wrong: Childless people have a lot to contribute" write Bobbi Nodell in the Seattle Times. 

I’m single without kids. Not by choice, but through a series of events involving my marriage, health and career....

I have given so much to society and have a stake in its future.

I worked for 12 years at a homeless shelter, helped start a nonprofit for unemployed coffee workers in Nicaragua and campaigned for candidates. I have helped single mom friends — always being their go-to person. I worked in global health with the belief that all lives are equal. I support my friends’ kids. And I have been there every step of the way as my parents aged. I now teach yoga to active older adults and anyone who wants to learn. I love my life and the ability to give back.

For many years, I felt less of a person for not having kids...

 But I never stopped helping kids or society,

• Katherine Baldwin, who Substacks at "From Midlife With Love," answers the question "What's my stake in the future if I don't have kids?" (Definitely worth a read.) 

• Kat Rosenfeld ponders "What the Childless Among Us Leave Behind." Subhead: "The history of human achievement is, in part, a history of cat ladies and cat dudes, staking their lives on a dream bigger than themselves." (Most of the article is paywalled, but I was able to read it all via Pocket.) Sample passage (and I love this thought so much!): 

I think that there’s more than one way to populate the planet—if not with children, then with other things. With invention and discovery. With art and beauty. With lovely things that keep blooming, long after we’ve left the world behind.

• From MSNBC, by Keturah Kendrick:  "Why we ‘childless cat ladies’ are JD Vance’s biggest fear." 
• "As a woman who has chosen not to raise children, and who first expressed my disinterest in motherhood when I was 10, I’m not surprised by Vance’s remarks,"  she writes. (I can't imagine very many of us are...!) 
• I LOVE her parting words:  
  

Whether miserable or joyful, what childless cat ladies have in great abundance is time. And we’re looking forward to making use of it in November. Our schedules tend to be more flexible than mothers, particularly those who have chosen to procreate with macho men like Vance. We’ll be first in line at the polls, happily making good use of the time that Vance is upset we have.

• This 2021 Medium piece from Yael Wolfe, about Vance's original comments and the media coverage of them (which I wrote about here), remains relevant:  there's been a lot of discussion about "childless cat ladies" -- and there has, thankfully, been a much greater number of published opinion pieces this time around from childless and childfree people, objecting to Vance's remarks and explaining why they are so offensive.  A few media articles have quoted reactions from high-profile childless/free celebrities, such as Jennifer Aniston and Ana Navarro (as mentioned above). And his comments seem to have opened a lot of parents' eyes, too:  there have been lots of supportive comments from them, which has been (mostly) nice to see. (More on that further below.)  
• BUT -- I (still) haven't seen many (any?) childless or childfree people -- cat ladies or others -- interviewed in a straight-news or analysis piece about their lives and their reactions to Vance's remarks. 
• And too often, the coverage of Vance's comments (and conservative hostility towards people without children in general) devolves into a discussion of why it's so hard for people to have families and be parents these days, and what governments can do to better support and encourage them. (Lack of maternity leave and daycare in the U.S., etc.)  Which, to be sure, is a big issue and part of the problem -- but NOT the immediate issue at hand!  (Sorry, parents, but it's NOT always about you! -- this time it is -- AND it should be -- about US.) 
• Case in point:  Vance's wife, Usha, defended her husband on Fox News, saying that he was just making "a quip" (i.e., a joke)(!) -- that “What he was really saying is that it can be really hard to be a parent in this country, and sometimes our policies are designed in a way that make it even harder.” 
• Nice try, Usha, but...!  It may be true (that it's hard to be a parent and lack of supportive policies makes it even harder) -- but we all know that is NOT what he was saying or meaning when he was disparaging "childless cat ladies."  
• I love the sarcasm of this Vanity Fair headline: "JD Vance’s Wife: My Husband Only Meant to Insult People Who Actively Choose Not to Have Kids, Not People Who Are Trying but Are Unsuccessful." 
• Said Yael Wolfe in 2021:  

Needless to say, I’m flummoxed. I cannot fathom why big media outlets wouldn’t be knocking down the doors of childless people — women, in particular — to address this nonsense, to defend ourselves and our own, and to share our experience of what it’s like to live in a culture that is so violently pronatalist that it would actually suggest that childless people shouldn’t get an equal say in a democracy.

• I guess part of the problem is that, as a group, we are still a diverse and largely unknown entity. (And silent -- particularly the CNBCers among us.)  When most people who are parents this about people without children, the assumption is usually that if we don't have kids, we didn't want them. Those of us who are CNBC are often an afterthought (because these days, there's IVF!  there's adoption!  etc. etc....).  
• And who would speak for us? Who are our spokespeople?  Within our CNBC community, we know who some of our major role models would be (Jody Day, Katy Seppi...) -- and I'm sure there are similar figures within the childfree by choice community -- but (with all due respect and love and props to these amazing role models and advocates) they are not household names in the way that Gloria Steinem was/is for the women's movement, or that, say, John Lewis was for civil rights. (Jennifer Aniston?? -- well, a girl can dream, can't she?) Unlike other marginalized groups, we don't have a national or international advocacy organization like NAACP or NOW to speak for us. (Yet?) 

• HuffPost (via Yahoo News) published a rare article that DOES include a selection of more than three dozen emails received from livid non-parents reactions ("a massive and unlikely voting bloc" -- why unlikely??):  "Childless Cat Ladies Claw Vance: We 'Don’t Exist To Fulfill Your Baby-Making Fantasies'." Definitely worth a read!   I especially loved this comment at the very end: 

Laura Belgray, who is 54 and has no children, living in New York, told HuffPost that she thinks Vance has done a real service for Harris’ campaign by uniting so many people ― i.e., voters ― in their disgust with his comments.

“Your position, which you stand by, makes you and your running mate more beatable,” Belgray said, addressing Vance. “And, you did a great favor to all of us childfree women (whether by choice or not) by stirring up this conversation that’s been missing from the public for so long.”

“We’ve come together,” she added, “and feel so much less alone.”

• And it looks like the public generally is not amused by Vance's comments either.  From the Guardian, on Aug. 6th: "JD Vance pleads sarcasm in latest effort to clean up ‘childless cat ladies’ remark." I was heartened when I read this paragraph:  

Democrats, and outside voices including the actor Jennifer Aniston, have branded the “childless cat ladies” comments as offensive. Polling shows the public agrees. On Tuesday a University of Massachusetts Amherst poll showed 64% of respondents saying they disapproved of the statement that not having biological children hindered Harris’s ability to be president. Only 15% of Republicans approved.

• Even when mainstream media does cover these subjects, they don't always get it quite right. Case in point:  "J.D. Vance said Kamala Harris has no kids. Stepparents would like a word," writes Caitlin Gibson in the Washington Post. (Subhead:  "The vice president is stepmother to two children, but that hasn’t stopped her opponents from suggesting she isn’t a real parent.") 
• On the one hand, this is a great defense of the valuable role many step-parents play in the lives of children.  
• On the other hand, Jess felt that Gibson's piece "Missed the Mark" (and I'll admit I got the same uncomfortable vibe here too):    

It was a great opportunity for people to assert that yes, not having children (biological or not) is NOT A DISQUALIFYING CHARACTERISTIC. That your qualifications and stake in the future have nothing to do with the (in)activities of your womb.

 

But, instead, it seemed the chorus became BUT SHE'S A STEPMOM! SHE'S MOMALA! which sure made me feel like the message was "OH GOD NO, she's NOT one of those SAD childless women, she HAS KIDS she's helped to raise! She's really ONE OF US!" 

• I commented in a similar vein in a post from November 2020, when Biden was (finally!) declared the winner of that year's election:  

Of course Kamala Harris is also a hero to childless/free women because she's never had children -- although she became a stepmom to her husband's two teenaged kids when they got married six years ago -- thus allowing her to talk about being "Momala" and placate those who find a completely childless/free woman unacceptable to vote for...! (eye roll) 

• (As I mentioned in this review of her book, aside from her role as "Momala" to her husband's two children, who were teenagers when they married, when Harris was in her late 40s, Harris has never spoken publicly about whether she wanted biological children. Which is, of course, her prerogative -- but whether her biological childlessness was by choice or otherwise, it sure would be nice to have her as a spokesperson and advocate, wouldn't it?) 

• One mainstream media piece that actually delves into the topic of declining fertility rates in a relatively thoughtful way (albeit it still presents childlessness as a "choice" and doesn't includes quotes from any childless or childfree people themselves)  came from the New York Times (gift link): "Why Are So Many Americans Choosing to Not Have Children?" 

Many Americans in their teens and 20s still report that they want two children, said Sarah Hayford, the director of the Institute for Population Research at Ohio State University. The fact that many of those adults don’t realize those goals probably means that external factors are making it more difficult to be a parent, she said.

• Sarah from Afterward Honesty, has a new Substack! And in her first post there, she takes on Vance, his recent remarks, and the daily barrage of hurtful comments and behaviours that CNBC people are subjected to. "It’s time to start to unpack our unconscious biases towards all people without children," she concludes. Sample passage:  

I sat in front of my tv, mouth agape, as I witnessed for the first time ever childless people take the floor.  As numerous panel members identified themselves as childless, and maybe shared some personal aspect of their story, other panel members said very little and did their best to be thoughtful and careful with their words.  “Well I’ll be damned” I thought.  I’d been waiting ten plus years for this, and made sure to drink it all in.

And, I finally was able to find some surprise.  That fact that people were surprised and even shocked by Mr. Vance’s words surprised me. [Note from Loribeth:  I was surprised that they were so surprised too, Sarah!] “Don’t people know that this is what childless people deal with to one degree or another throughout our lives?” I pondered.

• I shared my discomfort on this blog about how parents who also find Vance's remarks outrageous are demonstrating their enthusiasm... by claiming that they, too, are "childless cat ladies."  (!!) 
• Ummmm, no. Just... no.  It's been heartening to see the support (thank you!), and yes, you may be a cat lady -- but if you have kids, even if they're grown up now and out of the house, you are NOT childless. (Sorry.)  
• Thank you to Mel for sharing my post in her recent Friday Blog Roundup!  

• And, while I rarely post on social media about loss/infertility/childless topics, I was moved to share this Instagram post from Rest Your Heart Here (Tanya Hubbard) on my Facebook page, with this note:  

I don't often comment on these things, but it needs to be said:  As someone who was never able to have the children I wanted (but who has managed to build a pretty good life for herself, regardless), recent political comments in the U.S. (about "childless cat ladies" and "psychos," etc.) have been both hurtful and infuriating, to me and to other childless & childfree people around the world. More than 20% of women 40 and older in North America do not and will not have children, for many different reasons, and that number is growing. We may not be mothers, but we are (or could be) your daughters, sisters, aunts, nieces, cousins, friends, neighbours, co-workers, fellow citizens -- and we contribute a lot to our families, workplaces, communities and countries (including taxes that support YOUR children!).  

This Instagram post was written by a therapist who works with the childless-not-by-choice community -- it's worth clicking over to read the caption. 

(For the record, I have never owned a cat.  😉😂)

• Sue Fagalde Lick at Married and Childless says "Enough with the ‘Childless Cat Lady’ craziness!"  "Let’s support all sorts of families, including yours and mine," she says. I agree, Sue!    

• And Kate Kaufmann, in her "Unapparent" column (lol -- love that title) in Psychology Today, has a few words of sound advice to offer: "Calling All Cat Ladies and Other Non-Parents: Here's how to deal with all the buzz about people who don't have kids." 

We’ve been present in our communities from time immemorial, often relegated to the sidelines. So, what shall we do with this unexpected spotlight? Let’s drop the veil of stigma and defensiveness and simply share the realities of who we are and how we organize our lives.

What cat lady time offers us is the opportunity to flex our voices and offer our truths. What it’s like not having kids in a culture high on family. How it feels to be called out for not being a parent when we offer so much to the texture of our society.

Let us learn from other movements—Civil Rights, Gay Pride, #MeToo, Black Lives Matter, and so many more...

As one of the remaining bastions of marginalization, remaining silent invites further misunderstanding and widens the gulf between parents and non-parents.

These are just SOME of the articles I've found recently -- and I wasn't able to keep on top of my regularly newsletter/blog/Substack reading while I was away visiting my parents!  This is getting pretty lengthy -- so I think I will end this post for now, with a sequel to follow later, depending on what other/new goodies I find. :)