Dear JD Vance, From a Proud Childless Cat Lady
JD Vance has a problem with child-free women who enjoy the company of cats.
I don’t understand his hate-on for cats. I question if he has ever been around one. They are everything we should strive to be: fiercely independent, confident in everything they do, and willing to go in for some quality affection when needed.
I especially don’t understand his hate-on for child-free (or childless as he loves to describe us) women. He has had some real choice words for people who have been self-aware enough to realize that having children is not for them. Here are a few:
The most well-known of his child-free women bashing comments comes in a 2021 interview with Tucker Carlson. Vance stated that the United States was being run by a group of undesirables (in his mind), which included “a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they've made and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable, too." He completed this asinine thought with the rhetorical question about how it made “any “sense that we've turned our country over to people who don't really have a direct stake in it?"
In a podcast hosted by Charlie Kirk (no longer publicly available), Vance said that the United States should “[r]eward the things we think are good and punish the things we think are bad.” He went on to say that the child-free should have to pay higher taxes.
In a 2021 speech to the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, Vance supported weakening the voting power of the child-free by giving all children in the US a vote, but their parents would control their votes.
What is with this belief that child-free people don’t have a stake in the future of their country? Or the idea that they don’t contribute to the greater good? Or that their rights should be stripped from them or they should be punished?
I have to give a shout-out to the formidable Chelsea Handler for her response to JD Vance’s comments about childless cat ladies. She is perfection.
I can willingly admit that despite being extremely confident in my choice not to have children, I am still insecure about how others will perceive my choice. Can you actually question why? Elected officials, whose job it is to represent all of their constituents, even us “childless cat ladies,” attack us and call into question how we could possibly contribute to the greater good.
No one should have to defend their life choices when it comes to children. It simply isn’t for everyone. Full stop. Period. The sooner people - including those holding public office - realize that they have no business criticizing people about the choices they make about how they are going to live their lives, I can say mission accomplished, and CFW² will no longer be needed. Unfortunately, based on the current political and social commentary against the child-free, CFW² has a purpose to serve.
Pardon me while I go and snuggle with my cat, McQueen.
Signing Off,
Alysia Christiaen, LL.B, BSc (Hons), IAPP/C
Proud Childless Cat Lady (PCCL)
Alysia Christiaen
Creator of CFW² and a child-free woman.
