Why JD Vance's comments about "crazy cat ladies" and "childless people" are so hurtful, from a person who is childless
The now infamous crazy cat lady comment from JD Vance stems from his perspective that America (and the left) have become anti-family. He's wrong in many ways. First of all, the phrase "crazy cat lady" is offensive because of its origins and meaning. The phrase “cat lady” has been used to portray women outside of societal norms as crazy, lonely and even unstable. To insinuate that women who don't have children are crazy and even unstable is asinine, and demonstrates a clear lack of understanding of the broader picture of American society. When comments of Vance's resurfaced where he said childless people are more sociopathic and psychotic, again, he demonstrated a clear lack of understanding and is forcing his values onto the general populous.
Yes, there are people in America who are choosing not to have children. However, there is a ever-growing segment of Americans that are known as "Childless Without A Choice." These people are incapable of having children, and they suffer in silence. There are no support groups for people in this category. They are often exiled from society because people with children cannot relate to anyone who would dare be childless. Vance's comments to Trey Gowdy on Fox News Sunday night, dug him even further into the childless hole. He said people who for a number of reasons can't have children deserve prayers and sympathy. When "pressed" again about his comments, Vance said "There are a whole host of people who don't have children for a whole host of reasons, and they certainly are great people who can participate fully in the life of this country." As a person who is childless without a choice, I find it offensive that you have a man who is vying to become the Vice President of the United States saying that I can participate fully in the life of this country, as if I need his blessing to be an American who loves the country and wants to see the best for it.
He followed it up by saying "this is not a criticism and was never a criticism of everybody without children. That is a lie of the left. It is a criticism of the increasingly anti-parents and anti-child attitude of the left."
However, that is not the case. His comments paint a very different picture, and despite being given several opportunities to walk the comments back on Fox, Vance did no such thing. What his comments do, even though he was pointing directly to people on the left, is dehumanizes them. He makes childless people seem less than people like him, Christians who have children. He said the quiet part about how people with children feel about those without out loud, for everyone to hear. When he starts to dehumanize people on one side of the political spectrum because they're childless, what does that say for the people on the same side as him who are childless? Are we okay because we're on the same team? No. Simply put, JD Vance found an issue that united parts of the country against him on both sides of the aisle.
Allow me to provide further context to my particular situation, and why I find his comments offensive, and it has rallied me to the point that I'm no longer going to vote for Donald Trump in November. I don't want a Kamala Harris presidency, but I cannot in good conscience vote for Trump knowing that JD Vance would become one unfortunate situation away from holding the most powerful office in the world.
I am a very private person. I do not air my laundry out for the world to see. My wife, due to her profession as a news anchor, isn't allowed to air her grievances publicly either, as people could call her biased. But, allow me to share some of our story.
My wife, Nikki, and I got married in 2016. After purchasing a house, we started working on building a family. We were hoping to have two children, but we learned over the next several years that it was impossible to do so. At first, we thought it was just not working out the "old fashioned" way. Then, we tried multiple rounds of artificial insemination and even a couple of rounds of IVF. All of those efforts failed as well. Finally, after tens of thousands of dollars, we got hit with the most devastating news. My wife was found to have a tumor in the lining of her uterus that over the course of five years had grown to the size of a coconut. The tumor wasn't found quickly, it took nearly five years for doctors to discover what the issue was and why getting pregnant never happened.
In that time though, the tumor was draining the life's blood out of Nikki. One of her doctors tried to treat it with oral chemotherapy, a specific chemo that is normally used on people with end-stage breast cancer and a puberty suppressant in the hopes of shrinking it. That didn't work, and my wife's health continued to decline rapidly. Eventually, the doctor made the decision that the only way to remove the tumor, and save her life, was to perform a full and total hysterectomy, something he didn't want to do, as my wife wasn't even 44 years old. Having that procedure done at her age, and without ever having a child, we were told would drastically shorten her life expectancy. After only seven years of marriage at the time, a lifetime together got shortened to maybe another 15 years.
One could only imagine the devastation we both felt at that moment. But, we knew that she would have to undergo the procedure if she wanted to have any quality of life.
That day, our hopes and dreams of becoming parents died. And people like JD Vance don't understand situations like ours. My wife had a Southern Baptist upbringing, where it was drilled into her that her role as a wife was to give her husband children. Losing the chance to do that, made her feel like a failure as a woman and as a wife. Vance says people like us deserve prayers and sympathy. We don't want your prayers or your sympathy. We want our voices heard, as so many of us suffer in silence.
Vance says America has become anti-family. He's wrong. Can childless without a choice people go to a place like Disney World and enjoy themselves? No. Disney World doesn't close its gates to families to allow childless people to go any enjoy themselves. Instead, the childless people who are suffering from a terrible loss, are forced to be in an environment filled with the thing they wanted most in the world, but can never have. Are we supposed to become shut-ins that never go out? Are we supposed to hide ourselves from society? What is it that JD Vance thinks we should do?
We've been told by people with children that we should adopt, or become foster parents. Well, it's great that they have ideas, but they have no clue how those things actually work. After spending thousands of dollars on infertility solutions, we don't have the money to do a private adoption. Becoming foster parents in the hopes of adopting a child is just as painful and expensive. You foster a child for an extended period of time, and you have the child ripped away from you, despite knowing the child is returning to a bad environment. If you happen to get lucky and can possibly adopt the child you've been fostering, court fees and attorney fees can become cost prohibitive as well.
Being childless without a choice is possibly the most frustrating and overlooked situation in America today. We see in the news all of the talk about "reproductive rights" and the statistics on abortions and we're left with the thought that it's so much easier to take away life than it is to add it. We see the overall birth rate declining and the rising rate of infertility, and people like JD Vance make comments that inspire hateful comments from their followers. You can see some of the comments his supporters have made on social media, many saying that the reason some people are childless is because God has deemed them unworthy of being parents. These are people with the word "Christian" in their bios. Where's the teachings of Christianity being shown there? Why are we unworthy of being parents?
By making such ignorant statements, Vance has become toxic and a cancer to the Trump campaign. He should be removed from the ticket, plain and simple. He had a chance to apologize, with Trey Gowdy serving up softball questions, and Vance didn't back down at all. Instead, he blamed the left and diverted attention away. He has demonstrated the characteristics of his generation, in the worst way. Millennials are already maligned as being far less compassionate than previous generations, and Vance proved it. He has demonstrated a clear lack of understanding, compassion and a lack of maturity. Unknowingly, he has insulted a large group of the American people, who suffer in silence. Will they decide to not be silent come election day?
By selecting him to be his Vice Presidential candidate, Donald Trump has once again demonstrated an inability to make good decisions. During his first term, Trump made a lot of poor decisions on the people he would surround himself with in his cabinet. He also made poor decisions on how to conduct himself, which is why the left went after him so hard. Over the past four years, he's made the same poor decisions. Vance is just the latest example, and unless Vance is cut loose, I fear Trump will lose the election. If Donald Trump can't take Vance's comments and spin them in a way that softens the blow, you know the comments are over the line.
"Never speak from a place of hate, anger, or insecurity. Evaluate your words before you let them leave your lips. Sometimes it's best to be quiet." - JD Vance should have thought about this quote when making his "off the cuff" remarks.
