Despite What JD Vance Says, It Is Perfectly OK to Not Want to Be a Parent

By Kayleigh Donaldson | Politics | July 26, 2024 |

By Kayleigh Donaldson | Politics | July 26, 2024 |

It’s not a surprise that J.D. Vance, Donald Trump’s Vice Presidential candidate and possible couch fornicator, has such disdain for women who don’t have children. Amid his soulless and flop-sweat-heavy hunger for power, he has long abandoned any of the stances that made him seem reasonably human, all in favour of pandering to an ultra-right-wing base that thinks insurrections are cool and no-fault divorces are woke. A 2021 interview he gave to Tucker Carlson (because who else would it be?) went viral recently thanks to his claim that Democrats are ‘a bunch of childless cat ladies with miserable lives.’ That, coupled with attacks on Kamala Harris for not being a mother herself, have strengthened the Republican Party’s anti-autonomy ideology to new and ghoulish lows. He wants to rob us of our reproductive freedoms in all ways, be it abortion protections or access to IVF. It’s an agenda so insidious that even some conservative white women have balked at Vance’s smarm.

But at the heart of this mess is an age-old issue that I’ve found myself at the heart of many times over the course of my life, as have plenty of women I know. The moment you tell someone, friend or stranger, that you don’t want children, it’s as though an alarm goes off that signals to the world it’s now perfectly justifiable to treat you either as a pariah or an example to be made of. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve had people interrogate me on my very consistent decision to not become a parent (or marry, which is another article entirely.) You’re all familiar with the arguments, I’m sure: it’s selfish not to want to be a mother; oh, but what if you regret it when your ovaries are shriveled up and it’s too late; you’ve just not met the right man; wait until your biological clock starts to tick; you’re missing out on the greatest joy a woman could experience.

Despite the progress feminist activism has made over the decades, wide acceptance of a childfree lifestyle is a curiously tough roadblock for us to overcome. Even as the cost of living has priced a ton of people out of starting families they desperately want, there’s this societal stubbornness that positions the decision as a moral standpoint. And I suppose it is, in some way. When the chattering classes say you’re a self-centred hag who will die alone because you don’t want to reproduce, it’s tempting to assert yourself as a political underdog. It doesn’t feel like a coincidence that such arguments are so commonplace now, between the Trumpian dominance of conservatism, the rise of the Andrew Tate-esque rape-friendly incel, and a widening gap between the politics of men and women. To be told to shack up quickly and pump the babies out now comes with the implication that you should adhere to whatever the man wants in that dynamic. Trad-wives are back in style for a reason.

I don’t like people berating others about their reproductive choices for the same reason I don’t like people asking anyone with a vaguely rounded belly when the baby is due: it’s creepy, invasive, and none of your f*cking business. It’s an attitude that ignores how varied and complicated our lives are. Maybe someone’s struggling with infertility or miscarriages. Perhaps they’re ill. Or we’re just fat and you should leave us alone. Behind every pregnancy is the entire life of a parent who has made a lot of decisions they probably didn’t want to (and of course people like Vance want to remove the ability to make said calls.)

But really, getting into this kind of speculation is beside the point. Every time the issue comes up, I see women, justifiably so, getting into these lists of reasons, partly to reveal how much the supposedly pro-family rhetoric is built on anti-women and anti-choice philosophies. We want to be sensitive in the ways that people like Vance are not, aware of nuances and emotions that misogyny seeks to smudge away. There is a vast world of reasons between the spaces of ‘couldn’t have’ and ‘didn’t want.’ Yet this also overlooks an important truth: it’s okay not to want kids just because. You don’t have to justify to anyone why you’ve made the choice to be childfree (and I prefer that word over ‘childless’ for obvious reasons.) You’re not emotionless for saying no to a family. To quote writer Moira Donegan, ‘Not having kids is a morally neutral and legitimate life choice on its own that does not need to be justified with recourse to tragic stories of fertility struggles.’ We’re timid when it comes to asserting ‘just because’ as a philosophy, even though I think it should be at the heart of so much of our discourse about our bodily autonomy. Not having kids is fine. Having an abortion is fine. Not marrying or divorcing is fine. Surely this is something we should embrace?

This is a no-win game in the eyes of those who seek an iron grip control over our freedoms, particularly those of marginalized groups. They want to force women into marriages they can’t escape, fill them with children they can’t afford, and then strip away state support for families who desperately need it. No abortions, unless you’re a rich guy whose mistress is in the way. No no-fault divorces, unless you’ve got the money to make it happen. No IVF, except for that Senator who needs to practice what he preaches with his ‘pro-family’ word vomit. As Lindy West put it on The Daily Show when discussing the criminalizing of abortion, all removing reproductive justice will do ‘is keep people trapped in poverty for generations. That’s the goal, and if it wasn’t the goal, they would spend their time and money on comprehensive sex education, free birth control, and free contraception.’

So let’s hear it for the childfree among us, those who have made their choices and owe absolutely nothing to the world for their troubles. All that and our couches are pristine, despite the cat hair.