JD Vance’s cat lady comments prove childless women are always ridiculed

I’m seething. 

Not just at US senator JD Vance and his ugly mouth — but also at the people surprised by his words. 

In 2021, the man who has just become Donald Trump’s running mate referred to Democrats – including Kamala Harris – as a ‘bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and choices’ and asked: ‘How does it make any sense that we’ve turned our country over to people who don’t really have a direct stake in it?’

Then there’s far-right activist Laura Loomer’s abhorrent X recent post – based on Harris’s stance on reproductive rights – where she wrote: ‘I’m willing to bet she’s had so many abortions that she damaged her uterus. A woman who has no biological children of her own should not be allowed to make decisions in the White House for your children. Republicans need to… ask why a woman with no kids of her own and just a scarred up uterus is so obsessed with wanting to kill your babies.’

I posted about my disgust of remarks like these via Instagram, to which friends tried to comfort me: ‘These are vile extreme idiots, just ignore them.’

But how can I ignore something that’s been going on forever? The childless and childfree are universally ridiculed and hated.

It’s only now JD Vance’s 2021 comments about Kamala have resurfaced that people are paying attention. 

Let me – a childless woman – tell you what life sans kids is like. And how maybe you could’ve helped before. 

I’m childless because I didn’t meet anyone to have my babies with (‘social infertility’, they call it. Hot). Not to mention, the 2008 recession and end of properly-paid journalism meant I couldn’t afford cotton swabs, let alone pay for IVF on my own.

So I’ve been experiencing the childless life for decades now. Below are some highlights for you. 

The feature I wrote about being scared I wouldn’t have a child — and someone at the magazine added the words ‘I feel like such a failure’ to my copy. 

The family Mother’s Day lunch I wasn’t invited to. The family baby showers I’ve been expected to attend.

The gathering where I was virtually told I was a ‘Tory enabler’ because I criticised not-then-PM Starmer for his party’s non-stop ‘hardworking families’ rhetoric.

Not in any way insulting, dismissive (you want my tax but not my vote?) or divisive.

The moment when a friend – with two kids – posted on Facebook about being knackered and one of the comments read: ‘The other day at work, a woman (no children) said she was tired. And I could’ve screamed!’

So I replied and fiercely expressed my annoyance, then was told childless people have a choice: They can spend the day in bed or not — but parents have to get up. And that is why they’re shattered. And then I was blocked.

At the time, I was suffering from severe depression, not sleeping, trying to work while spending my days and nights in my beloved uncle’s hospital room where he was dying. But, sure, parent tiredness trumps mine.

The moment during the pandemic when Twitter (#RIP) was littered with ‘If I hear one more person with no kids say this is tough…’ Indeed, work Zooms would start with a dad saying ‘Shout out to parents going through this’.

Hmmmm. Yes, must’ve been difficult home-schooling, but it was just as difficult to not see anyone and not know how the f**k you were going to financially survive. Different problems; but both equal. You’d think. Or maybe that’s just the misogynist in me speaking. 

Oh yes. I’ve been called a misogynist for pointing this bigotry against the childless and childfree out. Apparently I’m not allowing women their experience. 

I’ll quickly mention the mate who, talking about her midwife, said: ‘She was OK. She’s one of those women, though. A midwife who doesn’t even have her own kids.’

I won’t go into the story about the woman on a train who insisted I give her my reserved seat because ‘I have children!’ 

But I will also give a shout-out to another ex-friend who told me – because she has children – it matters more if she dies than if I do. 

It. Doesn’t. Matter. If. I. Die. 

This horror isn’t just directed at me; it’s for all of us to enjoy. 

There was the item on The Victoria Derbyshire Show on BBC2. Introducing an interview with the aunt of Alan Kurdi, the Syrian toddler who drowned in the Mediterranean, Derbyshire said: ‘If you’re a parent you might find this upsetting.’ All heart. Unlike the childless. Apparently.

You remember ex-MP Andrea Leadsom’s assertion that then-PM Theresa May didn’t have a ‘tangible stake’ in the future because the ex-PM had no kids. And you’ll probably recall Wahaca’s Thomasina Miers attacking May’s reluctance to feed children because May ‘wasn’t a mother’.

And you can’t have missed the universal ‘As a’ onslaught. From Starmer’s ‘As a father’ response to Brianna Ghey’s murder, Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner’s response to Gaza: ‘I’m a mother and a grandmother myself and you see the devastation in Gaza is absolutely horrific’.

So if you don’t have children, you have zero empathy and don’t care that children are being killed.

Seriously? Parents do not have the monopoly on empathy and love.

Can you imagine thinking you feel more than another human being? Wow.

I posted on Instagram about the ‘As a mother’ stuff and was told I need therapy if I find that phrase triggering. I suggested if you can only empathise and love after giving birth, then perhaps it is you who needs the couch moments.

There are a million other examples – me being asked to write an article on ‘how I was wrong about mothers’ is a charming recent one. 

So now you’ll understand why Vance’s vitriol hasn’t surprised me at all and why making cute ‘childless cat lady’ memes doesn’t really cut it. 

Where have you been?

Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing jess.austin@metro.co.uk. 

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