We’re calling on America to spare the childless cat ladies. (And yes, J.D. Vance, we’re talking about you.)
This rising politician’s cruel quote cut many down. He actually accused of those without biological children as being nothing more than “childless cat ladies.”
This US senator then made specific references to some of his political enemies who are either step-parenting, have adopted, or have chosen to be childless at this point in their lives. He had the gall to suggest that those who do not pro-create “naturally” somehow are endangering the very fabric of American culture. (Meowww!)
When interviewed by Megan Kelly on Sirius XM this week about his 2021 childless cat lady condemnation, J.D. Vance retorted “Obviously, it was a sarcastic comment. I’ve got nothing against cats.” He may have spared the cats, but he did not spare the childless cat ladies. Clearly, Vance targeted this verbal attack towards those who do not reproduce, and he singled out women specifically. (Misogyny, much?)
We’re not here to join in the political mudslinging, but we do have a thing or two to say– without being catty.
Adoption Discrimination Runs Rampant
The underlying theme of JD Vance’s political attack is that “real families” are only biological ones, and this ticks us off, because (1) it’s not true, and (2) it reflects the very real adoption discrimination that taints our nation’s support for families of any origin other those related by blood.
Parents who adopt often find themselves challenged about their legitimacy as parents, having not given birth. This can happen in ways that are subtle (like the nurse in the pediatrician’s office who insensitively asks about the “natural mother” in front of the child) as well as in far more overt ways (as when angry adopted kids threaten to runaway and go live with their “real parents.”) Neither slight is fair to families who came together outside of a hospital delivery room.
Three years ago, Abrazo addressed the subject of society trashing adoptive parents. Somehow, sadly, Vance’s reductive opinion of families such as that of Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg (who adopted twins with his spouse) seems to confirm that even those who should know better than to discriminate against adoption don’t.
In centuries past, it was common for society to consider “legitimate families” to be those in which spouses married a blood relative, but we now know that inbreeding was to blame for many of the medical catastrophes that befell royal bloodlines. Surely it’s time to recognize that both marriages and families require no blood ties to be legitimate, respected and real.
(But Birthmothers Also Bear the Brunt)
While we’re at it, can we all also sheath the claws when it comes to judging the women who are forced by restrictive abortion laws to carry to term, then who opt to place their babies for adoption in hopes of giving their infants a better life? Being labeled “childless cat ladies” is mild, in comparison to the criticisms of birthmothers.
Even today, someone who admits to having surrendered her baby is often flamed online as having been heartless, uncaring, immoral and/or selfish. (Nobody stops to question the nonsupport of the man who fathered that baby, and whose absence too often necessitated that birthmother’s decision for adoption.)
The hypocrisy is astounding. Even Supreme Court justices have claimed that there was a social need for more girls and women to consider giving babies up for adoption. Nonetheless, birthparents who “put a child up for adoption” are routinely given a cultural side-eye for their sacrifices (unlike surrogate mothers, who are lauded by the celebrity parents for whom they carry, and also paid the equivalent of a fulltime salary for their trouble.)
Let’s stop pussyfooting around this: the decision to be childless, like the choice to place a baby for adoption, is deeply personal. No female should be judged for whatever personal beliefs or circumstances result in her forfeiture of the motherhood role. No woman’s identity or value should ever depend on her reproductive history.
Spare the Childless. Cat. Ladies.
Anyone who has watched the chilling series “The Handmaid’s Tale” based on the book by Margaret Atwood, has reason to fear the prospect of a dystopian era, in which any female’s fertility (or lack of it) becomes weaponized by politicians.
This passage from the aforementioned book, seems particularly poignant, in light of Vance’s slam: “In reduced circumstances the desire to live attaches itself to strange objects. I would like a pet: a bird, say, or a cat. A familiar. Anything at all familiar.”
We can’t wait for childless cat women like Taylor Swift to scratch back, frankly. Yet unlike that multimillionairess, far too many women in the USA are living in reduced circumstances, because of the expectations being hoisted upon them, the laws being made to limit their healthcare options, and the limitations of their resources,
We must agree, as a society that believes in adoption, that appreciates parents that place and those who adopt, and who are committed to the best interests of children, to spare the childless cat ladies from condemnation and to fervently remind them, in the words of Atwood: “Nolite te bastardes carborundorum.”
