Childless Cat Ladies: What a Horror Show…

I am struck not just by the meanness of Republican Presidential candidate Trump. I am struck by the past and present meanness of his new running mate JD Vance.

Here’s what bothers me: if you slur a group of women who did not give birth and gay men by saying they are “childless cat ladies,” the depth of the insult and its utter and complete untruth showcases that the SPEAKER of the insult (Vance) is the kind of individual who should never ever be in a position of power, given his deep misunderstanding of women, parenthood and life’s choices and basic human decency.

Let me explain.

First, if you adopt children or are a step parent, one is not childless. Being a parent does not mean one necessarily birthed a child. So there are a whole group of parents who are amazing mothers and fathers but did not actually birth their children. These are not childless cat ladies. NB. Men don’t give birth in the human race.

Now there are also women who cannot give birth for health reasons among others who desperately want children. They are not cat ladies. They care about their relatives’s children. They care about the children of others. Some may be teachers or doctors or social workers, regularly engaging with and enjoying and helping children.

And don’t get me started on the many birth parents who are not good parents. Long list there.

I am struck by the notion that to care about America’s future, you need to be a birth parent. Seriously? How about priests and nuns? How about scientists? How about doctors — pediatricians — who don’t have their own children? What a ridiculous notion. And for the record, to repeat: men don’t give birth either.

The absurdity of Vance’s argument is more than mean. It is wrong headed. It is shocking that someone is so lacking in empathy that he cannot see the breadth with which we can and should ascertain who cares about America’s future. I’ll tell you two people who don’t care about the future in ways that matter to me: Trump and Vance.

They lack empathy. They lack an understanding of human nature. They are mean and mean spirited. They are disrespectful. They are poor role models and not just for the children born from their sperm but for all children.

My sadness over meanness abounds. Well-educated Ivy Leaguers give their alma maters a bad name; they are not doing their institutions proud. They are not doing themselves, their children and this nation proud. They are not doing their wives proud.

We are better than that. Way better.

As an educator (with a natural child as well as an informally adopted one), I am worried about a man who thinks only birth mothers get the future. Yipes…….Another yipes…..