‘Childless cat ladies’? What about childless men? Or fatherless families?
As Scooty Nickerson reported in a July 27 story on BostonGlobe.com (“JD Vance talked about ‘childless’ women. There are 46 million of them, and even more childless men.”), JD Vance disparaged 46 million women in this country who do not have biological children with his 2021 comment about “childless cat ladies.” And if there are 101 million adults without biological children, what does the Republican vice presidential nominee have to say about the 55 million childless men? For that matter, what about men who have biologically fathered children but are not around to raise them? According to the latest census, between 20 percent and 25 percent of children growing up in the United States today are living in fatherless homes and are more likely to be poor and suffer mental health challenges. I’d like to know what Vance has to say about these family circumstances.
Patricia Ramsey
Amherst
All voters have a stake in country’s future — and that of all of its children
It is both mean-spirited and shortsighted to suggest, as JD Vance did in a 2021 Fox News interview, that people with children are more invested in the country’s future than those without children. Many of my friends and family members who have not had children have been generous with their time and energy toward public service and community projects, often showing up when those of us with children were wrangling child care.
True, many people with children understandably evaluate governmental policy through the lens of what will benefit their kids. But then, many people without kids of their own look at what will best benefit all children.
Nina Lev
Roslindale
Parenthood takes many forms
What JD Vance perhaps failed to understand is that for many, it can be more challenging to be a stepparent or an adoptive parent than a biological parent. I have great admiration for people who step in and fulfill such a vital role in a child’s life. Vance’s holier-than-thou attitude has no place anywhere near the White House.
Tessy Maliakal
Norfolk
Sinclair Lewis is rolling (with laughter, perhaps) in his grave
In a column last month, Renée Loth brought attention to an appeal from Writers for Democratic Action to revisit Sinclair Lewis’s 1936 play, “It Can’t Happen Here.” The group had updated Lewis’s work (which he himself had adapted from his dystopian novel about a fascist takeover of America) and was urging citizens throughout the United States to perform staged readings on July 19 of what they titled “It Can’t Happen Here — Again.”
I’m happy to report that the Sandwich Democratic Town Committee responded to that call and performed it with about 40 people present. Being involved with this project inspired me to reread Lewis’s novel. The similarities to political events today are uncanny.
Berzelius “Buzz” Windrip, the autocrat in the book running against FDR, puts out “The Fifteen Points of Victory for the Forgotten Men.” I just had to share number 12: “All women now employed shall, as rapidly as possible, except in such peculiarly feminine spheres as nursing and beauty parlors, be assisted to return to their incomparably sacred duties as home-makers and as mothers of strong, honorable future Citizens of the Commonwealth.”
Sound familiar?
Eighty-eight years later we have “childless cat ladies.” Unbelievable.
Phyllis Helfrich
Forestdale
Republican VP nominee opens a tricky door with his logic on whose vote matters
JD Vance suggested that people without children ought to have less of a vote than people with children. Following that logic, men ought to have less of a vote than women when it comes to issues involving abortion.
Peter Goodwin
Rockport
Meow!
JD Vance, take note: Childless or not, millions of us cat ladies and our cats are ready to pounce with claws out.
I. Bornstein
Reading