On Being Unmarried and Childless and in Possession of a French Bulldog

A thought on who gets political respect

This is a LARGE photo. I am aware. This is my dog, Olivia Rey Bennet.

Now, I know why women like me are considered wastes of space by some people. I just don't like it. And I don’t want you to either.

Our lives are not yet in service of a spouse and children. All that time goes to other things, like our families, our churches, our friends, our hobbies, our work, and our dogs and cats.

Historically, good women completed and supported the lives of human beings and human doers (men) who could have it all because she would do it all. The fort got held down. I think this is a great arrangement if a woman wants to choose it. I, however, am not in the habit of asking women to account for their time to me. That is not my place.

Alas, the current pick from the Republican party for Vice President and some writer at Newsweek and millions of voters do think it is their place.

And they say things like we shouldn’t listen to what women with cats and no husbands think about the country. Or that our contributions are not worth looking up to because we have not married a man and had three and a half children with him.

I think it is dangerous when the weight of your mind, needs, hopes, fears, and humanity is weighed against what you have produced or who you are with.

There is a long history of this in the United States. It is a holdover of creating a society in which women and their political lives were understood and wielded through their relationship with men.

I do not want to live in a democracy or be led by leaders who think that the worth of a woman’s opinion and ideas are measured through her relationship to men and children.

JD Vance - the VP pick- does not really believe this I think. He fell hard and fast for his brilliant wife and fellow Lawyer Usha. He is, however, okay with assuming power by disparaging other women. He is content to put into place a world in which middle and lower-class women do not have the same political agency as women like his wife.

There are many good reasons to marry a man and have children. That is why I have remained picky. It is too good a thing in my mind to throw away on a man with no character and no work ethic. It is too good a thing to do recklessly. I have my container of baby clothes and have carefully considered what kind of mother I will be. I will fail, but I will fail at this having rooted myself in a loving community of wisdom and friendship.

But to the woman called to something else entirely, to bring her talents and energy and care to a certain profession or community, or to the woman who finds herself infertile and is not celebrating, I call for respect.

That language gets people elected but it reinforces this idea that some people can decide that other people and what they want matter less.

I am not a miserable person making the rest of the country miserable, as JD Vance says.

The childless woman is still a person who can be trusted to have a brain, morals, thoughts, convictions, and a life worthy of respect (Unless they have no character, which children do not ensure).

At the risk of accounting for my time to men who I do not need to account my time, I know my current status is why I have been able to participate in helping the foster care system. It’s why I could volunteer to create safer communities with restorative accountability youth programs. It’s why I have been able to bake for my church Bible study and stay late to pray for women trying to become mothers and men who serve the church. It is why I have had the time to support other families in my neighborhood, take care of my family when they need me, and prepare my character to be a good future partner and parent.

That time has been spent learning about the democracy we all live in and how to protect it. That time has been spent being happy and carefree running to sample sales and enjoying life at this season. We are human beings, not just human givers, and our experience of life and our hopes for it matter and count and deserve to be heard in the democratic process.

JD Vance says women like me don’t have a stake in the future. JD Vance thinks too little of women like me. He should ask, what we think of the future of incarcerated children, the children in our schools, healthcare for our parents, and safety for our neighborhoods. He should ask, about our studies of this beautiful world, about the patients we care for, and the communities we love and vote for.

But if he doesn’t we will continue to live in and build the future we know we deserve. Democracy and civic participation are not things the birth of a child gives us. Our political power has always been our birthright and inherent to our basic humanity.