What's Worse: Having No Children Or Being JD Vance?

Since becoming Donald Trump’s 2024 presidential running mate, Sen. JD Vance has appointed himself the founder, CEO and asinine mouthpiece of The He-Man Woman Hater’s Club.

Unearthed and subsequently viral videos of the couch enthusiast (just…kidding?) condemning and attacking child-free women have become an accidental centerpiece of his vice presidential campaign. To date, Vance has called women who either by chance or choice do not have biological children “psychotic,” “childless cat ladies” who are “sad, lonely, pathetic” people, who “should feel like their life is inadequate,” who are “miserable at their own lives and choices they have made” and who should pay higher taxes solely because they are not parents. 

Doubling down on his commentswhile cosplaying Harrison Butker is certainly a choice — one that has made Vance arguably the weirdest vice presidential candidate since Mitt Romney carried around binders full of women. 

But Vance inadvertently gave the American electorate a gift — one that extends far beyond memes, gifs and group chat fodder. By being his unapologetic, sexist self, Vance has reminded us all that it’s better to be childless than to have kids and be a bonafide dick.

Case in point: In an interview on the Full Send Podcast, Vance proudly recalled a moment when he verbally chastised his own child for wanting to show off his Pokemon knowledge. During the dude-brah-bro-man conversation, Vance recalled a recent phone call with his running mate, convicted felon and Republican nominee for president: Donald Trump.

“My son, who’s 7, is in the hotel room with me,” he said. “And he’s really into Pokemon cards right now…I mean, he’s really into it. So he’s trying to talk to me about Pikachu, and I’m on the phone with Donald Trump, and I’m like: ‘Son, shut the hell up for 30 seconds about Pikachu.’”

What a dick.

Ok, fine: A moment of frustration from a working parent can be forgiven. But coupled with the GOP’s child-hating, family-detesting policies that Vance proudly champions (and it’s clear that having a child doesn’t automatically make a person more compassionate or vested in this country’s future) it can, in fact, have the opposite effect.

Vance purposely skipped out on voting to expand the child tax credit, which would have continued to reduce child poverty at historic rates. In his defense, Vance claimed casting a vote wouldn’t have made a differencebecause everyone knows the best way to fight for children and families is to not show up at all. 

What a dick.

He has called universal child care a “class war against normal people,” arguing that “Americans care more about their families than their jobs” and want policies that don’t “shunt their kids into crap daycare so they can enjoy more ‘freedom.’”

To be clear, by “Americans,” he means “women,” because clearly Vance very much cares about his job and career ambitions — just ask his son.

Vance has also suggested that women should stay in violent marriageswhile speaking at a Christian high school in Southern California last September, arguing that when women find a way to escape toxic, abusive homes, they’re changing “spouses like they change underwear.” 

Researchers believe anywhere from 3.3 million to 10 million children are exposed to adult domestic violence per year, resulting in higher rates of depression, anxiety and poor self-esteem, as well as poor physical outcomes like diabetes, obesity and heart disease.

But according to Vance, divorce is worse than kids watching as their mothers are beaten, verbally assaulted and financially abused.

What a dick.

Most importantly, Vance represents the party that has launched efforts to roll back child labor protections, forced minors to carry unwanted pregnancies to term — including 10-year-old rape victims and unaccompanied migrant youth detained at the border — and fought against universal free lunch that ensures every child has access to food during school. 

JD “Father of the Year” Vance would rather track young women’s menstrual cycles than provide free period products in public schools and demonize trans students instead of work to lower the LGBTQ+ rate of suicide — all while pinky-promising that having children is an essential requirement in order to truly care about the country.

“We want to give families more power in this country,” Vance once said on Fox News. “The left has effectively been taken over by a lot of childless people, by the AOCs of the world, the Kamala Harrises of the world…and we’ve got to push back against that and say, we need to be a pro-family country.” 

Thankfully, a good portion of Americans see Vance and his stance for what he and it really is: dickish. According to a new University of Massachusetts Amherst survey, 51% of Americans “strongly disagree” with the idea that Harris not having biological children should disqualify her as a presidential candidate. 

When juxtaposed with the Democrat-led policies like universal child care, paid family leave, free school lunch, abortion access, affordable maternal and mental health care, an expanded child tax credit, and affordable health care for children and families, one thing is clear: It’s far better to be a “childless cat lady” than a woman-loathing, family-resenting, Pokemon-hating dick of a dad.