I Am A Childless Cat Lady

July 27, 2024

I don't often get political with my blog but this week's resurfacing of misogynist comments by America's Republican vice-presidential candidate, JD Vance, were too personal to ignore. I am a "childless cat lady", a woman without children of her own, who shares her home with two, lovely felines.

According to JD Vance, America's Democrats are a "bunch of childless cat ladies with miserable lives" who want to make the rest of America miserable. This clumsy attempt to shame the rival political party revealed a contemptuous attitude towards women who are not mothers, and with that, an ignorance and lack of compassion, that underpins his desire to restrict fertility assistance to those who can't have children in the USA.

Like many women, I couldn't have children, but I did have several miscarriages. The emotional damage from repeated, failed fertility treatment and loss of my unborn, left me with deep, personal trauma that has been healed with time spent with my art and my animals. I am a henwife, the mother hen to three messy but productive girls and mama to my two lazy and loving feline boys.

Throughout my life, I have used my freedom to carve a niche and a life as a serial, creative entrepreneur, becoming a prolific, international illustrator and mentoring young, female creatives in their careers. I have utilised my maternal qualities within my role as a business leader, which hasn't always been easy, as the role models provided to me were male and a misfit at that. Over the years I rejected them, as I continue to reject many of the scripts laid out for women of my generation living in a today's toxic culture, and in their place, I write my own.

As a Girl Guide Leader, I learnt to have adventures, including making fires and finding freedom and safety in the wild, teaching these life skills to young girls, as I still do as a respite and emergency foster carer to pre-teen and teenage girls in care.

I am a childless cat lady, a free thinking, joyful and resilient woman of independent means with compassion for all sentient beings, and with that, a threat to men like JD Vance, who try to shame and blame their way to success, by making others feel isolated and small.

The thing is, he hasn't done the math. Across the globe, in every town are childless cat ladies, some are happy in their own skin, content in their lives, accepting of their decisions or fate and some are not. But wherever we are on our life journey, we know that as a childless cat lady, in our choice to create a life for ourselves which includes peace and kindness to animals, we are a powerful force. We are many and the likes of JD Vance can try to degrade us as much as they want, but as with the cats we care for, we can reciprocate with the lack of deference they deserve. 

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