I Am a ‘Cat Lady’ and I’m Not Miserable at All, Thank You Very Much

In case you haven’t heard, Republican vice-presidential nominee JD Vance thinks calling someone a cat lady is a sick burn. His recently resurfaced 2021 quote saying that the US is run by “a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices they’ve made” has caused the term ‘cat lady’ to reach an all-time high on Google Trends. Donald Trump doubling down on Vance’s comments in a Fox News interview hasn't exactly helped matters. Social media is exploding with cat lady memes, and if you’d like to sport a T-shirt to advertise your status as a miserable childless cat lady, you’ve got plenty to choose from. (New life goal: for my picture to appear on Google Images when someone searches ‘cat lady’.)

This isn’t the first time Vance has used ‘cat lady’ as a slur, either, as political commentator Matthew Gertz was quick to point out on X (formally Twitter). It’s a long-running bit for Vance, and he doesn’t only use it against women, or people without children. Dr Leana Wen, one of his targets in that X post, has a daughter, and economist Paul Krugman, another ‘cat lady’ according to Vance, isn’t a lady as far as I know.

Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris and US Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg, who were both namechecked in Vance’s 2021 rant, also have kids. (Harris has two stepchildren from husband Doug Emhoff’s previous marriage, and Buttigieg welcomed twins with husband Chasten Buttigieg in 2021.)

Cat ladies, according to Vance, should keep their mouths shut when it comes to running the government – or at least, the miserable, childless ones should, anyway. That’s because people with kids “ultimately have a more direct stake in the future of this country”. Ouch.

“I’m tired of men thinking that my only worth is to have babies,” my friend Kristin (a single, childless mum to one cat) said to me over the weekend, after the Vance cat-lady quotes went viral. “And I also think there are a lot of miserable mums out there.”

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As both a mum and a cat lady, I concur. In fact, I think it’s fair to say I’m even more of a cat lady than I am a mum, since I only have two children, but I have three cats. That’s right, three cats – just like miserable childless billionaire Taylor Swift. (That’s not the only thing Swift and I have in common, either, by the way: I also have a fringe and a long line of horrible exes from whom to draw artistic inspiration.)

There are a million ways to be miserable, and in my book at least, having a cat isn’t one of them. Being a mum, though? All I can say is, my cats have never accused me of being the reason behind every problem in their lives, or slammed a door in my face, or angrily announced that they’d be better off without me. They also don’t borrow my clothes without asking, or use up all my fancy shampoo, or leave their sticky ice lolly wrappers on the back of the sofa and roll their eyes at me when I ask them to clean up after themselves.

No, all my cats ever do is headbutt me when they want me to pet them, meow pathetically when they want to be fed, and run to greet me at the door when I come home, because they’ve been so forlorn without me. (Let’s just leave the vomited-up hairballs and shredded sofa arms out of this.) So doesn’t it stand to reason that I care about my cats’ futures just as much as I care about my children’s? My cats bring me at least as much joy as my kids, if not more.

All jokes aside, though, Vance’s childless cat lady barbs are thoughtless, inappropriate, and cruel, as Jennifer Aniston pointed out on her Instagram story last week. “I truly can’t believe this is coming from a potential VP of The United States,” she wrote. “Mr Vance, I pray that your daughter is fortunate enough to bear children of her own one day.” Aniston, who doesn’t have kids, has been open about the difficulty she had trying to conceive.

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“You just never know what’s going on in somebody else’s life,” mused my friend Kristin’s mother. Kristin and I were spending a long weekend at her parents’ house – along with Kristin’s cat, Coco (my three stayed behind at home; I’m not that devoted a cat mum) – and Cat Ladygate was a hot topic of conversation.

Kristin’s dad pulled up a Facebook post from a longtime friend, Marjorie, who was incensed by Vance’s remarks. “As a woman who was unable to have children, I am both angry and astonished that anyone – especially a political nominee – would make such an arrogant comment,” she wrote. Refuting the idea that people without children don’t have a stake in the country’s future, she cited her 44-year-long career as a teacher in a public school classroom. “I have both taught, and been taught lessons by, thousands of students.”

Whether or not she – or anyone – has a cat, a child, both, or neither, has no impact on their stake in the future of the United States or the value of their vote. The outcome of the next US election will affect all Americans, and it’s important that everyone makes their voice heard.

However, as I think any cat parent can agree, having a cat adds a lot of love (and yes, perhaps the occasional slimy hairball beneath your bare foot in the middle of the night) to your life. Maybe JD Vance needs a little more of that, too (the love, not the hairball – although… ). Now, who wants to connect him with his local animal rescue centre so he can find out for himself how truly wonderful it is to be a cat lady?