In recent weeks, much of the internet discourse has been dominated by arguments over the value of parents versus non-parents. This is largely thanks to Republican vice-presidential candidate JD Vance’s now-infamous comments about “childless cat ladies” and whether parents should get additional votes to proxy for their children.
As incendiary and ill-advised as Vance’s cat lady remarks may have been (he has since asserted they were sarcastic), all American families — on both sides of the political aisle — need family policy to avoid the negative polarization trend that has made so many other issues difficult to resolve.
It is possible to talk about how parents provide a service to the nation through child-rearing and should thus be met with a degree of societal recompense without turning the conversation into a zero-sum game that insults or disadvantages non-parents, especially women.