Mr. Vance: Childless Teachers Are a Thing.
One can be patriotic, engaged, and childless.
Unfortunately, I am catless at present. Fortunately, I am childless.
Or, am I?
Though I have not had a child, I have been a public school educator for 33 years. Prior to that, I was a teacher’s aide and an attendant at a group home to pay my way through college and graduate school. When I whipped out my iPhone calculator and did some quick calculating, I realized I’ve been involved with some 3,000 children as a speech-language pathologist — and for a short while — as an elementary school principal. That’s a lot of children to have nurtured and supported for a childless lady (who actually did have a cat for a good portion of those 33 years).
As any teacher or school administrator can attest, we carry home the joys and struggles of our students to our kitchen tables and late night ruminations while trying to fall asleep. Can that student afford to pay for the 8th grade graduation dance? What about a dress? Will the struggling third grader ever remember how to spell his own last name?
When I read reports of JD Vance’s various rants about childless women in our country, I sighed. Not just from the mean-spiritedness of his statements, but also from the short-sightedness. As Vance sees it, people without children “don’t have a direct stake in this country.” Even more concerning, we are “sociopathic” and “less mentally stable.” There’s much ink being correctly spilled about bringing back civility to our public discourse, but that’s not what prompted me to open up my laptop and start pounding the keys.
A woman’s value to her community goes far beyond her ability to reproduce and raise her own children. Nor does her mental health hinge on becoming a parent. I am an eldest sister, an aunt, and an educator. I can confidently say I have some skin in the game of childcare and child rearing, without ever having had a child of my own.
Perhaps Mr. Vance wouldn’t consider me childless since I spent a year in the 1990’s as a foster parent for one of my students whose pre-adoptive placement had abruptly ended. I learned a lot that year about the pitfalls of the foster care system and the profound and lasting impact trauma has on the emotional and academic development of a child. Managing the demands of being a working parent to a child with special needs was an eye opener.
In my mid 30’s I spent a few years as a Sunday School teacher and a youth group leader, where I attempted to acquire the unicorn-like ability to be that cool older adult who is also approachable and wise. Occasionally, I pulled it off. And there were those years when I was a poll worker at my local voting precinct. Even though I was in my 40’s, I was still the youngest one in the room. I loved getting to know the white haired ladies who were sticklers for processes and procedures. Regretfully, given the events of the past few years, I’ve let go of that endeavor.
The point of listing these activities is to make it clear to Mr. Vance that having a child is not a requirement for a good life. Nor is it a prerequisite for having a “direct stake” in one’s community or the future success of our nation.
It should be obvious that one can be patriotic, engaged in our country’s welfare, and childless.
We childless folks work, teach, mentor, volunteer, coach, start businesses, pay taxes, and support the marketplace with our purchasing power. And…we are politically active. This fall I’ll be using the free time afforded to me by my childless state to get out the vote, with the hopes of defeating the Trump-Vance ticket.
