America’s Father of the Nation was childless. Why is Harris’s motherhood status an election issue?

Should a biologically childless person become the President of the United States of America? Does having children make a leader more committed to the future of the country? Also, how many children should a contestant have to be considered holding a good enough stake in America’s future to claim the White House? These questions have become relevant in the context of a polarising debate in the ongoing campaign for the US presidential election. At the target of this campaign is the Democratic Party’s near-certain presidential candidate Kamala Harris, the incumbent vice-president.

The debate has emerged from the Republican Party’s presidential nominee Donald Trump’s running mate JD Vance’s remarks made originally in 2021. Back then Vance, who has been consistent about his pro-natal views, directly referenced Harris saying that the US was essentially being run “via the Democrats, via our corporate oligarchs by a bunch of childless cat ladies”.  

Vance on backfoot after Harris’s posture

Vance found fault with Harris and other women who, according to him, preferred career over children. “They’re obsessed with their jobs. They’re obsessed with their wealth and with their fortunes,” said Vance adding that they have no “direct stake” in the USA’s future since they have no biological kids of their own, and “hate normal Americans for choosing family over these ridiculous [Washington] DC and New York status games”.

For record, Harris has two stepchildren. But the comments have divided opinions across America. Vance’s views remained consistent through these times until last week.

Amid growing public outrage and the Republican leaders’ continued personal attacks on Harris, the X (formerly known as Twitter) handle Kamala HQ — the official rapid response page of Vice President Harris’s presidential campaign — shared a video clip of Vance making the remark on July 25.

Harris’s campaign said, “JD Vance says women who haven’t given birth are ‘childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives’ and shouldn’t be in politics because they ‘don’t have a direct stake’ in America.”

The next day, July 26, Vance in another TV interview tried to quickly correct himself saying that it was a “sarcastic” comment. Clarifying his remarks, Ohio Senator Vance said, “This is not about criticising people who, for various reasons, didn’t have kids…This is about criticising the Democratic Party for becoming anti-family and anti-child.”

A deeper problem

Vance has been a pro-natalist for a long time. He fears that immigrants and their children will replace America’s white population — a view held by far-right Americans in what is known as the so-called Great Replacement Theory. Ironically, his wife Usha Vance is an Indian American.

Earlier, he also suggested that Americans without children should be taxed more than those who have. He has gone to the extent of suggesting that children should be given the right to vote — to be exercised by their parents.

The real issue is the declining American fertility rate. In April 2024, the US’s National Center for Health Statistics said, “The general fertility rate in the United States decreased by 3% from 2022, reaching a historic low.”

“This marks the second consecutive year of decline, following a brief 1% increase from 2020 to 2021. From 2014 to 2020, the rate consistently decreased by 2% annually,” it said, “These statistics and others from provisional 2023 birth data were released by CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS).”

But Vance blames women who are doing well in their career and for any reason do not have biological children.

Is being childless really a problem for a White House job?

All US presidents have been men. So, technically no US president has ever given birth to a child — just like the Democrat White House hopeful Kamala Harris, who would create many firsts in America’s political history if elected in the presidential election this November.

A scan of the POTUS portal shows that at least five presidents — George Washington (1st), James Madison (4th), Andrew Jackson (7th), James K Polk (11th) and James Buchanan (15th) did not have any biological children.

Of them Madison and Polk didn’t have children at all. Washington and Jackson had two step-children each and Buchanan had one step-child. Harris will join the league of the Father of the Nation George Washington if she defeats Donald Trump in the November election. She is a step-parent to her husband Doug Emhoff’s two children.