In a 2021 interview, J.D. Vance said the U.S. is among other people, run by a bunch of childless

cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they've made, and so they want

to make the rest of the country miserable too.

The comment generated backlash backlash and it resurfaced

when Taylor Swift endorsed Kamil Harris for president signing her endorsement as

childless cat lady. A lot of people criticize Vance's comments as misogyny from the MAGA crowd, but setting aside his specific wording,

they do point to a larger problem in our society when it comes to people, be they men or women, choosing pets or other pursuits over procreation.

Even people like Pope Francis, who can hardly be called a MAGA supporter, recognize the problem.

During a September 2024 visit to Indonesia, Pope Francis praised

Indonesians for having large families in contrast to people in other countries.

He said those people have a law of death that comes about when one limits births and

criticize the purposely childless for choosing to have pets over children.

Keep it up. You're an example for everyone. For all the countries that may be, and this might sound funny.

These families prefer to have a cat or a little dog instead of a child.

In 2022, Pope Francis was even blunter than J.D. Vance

and said couples who chose to have dogs or cats instead of children

were being selfish.

In response, critics said this was hypocritical because Pope Francis, like nearly all Catholic

priests, except for some in the Eastern Church or Anglican converts, doesn't have any children. But the Pope wasn't saying every

single person in the world needs to have children. He's pointing out that many

couples as well as unmarried people refuse to either get married or to have

children because they want to put their

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