#118. Miley Cyrus isn't passionate about the idea of motherhood

And either was her godmother, Dolly Parton 👑

Jun 20, 2025

I missed the entirety of the Hannah Montana era and still, to this day, have never seen a single episode. I was slightly too old and thought I was too cool to be watching the Disney Channel during college, so I became a casual fan of Miley Cyrus during the Bangerz era. I ran into her once at an American Apparel in 2010 and didn’t really know who she was (my friend did, though, and freaked out accordingly.) But a few years later, the moment I saw Miley swinging on a wrecking ball in her underwear, I was in.

Miley didn’t become a mainstay on my various Spotify playlists until Endless Summer Vacation, though. Last week I had a few friends over for wine and gossip, and I put on my usual chill house party playlist that always hits. “Violet Chemistry” is on it, and one of my friends stopped our conversation to ask what it was. She couldn’t believe it was Miley Cyrus.

Two weeks ago, Miley sat down for an interview with The New York Times. She told them to ask her anything, and they did:

You know, we talked about your experience with E.M.D.R., and you were basically describing how you work through intergenerational trauma in your sessions. And it did make me wonder, given all that, if being a parent is something you’re interested in.
It’s not something I’m focused on. For being such an opinionated, sure person, this is an element in my life that I’ve never been super attached to a yes or no answer. I was talking to my stepdad, and he said, “Why are you the only celebrity without a makeup line?” And I said, “’Cause I’m not passionate about it.” And he said, “That’s the right answer.” I feel that way about motherhood. It’s just never been something that I’ve been overly passionate about. It’s a lot of responsibility and devotion and energy, and if you’re not passionate about that, I don’t know how you do sleepless nights and 18 years of what my mom dealt with. And when I say 18 years, I mean 33, ’cause I’m still a baby. So I’ve never felt the burn, you know? And I think for me, the burn is everything.

This isn’t the first time she’s said she isn’t prioritizing motherhood in an interview. Last year, in an interview for W magazine, Miley said she hadn’t decided yet:

I love being an adult. I have a rule that I don’t look up or don’t look down at anyone. I just look, which allows me the clarity to see the world for what it really is and people for who they really are. I look at myself almost every day in the mirror and I say, “I am a woman.” I’m 31 now, and I still don’t know if I want kids or not. I feel like my fans kind of are my kids in some way. I’ve heard Dolly say that too, because she didn’t have kids.

Also? I love the idea of women who don’t have kids choosing to have people from a younger generation in their life anyway. Here’s what Miley said about her relationship with Dolly (Parton):

You’ve talked about how close you are with your mom. Your grandmother was the head of your fan club. I don’t know the story, though, about how Dolly Parton became your godmother.
It was actually because of “Hannah Montana.” She played my aunt on the show, but I’ve known her since I was a little girl because my dad did music with her when I was just a baby. I hadn’t seen her since I was very young, and we got really tight during the “Hannah Montana” time. I think she looked at a little girl in a blond wig and was like, “I see you.” It was divine and kismet. We’re not blood, but we are family, truly. We chose each other.
She walked in, and she had on a pink robe and smelled like baby powder, the hair, the wig, the whole thing, and everyone was in awe of her, and I remember thinking that I didn’t feel that. Because when you see her at first, it’s just so incredible that you’re kind of taken aback by how much power she holds. But instead of seeing myself retract in awe of her, I just felt myself going forward and feeling really safe. And it also felt like, “I can do this for the rest of my life and be happy, because she is so happy and has so much joy.” You see the celebrities that don’t have joy in their life. She’s someone who obviously had a superprivate relationship and a private life, and it was just something I always admired. More than the way that she looks or the way that she performs, I admired her staying true to herself and being at home with her husband, Carl, who she just lost, and having a real life and having a lot of love in it.

This is so important. I love how she calls out specifically how Dolly has joy in her life. We need to see more examples of older women who chose not to have kids who are joyful in the media. The women I know IRL who are past their childbearing years and chose not to have children are vibrant, content, and thriving. I look up to them.

Here’s what Dolly said about her choice not to have children:

When you're a young couple, you think you're going to have kids, but it just wasn't one of those burning things for me. I had my career and my music and I was travelling. If I'd had kids, I'd have stayed at home with them.
I haven't missed it like I thought I might. Now that Carl and I are older, we often say, 'Aren't you glad we didn't have kids? Now we don't have kids to worry about.’

Long live the queen. 👑

“What Did the Pop Culture of the 2000s Do to Millennial Women?” by Dana Tortorici for The New Yorker

This is actually a book review for a book I have not read, Girl on Girl: How Pop Culture Turned a Generation of Women Against Themselves by Sophie Gilbert. It sounds like it would hit for me (my friend Sarah read and liked it), but what’s really interesting is Gilbert’s quiet refusal to mine her own (and other millennial women’s) experience and stories for this book, and Tortorici’s assessment that the book suffers for it:

“When I was pitching this book to publishers, virtually every editor I met with had the same request: Could I make myself more of a presence?” she says in a chapter on first-person women’s writing from the 2010s. She implies that those publishers were seeking the enticements of confessional writing, but the note may have been more methodological: someone’s personal experience has to bear out her argument that “pop culture turned a generation of women against themselves,” as her subtitle has it. If she doesn’t want to offer her own experience as evidence, whose will she point to instead?
The answer appears to be: nobody’s. The removal of the protagonist from this story—the viewer who perceives and acts in response—gives the book an elusive, lopsided quality.

“18 Women Share if They Believe It’s Selfish to Have Kids” by Caroline Sumlin for The Everygirl

The great selfish vs. selfless debate lives on, and probably always will. Personally I think it’s both, but here’s what a few other women had to say:

“Choosing to pass on your genes—and likely your philosophy, your politics, your moral compass—to another person is selfish. Having kids because you want them, even when the world is burning, is selfish.” – Alexis, 37
“I think it will be the most profoundly selfish thing I will ever do. I can’t think of one unselfish reason to have a child. Every reason centers around the desires of the parents or adults.” – Carissa, 34
“If you’re having children because you want to help birth and raise the next generation—and help instill lifestyle practices they will pass on to their own offspring—that is not a selfish thing. That’s intergenerational stewardship, and it’s a deeply meaningful way to contribute to the future.” – Georgia, 35
“Overall, I think we are privileged to even have these kinds of concerns because forced birth isn’t our standard (yet).” – Alyssa, 38

“In Praise of Vasectomy” by Julie Alvin for Hello Gloria

If an easy, 10-minute outpatient procedure with virtually no side-effects existed for women to be sterilized, I would do it in a heartbeat.

Some men are hesitant. Dr. Vikrant Uberoi, a urologist at a large mid-Atlantic collection of practices called Chesapeake Urology, performs about 100 vasectomies a year, and says that the vast majority of his patients tell him they are getting a vasectomy because their wife wants them to – often she is the one who made the appointment.
“I think it’s the safest form of birth control,” Uberoi says. “There are so many things in this field that are on the woman. There are very few things that men are responsible for in this aspect of life.”

My friend Lauren and I famously have very similar taste in books, with just a few notable but enraging exceptions (she was only “meh” on one of my favorite books of 2024, how dare she???) I haven’t read anything worth sharing lately, so I asked Lauren what her favorite book of 2025 was so far. Here’s what she said:

Blue Sisters by Coco Mellors (⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5): A story of three sisters (technically four) with themes of grief, finding identity, and the complexities of familial relationships. Each character has such BOLD personality in this book and they were so crushingly real and relatable. Even as someone without any sisters, I could totally vibe with these different dynamics they each had with one another. A very character-driven novel that will pull at the heart HARD.

What’s your favorite book of the year so far? Come drop your recs in the comments. (Besides Motherhood, mine is Ghosts by Dolly Alderton.)

#118. Miley Cyrus isn't passionate about the idea of motherhood

And either was her godmother, Dolly Parton 👑

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