#88. My parents are voting for Trump... again
And that guy who called me a childless cat lady (derogatory)
The #1 rule I have for spending time with my parents is simple: Don’t discuss politics.
This approach typically works *extremely* well. My relationship with my parents has never been better than it is right now.
But we go to the polls in just a few days. Political discourse is everywhere right now, whether you want to get involved or not. The governor of Minnesota became one of two potential candidates for the next vice president this summer. It was bound to come up.
I wrote the first draft of this essay in July after a slightly heated conversation with my mother and never published it. Don’t poke the bear. Keep the peace. Stay quiet. Don’t get involved.
But as the election started to inch closer and closer, I changed my mind.
The conversation starts off innocently enough: My husband asks what my mom thinks of J.D. Vance. She says he wasn’t a very good choice, in her opinion; she was personally hoping for the Republican ticket to be DeSantis and Haley.
“What do you think of J.D. Vance calling women like me childless cat ladies with no stake in the future?” I ask.
“It’s awful,” she says, shaking her head.
My mother, for as long as I can remember, has always been extremely against “name-calling.” She thinks his comments were extremely gross.
“But Tim Walz’s were just as bad,” she adds.
“I think calling someone weird is really different than calling someone a childless cat lady,” I retort, looking at her as if she can’t possibly be serious.
A few years ago, J.D. Vance implied the country should be run only by parents – that people without children are miserable, and shouldn’t be in charge of public policy.
To be clear: This stance is fucked.
“No, both sides are absolutely awful in the things they say. All the blathering politicians do, it doesn’t have an effect on how I would vote at all,” my mom says.
“What would have an effect on how you’re going to vote?”
She pauses for only a moment, then shakes her head and replies, “Nothing.”
I press her. “No, seriously,” I say. “What would have to happen for you to not vote for Trump?”
I can tell she’s thinking, but not all that hard. There just isn’t any world in which she wouldn’t vote for Donald Trump and J.D. Vance in this election, and she knows it.
I interrupt her thought process. “So you’ll still vote for him, even though he’s a convicted felon?”
Her demeanor radically changes. I can tell she’s getting angry. I am, too.
“He isn’t, Kelly. He isn’t. They came after him in an unfair trial. If I thought maybe he was an actual felon, maybe it would be enough to change my mind. But, no. Trump may be kind of a sleaze, but he isn’t a felon.”
“Even though he was tried in a court of law and found guilty?”
She looks at me like I’m just as brainwashed as I think she is. I think she’s brainwashed by a dangerous would-be dictator and she thinks I’m brainwashed by the biased, liberal media. I can tell we’re both disappointed in each other.
Old feelings from the 2016 and 2020 elections come bubbling to the surface.
“So, nothing would make you change your mind, then.”
“No.” She shakes her head, her mouth forming a straight line. “I guess not.”
I bow out of the conversation and go back to my reading. A few minutes later, we start arguing about bias in the media.
I’m especially edgy because my mom has a history of spamming my inbox with obviously conservative-leaning articles, which eventually I had to stop reading because they have the unique ability to set my hair on fire.
But my mom prides herself on consuming unbiased media, or media “from both sides.” She tried very hard for a while to get me to become a subscriber of The Free Press here on Substack, helmed by neoconservative Bari Weiss. It’s very clearly her favorite news source, based on the number of articles that land in my inbox (many of which I can’t read, because they’re behind a paywall).
The Free Press’ slogan is “Think For Yourself,” billing itself as “a free press for free people,” but it didn’t take much internet sleuthing for me to form an opinion that The Free Press is really: “a journalistic project and a political one, prodding moderates and liberals to abandon the Democratic Party.”
No thanks.
We’ve been down this road about media bias before, but she doesn’t remember. Or she remembers, but doesn’t really care.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. Bias is everywhere! Bias is unavoidable! Bias, when you know what it is, isn’t automatically a bad thing. But when you’re consuming the news, I think it’s important to at least try to be aware of your bias. How you might be reinforcing your own beliefs without realizing it.
I live happily inside my own biases sometimes, for sure. I prefer to get my news from The New York Times, which has a high reliability rating, but skews slightly left. I’m a genuinely happier person when I’m living in a mostly liberal echo-chamber – though I’m happiest when avoiding politics altogether, if I’m being perfectly honest. My interest in politics waxes and wanes with how much I feel like women’s rights are being threatened.
But my mom won’t readily admit she lives with blinders on, too. That the news media she consumes is almost entirely right-leaning (some of it shockingly so). And that’s what makes me grind my teeth.
My mother is an extremely intelligent, well-educated sociologist. Ideologically, she’s a rebel who believes in “thinking for yourself,” but that fierce independence is also met with conservative, traditional values. She identifies as lightly pronatalist, in that she believes people should be encouraged to have children to maintain population levels and support economic growth. She and my dad knew they wanted exactly two children, no more, no less, to replace themselves.
Despite the fact that having children is still the default setting on both sides of the political spectrum, she believes a reason I don’t want kids is because it’s currently “in.” Because the liberal media has apparently made it not only socially acceptable, but actually “of the moment,” especially among well-educated progressives, to not want kids.
Like deciding I don’t want to become a mother–arguably the most important decision I will ever make, or at least the one with the greatest magnitude in how it will shape the rest of my life–is just me jumping on the bandwagon of a liberal trend.
I don’t think my mom fully accepts that deep down, I truly just don’t want kids, for a lot of different reasons. And I believe in the right to make that choice for myself. While I was editing this piece, she reiterated that she believes my decision to not have children is a mistake.
The funny thing is that my mom didn’t really want kids either, until she had them. It’s just what you did in the 80s. Sometimes I wonder whether I would even exist if there had been less social pressure back then.
She thinks I’m missing out on one of life’s most fulfilling experiences. I think she gave up a very promising career.
I think I made this choice despite society and popular culture–including the media, including my own mother–constantly reinforcing the idea that I probably should have kids. I wouldn’t have re-branded my newsletter to have this focus if I felt like choosing not to have kids was a completely judgment and friction-free experience. What would be the point?
I know what the statistics say. The number of currently childless people who say they’re unlikely to ever have children is at an all time high (47%). But that doesn’t really mirror my experience.
I have a few friends who are somewhat vocal about not wanting children, but we’re firmly in the minority. Your experience might be different – I live in the Midwest now. I had thirteen friends who were pregnant at some point in 2024.
I love my friends, and I want each of them to choose what’s right for them. But that answer is, more often than not, having kids.
Like I mentioned last week, I watch a truly disgusting amount of reality TV dating shows. The conversation is almost always the same – potential couples discussing when, and how, they want children. Not if. I watch it play out over and over again, in different cities, among people of different ages. Even the ones who say they *might* not want kids usually end up compromising.
I do think most people (including the casting agents on reality TV shows) are still biased towards having children, whether consciously or not. That’s slowly changing, but I experience my “otherness” all the time.
People like Donald Trump and J.D. Vance make me want to slam my head repeatedly against a wall. They think I don’t have a legitimate stake in the future, and I think they’re insane for trying to police what I do with my own body in the present.
Generally, I like to stay far the fuck away from politics in everyday life. With my parents, at dinner parties, and on the internet. My mom and I are very different in this way. I genuinely can’t wait until the election is over.
But I’ll say this – my mom and I are similar in our conviction. There is no world in which I’m not voting for Harris/Walz on Tuesday.
Even though we’ll never agree on most things that even touch politics, I love my parents. They’re entitled to believe whatever they want, and so am I.
I just wish the kind, loving people who raised me wouldn’t align themselves with a political party that wants to restrict my right to choose not to become a parent myself. I’ve never needed an abortion, but I feel privileged and proud to live in the first state to sign abortion protections into law.
And I’ll continue to vote for freedom of choice until the day I die.
***Please note: This essay was read, lightly edited, and approved by my mom before publishing. I sent it to her with the note: “Please don’t kill me!”
“The myth of red states and blue states” by Lyz Lenz for
Even if you’re burnt out on politics right now, this is an essay you don’t want to miss:
“The myth tells us that America is cut up into places that are insulated and isolated from one another. Red states where they can pretend their kids aren’t gay. Blue states where they can pretend that abortion access is easy.
The reality is and always has been that if you are insulated from the realities of American politics, you are rich or a white guy (or both!). And there is nothing more political than that.
But for the most part, for the majority of Americans, these political islands do not exist. We live in this mess of a world, bumping against each other’s prejudices and fears, and trying to find a way through it. We have always understood each other. We just wanted to pretend otherwise.
It’s exhausting. And the exhaustion is palpable. It’s the reason so many people have stopped reading the news.”
“The Best I Can Do is Cancel Out His Vote” by Andrea Gonzalez-Ramirez for The Cut
This article shares the experiences of four women who are voting for Kamala Harris on Tuesday, and their reflections on being married to men who are voting for Donald Trump:
“Some people are like, “Oh, if your partner votes Republican, you should leave them. If anyone in your family votes Republican, you should cut them out forever.” I have a really small family. I would have no one if I cut out everybody who disagreed with me. My family of origin was super left leaning and also extremely verbally and physically abusive. Whereas my husband’s family, who are very conservative, have always been so warm and kind. I believe that you can not only coexist, but have a really warm relationship with people when you’re not agreeing at all.” —Jennifer, 53, Oregon, married for 20 years
“We joke, “We’re gonna cancel each other’s vote out,” but we’re still gonna vote. I had seen other people’s TikTok content, and one of them had used a song like, “Me on my way to cancel out my dad’s vote!” So I posted something like, “Yeah, I’m canceling out my husband’s vote.” Twenty minutes later, it had 50,000 views. If you scroll through the comments section, it’s freaking insane. People are like, “Divorce him!” It’s bizarre to me. We have a wonderful relationship other than that we differ in politics. Plenty of people have differing points of view, but it doesn’t mean that they can’t love each other.”—Noli, 36, Tennessee, married for eight years
Are your parents or someone you love voting a way you don’t like on November 5th? How does that make you feel?
Since this week’s essay is a bit longer than usual (not me slipping back into old habits!) I’m skipping all the extra accoutrements that usually grace your inbox every week.
Use the comments section as a support group for anyone who needs it right now! Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled liberal masses yearning to break free of this extremely particular anxiety, the wretched refuse of this teeming election cycle.
And may the force be with you on Tuesday!
P.S. You can check your own bias by typing “[Any Media Outlet] + media bias chart” into Google and click on the link from Ad Fontes Media.
P.P.S. After much debate, I’ve decided to keep the paywall off this essay and the comments section – please make sure it doesn’t turn into a vortex of hateful sludge! (And this should go without saying, but please do not come for my mom!) :)
kelly, this was so thoughtful. loved reading it, and loved that you sent it to your mom before publishing.
i just want to gently point out the problem with this kind of thinking: "My interest in politics waxes and wanes with how much I feel like women’s rights are being threatened." i think it's important for us to maintain an active interest in policy making and government even if we arent the ones directly impacted. im a feminist, but there's SO MUCH MORE at stake rn: the war in Gaza, the rights of immigrants, the lives of queer folks, the fate of puerto rico.
My mother’s issue with Kamala is basically that she resents powerful women. She is jealous that they managed to do what she wanted to do but wasn’t able to because she made the decision to let my dad put his career first. I think she finds Kamala particularly challenging because my mom started her career as a prosecutor and would have loved to be attorney general and maybe even a senator. I think Kamala is proof that the decisions my mom made really impacted her career and reinforces her feelings of inadequacy and disappointment in herself. That said, my mom is phone banking for the Harris campaign today and it has everything to do with how staunchly pro choice she is and nothing to do with the candidate herself. If I so much as mention Kamala she starts off with some variation of “THAT woman doesn’t deserve . . .” followed by some deeply misogynistic take on why Kamala isn’t a good fit because she doesn’t have “a real family of her own” or slept with her boss. I’m glad Trump is who Harris is running against because I can see a world in which she would have voted for someone like George HW Bush or maybe even McCain. Even though she calls herself a democrat the conversations we have about politics are fraught. I love my mom, but I too will be so relieved when the election is over.