In early America, childlessness was a virtue for politicians

Vice president hopeful J.D. Vance has pretty strong opinions about childless adults. In 2021 he said that “we’re effectively run in this country, via the democrats, via our corporate oligarchs, by a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices they’ve made, and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable too.”

He’s since called Vice President Kamala Harris, who has two stepchildren, childless. But historian Cassandra Good points out that there was a time in American history when being childless as a politician was considered virtuous.

For a primer on why that was and why it’s changed, host Scott Tong talks to Good, who teaches at Marymount University in Virginia. Her most recent article in The Atlantic is “Being a ‘Childless’ President was Once Seen as a Virtue.” She’s also the author of “First Family: George Washington’s Heirs and the Making of America.”

This article was originally published on WBUR.org.