This crucial fact is included in a series of chapters in the book in which Vance, a potential 2028 presidential candidate, explains his Christian faith through anecdotes about his policy positions.
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WASHINGTON – Vice President J.D. Vance admitted he was wrong to criticize Democratic women as “childless cat ladies” in his upcoming book, calling it one of the stupidest things he’s ever said and “bone-cracking.”
In his memoir “Communion,” which centers on his conversion to Catholicism, Vance cited this episode during his 2021 run for the Ohio Senate as one of the lessons of his faith for Christian politicians.
Politicians must have more respect for the other side when it comes to family policy debates, he writes, and he says he’s largely included in that assessment.
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“It’s okay to admit you’re wrong,” he writes. “One of the stupidest things I ever said was when I claimed that the entire Democratic Party’s ‘childless cat ladies’ were ruining our country.”
The issue is part of a series of chapters in which Vance, a potential 2028 presidential candidate, explains his Christian faith through anecdotes about his policy positions. USA TODAY obtained a copy of the book ahead of its June 16 release.
childless cat woman
Vance, 41, acknowledged in his book that the childless cat lady’s comments were “deliberately (and successfully) more provocative than enlightening” and that he could have gotten his point across “more effectively” while showing more charity toward childless Americans.
“Given the Church’s exhortation to respect the dignity of all life, this was clearly a moment of failure for me,” Vance wrote.
This is the second time Vance has attempted to clean up his comments, following when he ran for vice president. Vance said at the time that he wished he had a better way to articulate his view that the country was becoming anti-children.
It is one of the “characteristics of the striver culture” that Vance most resents in his memoirs. “The idea is that if you raise a family, you won’t be able to reach your full potential in your professional life, so you shouldn’t have children.”
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Elsewhere, he writes that he thought the same way before becoming a husband and father and rediscovering his Christian faith.
“I had become a hard worker without realizing it, so focused on winning the game of life that I ignored deeper truths,” Vance said.
JD Vance’s vices
It was one of the vices that troubled him, the Republican said, and was probably present from early in his life.
“And yet, as I went through life winning all the awards society told me to, I came to feel as an adult that I had lost something important that had enriched me as a child, despite my outward flaws.”
Vance’s first book, Hillbilly Elegy, recounts his childhood in Appalachia and his mother’s struggle with drugs, which became a bestseller and was made into a major movie. “Communion” is a sequel to the memoir.
The vice president spoke to USA TODAY about the book and his Christian faith before its publication, saying in an interview that the desire to “be better than others” he writes about in the book is probably part of who he is.
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In the book, he blames the hyperindividualism expressed in philosopher Ayn Rand and her novel Atlas Shrugged on her college beliefs, but notes that her books do not feature children.
“I wanted to win for the sake of winning,” he writes in one passage.
He says he was running a race he didn’t fully understand. “I had no idea why I wanted to go to law school or what I wanted to do with my life,” Vance wrote in another article.
crisis of faith
Guilt and fear are recurring themes in Vance’s books. He feels guilty for abandoning his mother, Beverly Vance Akins, and for cutting her off financially, making him a bad son. Guilt for tying his future wife, Usha Vance, to a life she didn’t consent to. Fear that he will ruin his relationship with Usha and she will leave him.
Vance said he turned away from Christianity after the death of his grandmother, Bonnie Blanton Vance, in 2005 (he calls her Mamaw in the book). He says Mamaw was the only person he allowed himself to become weak before she died, and the grief of her death consumed him.
“After she left, no one cared about my faith, and soon I stopped caring,” Vance wrote.
Vance says he was no longer a Christian by the time he returned from Iraq, where he served as a media relations officer with the U.S. Marines.
He did not go to church and became increasingly dissatisfied with religion. He said he considered himself an atheist when he was a student at Ohio State University in 2007, but Vance, the first in his family to attend a four-year college, says that’s when he drifted away from his roots.
“I was becoming disconnected from the culture that had made me who I was,” Vance wrote.
Anchor is Usha Vance
In his book, Vance credits his wife, Usha, whom he met at Yale while attending law school, for changing his life.
Although Usha was “fiercely competitive,” he says he was first drawn to her smile and intelligence. The couple married in 2014.
“Usha now counted on me, and my first duty was to her,” he writes about their childhood.
The couple currently have three children and are expecting a fourth. In the book, he writes that even though she is Hindu and has no interest in becoming Catholic, she is the “anchor” of the family, managing the Sunday morning chaos of rushing the children to Mass and encouraging them to reconnect with their faith in a formal way.
“Usha’s belief that church was ‘good for me’ gave me permission and inspiration,” Vance wrote. “I wanted more than anything to be worthy of this woman. If the church would help me, I would sit my butt in the pew every Sunday.”
