Tracee Ellis Ross: "You Do Not Need to Push Out a Baby to Push Humanity Forward"

 

[Screenshot via X.]

Appearing via video at Vice President Kamala Harris' Unite for America rally recently, Tracee Ellis Ross shared some important thoughts about the value of childfree women — and the cultural "parenting" that many of us do every day in our lives. Addressing Harris and Oprah Winfrey, she said:

I would like to say to you two women: Thank you for what you represent. Because, as a 52-year-old childless woman, I want to say to the people who think that a woman's worth is measured in her baby count — I mean, shout-out to all the amazing mothers — but the childless women have been mothering the world and elevating culture as aunties, godmothers, teachers, mentors, sisters, and friends, and the list goes on. You do not need to push out a baby to help push humanity forward.

Beautifully said. 

It doesn't devalue the act of parenting, or the identity of a mother, to note that childfree women have an important role to play in children's lives.

I had childfree aunties who modeled an entirely different kind of life for me, who took me places my parents never would have, who nurtured me in ways they couldn't. 

I wouldn't be who I am without my mother and without my aunties.

Not to mention all the other childfree women in my life who were able to give me certain things and specific parts of themselves only because they were childfree.

I value each of them immensely, and I value what I offer to others now as a childfree woman.

It's too bad not everyone feels the same about women with so much to offer, individually and societally.

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