Childless cat ladies are having a moment.
Oprah Winfrey at the Democratic National Convention on August 21 said: "When a house is on fire, we don't ask whose house it is. If the place happens to belong to a childless cat lady, well, we try to get that cat out too."
Taylor Swift later posted a picture of herself on Instagram with her cat to endorse Kamala Harris, signing the post "Taylor Swift, Childless Cat Lady".
The reference first came from newly elected US President Donald Trump's then-vice presidential candidate JD Vance, who is quoted from an interview with commentator Tucker Carlson in 2021 saying the US "is being run by a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they've made, and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable, too".
I don't have a cat, but I fall into the childless woman category. As I creep closer to 40 I'm increasingly getting into conversations with people about my lack of offspring. Some tell me if I have kids, I'll never regret it, but I wanted to hear from the alternative, particularly as this demographic has been forced into the spotlight in recent months.
I found four women in their 50s (or nearly) and asked them about their child-free lives.
Jane Jelbart
Cooks Hill resident Jane Jelbart will be 60 this year and, while she always assumed she would have children, it just never happened for her.
She thinks it's a shame not having children is such a delicate topic.
"I always assumed I would have children," she tells Weekender.
"I had a 20-year career as a marine ecologist. What happened to me was that I wanted (a) to travel, so I travelled widely, and (b) I wanted an education, a decent education.
"I worked in my industry, went to post-doctoral level. To achieve that, it's not that you can't have children, but it's extremely difficult."
She remembers her mother hassling her to have children when she reached the age of 42.
"I said 'Mum, I'll have children if you come live with me, and look after it for me. I don't want to be an at-home mum'," she says.
Her mother said "No, that's not how it works" and Jelbart replied "Good, this is the end of this topic".
Jelbart was brought up in an intergenerational household with babies and cousins. She knew how much work it took to raise a child.
"I did a bit of nannying in the US and realised what a slog it is. I had no romantic ideals about it, thought I would do it, but there was always something I wanted more," she says.
She's seen how the burden falls more on women than men.
"You can't have it all. It's priorities," she says.
Jelbart loves children but she knew she couldn't have the life she wanted and have children too. She has a partner and stepdaughters, having met her partner at the age of 44.
"It's a fear of ageing, a fear of having no one there to wipe your bum," she says of the desire for children.
"You cannot guarantee your children are going to be there for you."
She knows some might see her stance as drastic, but she's a community musician and believes strong relationships don't have to be based on bloodlines.
"The world is not a cold hard place when you are embedded in a community," she says.
"We don't have a village. And that's the real freaking problem. It's not whether women choose or choose not to. The problem is we don't have the support. Women, particularly, don't have the support."
Simone Paterson
Former Watt Space Gallery director Simone Paterson lives in a log cabin with her cat and partner in the US state of Virginia, but completed her PhD in Newcastle.
When she's not making embroidery art she plays in a band. She has one cat and two dachshunds.
Paterson was born in Sydney and moved to Newcastle in 2000, and she still owns property in the area. This is her 20th year living in America. Living in a southern state as a self-proclaimed "nasty woman" she has observed the conservative culture that encourages disparaging comments such as Vance's, but because she was in academia, teaching at Virginia Tech, she was shielded from a lot of the Vance rhetoric.
"I would say that his mentality exists but it's more of generational thing; it's more so in the States than in Australia," she says.
"I think what JD Vance is really frightened of is women who do not choose to have children and can engage in community, can pursue careers, and that can be quite challenging."
Most of her friends are grandmothers and many of them went on to get their academic qualifications later in life once their children left the nest.
"A lot of women in academia didn't have children because any form of education is a full-time job, plus it's 24-7, and then to deal with a family ... though I would say that nearly 99 per cent of the men [in academia] did have families," she says.
Paterson wonders if she might have had children if she'd met her husband when she was younger.
"All of it is about choice. And I call myself a feminist, and this is what feminism is about. Giving women that choice. They can have children if they want," she says.
Sometimes she feels she's never really grown up because she's never had children, but eternal youth is good for her art practice. Being a lifelong educator gives her a sense of belonging. She might have pangs about not having kids, but she gets to "squeeze" children and give them back at the end of the day.
"I was not against having children but it just never happened. I never fell pregnant and maybe the universe knew best," she says.
Gaye Camm
Gaye Camm grew up in country NSW in the '80s with "absolutely gorgeous parents". Her parents made her and her brother their number one priority.
She always felt that if she was going to have kids, she'd want to do everything she could to be the best parent she could be, otherwise why do it? Having children shouldn't be like having a handbag.
Part of the reason she never got around to it was that she would never be able to put in the effort required.
"I think it helps that you can't accidentally get pregnant when you're sleeping with a woman," she jokes.
Camm's previous partner of 15 years never wanted kids, and so from age 21 through to 35 it was always a hard no. Growing up, it wasn't an option for her to be a parent as an "out lesbian", but Camm thinks if she was growing up now, parenthood would be something she'd consider.
She never had any desire to be pregnant, but she wouldn't mind if her partner wanted to be. She feels lucky because she never actually had to make the decision.
"I didn't think about it enough in that kind of really intense way to get to the point where I had to say yes or no. I never formulated the question in my head," she says.
Like Jelbart, she points out that just because you birth a child, it doesn't give you a right to have them look after you in later life. She stresses the need to be self-sufficient.
Camm finds people are happier to weigh in on queer couples having children in a way they wouldn't do with straight couples. Straight couples are presumed to have made a conscious decision, however with queer couples, it's presumed they can't.
"Well actually, I can," Camm says. "I just didn't try hard enough."
She thinks perhaps the paternal urge is similar to sexual orientation and gender orientation; it's a spectrum. She's never been clucky, but she has observed many, women in particular, who are incredibly driven to have kids, so much so that they'll pay huge sums of money for IVF.
"If I was with someone who really wanted a child it wouldn't be a deal breaker for me," she says.
"My Dad's kind of like 'You'd make a great parent, it's a shame that you're not going to' and I'm like, 'Look, if I tripped over one, and I had to deal with it, I'd be all in, happily'.
"I'd love it, and I know I would, it would be transformational. A dog was transformational as well."
Nicole Charles
Born and raised in Canada, Nicole Charles lives in Newcastle. She'll be 50 at the end of the year.
A dual citizen, she moved to Australia in 2011 to be closer to her sister who had just had a baby. Charles was 35 and all her friends were settling down and having kids. Her work contract in Canada was coming to an end and all signs were pointing to a change.
She's always loved travelling and never felt any kind of maternal instinct.
"I was never in (the right) relationship. I haven't been married, there wasn't a relationship that worked out, we never got to the stage to talk about having kids," she says.
In her 30s she read Baby Not On Board, by Jennifer L Shawne. Before she read the book she was 70 per cent sure she didn't want children, and reading the book sealed the deal.
"I have quite a few friends who don't have kids. I just met up with my long-term friend - who doesn't have kids - in Tuscany. There are nine of us, six of us don't have kids," she says.
She's currently single, and in mid-June she was made redundant from a marketing job. She wants to travel more, but she's also trying to be responsible. While she's going back to the drawing board in terms of her career, she has previously taken steps to know she'll be OK, financially.
She owns her own home and has a tenant. At a moment of instability like this she's grateful she doesn't have kids.
Her background is marketing but she's passionate about sustainability. Environmentalism and the concept of treading lightly played into her decision not to have kids.
"In general I don't judge people but I question who needs to have more than three, come on," she jokes.
A common misconception is that not having kids means family isn't important to you, but Charles visits her sister and nephew in the Byron Bay area several times a year.
She's never felt any doubt about her choice.
"My biological clock never went off," she says.
"This is life without kids; I just went to Europe for eight weeks and I didn't think about anybody but myself."
Looking forward
Kamala Harris did not win the 2024 election, though the commentary about women's bodies and choices will undoubtedly continue.
Comedian Chelsea Handler regularly makes content on how much she enjoys being child-free. On her 49th birthday she skied down a mountain in a bikini, a cocktail in one hand and a joint in the other.
Sarah Jessica Parker made a post on Instagram hanging a sign in her window for Harris, with a cat in the frame.
"For a certain childless cat lady I play on TV," she wrote in the caption.
It's easy for the rich and famous to enjoy child-free lifestyles, but I'm reassured by talking to people right up the road from me who also have no regrets.
Some will say these interviews are biased, but I would counter that the world is biased in the other direction. Decisions are unique and personal, and to be able to think deeply about matters of your body and make your own choices might be the greatest achievement of modern society. Let's not forget that.
