At one cat cafe, Vanceâ€s ‘childless cat ladies†remark prompts derision

The cat owners and cat lovers at Mount Purrnon Cat Cafe and Wine Bar in Northern Virginia think vice-presidential candidate JD Vance is a purrfect idiot.

“Beyond ridiculous,� said Beth Kanupp, 41, who was visiting from Orlando with her fiancé.

“I kind of just rolled my eyes,â€� said Marina Loftus, 20, a D.C.-based student, “because I feel like diminishing a womanâ€s value because she doesnâ€t have children or because she chooses to have a pet is pretty dumb.â€�

As Celeste Robertson, 23, who lives in D.C. and works in sustainable trade policy, put it: “My first reaction was like, ‘Wow youâ€re a loser.†â€�

The women were referring to recently surfaced 2021 comments by Vance — the Republican senator from Ohio and Donald Trumpâ€s No. 2 — that the country was being run by “a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that theyâ€ve made,â€� as well as his criticism, also in 2021, of teachers who were not biological parents. The comments set off a wave of criticism and mockery from critics, including some Republicans.

Recent interviews with 18 visitors and employees at Mount Purrnon — a two-story cat cafe just 10 minutes from Vanceâ€s Del Ray neighborhood in Alexandria — revealed voters whose reaction to Vanceâ€s comments ranged anywhere from anger to disbelief to mocking amusement.

The overall sentiment of the group — which skewed Democratic and cat-owning, and included both men and women, both people with kids and without — leaned more toward dismissiveness than outrage. The cafe is located in Alexandria, a liberal enclave in Northern Virginia that in 2020 overwhelmingly supported President Joe Biden — 80 percent compared with the 18 percent who voted for Trump.

“I immediately got a clench in my stomach,â€� Kanupp recalled, explaining that her next thought was that Vance was “burying himselfâ€� with voters, “because thereâ€s so many people in this country who donâ€t represent the stereotypical nuclear family. It was so out of touch.â€�

“Iâ€m not a lady, but it offended me,â€� chimed in her fiancé, Steven Warmath, a 49-year-old airline pilot.

In fact, Kanupp and Warmath are one such non-stereotypical, blended family. They are both divorced, and preparing to enter their new union with three sons, including a transgender one, between them.

Debby Lewis, 46, has four cats and three kids — two daughters and one transgender son — and said while she is leaning toward voting for Vice President Kamala Harris in November, she is also researching third-party candidates. But she called Vanceâ€s comments “ludicrous,â€� adding: “This man has no brain cells.â€�

“I donâ€t agree with anything, any turn of mind, that goes in the direction of saying women should be barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen, and thatâ€s pretty much what I heard when he was talking about childless cat ladies,â€� Lewis said.

She and her son, she said, have lots of political discussions, and her son is especially focused on the idea that “when they come for one, theyâ€re going to come for all. So right now heâ€s coming at single women, childless women. … What do you think is next?â€�

The Vance campaign declined to comment for this story.

Gabriel Bruner, a 28-year-old general maintenance technician on vacation with his mom, said Vance was deploying a “ridiculous� stereotype.

“He kind of used it from a really outdated, patriarchal kind of sense of just a nuclear family, of there has to be a stay-at-home mom and a businessman dad — but itâ€s not even viable anymore in this economy,â€� said Bruner, who lives in Merritt Island, Fla., with his partner and seven cats.

In general, Vance has struggled to appeal to voters, especial female ones. A CNN poll released last week found that 29 percent of women had a favorable opinion of him, with 43 percent having an unfavorable view. He did not fare much better with men: 33 percent said they had a favorable opinion of him, while 41 percent said their opinion was unfavorable.

Robertson, who has a cat and no kids — the 23-year-old said she has never wanted kids — described Vance as “whiny� and said his comments sounded like he was projecting.

“Iâ€m like, Why are you so worried about that? Or why are you so obsessed with people who donâ€t want kids, or donâ€t have kids, or have cats?â€� she said. “Itâ€s just like, there are bigger issues … Oh, you want to address the birth rate? Thatâ€s not how you do it.â€�

And Genelle Uhrig, 41, an ecologist from Zanesville, Ohio said she knew Vance meant his comments as an insult, but she chose not to take them that way.

“Iâ€m proud to be a crazy cat lady,â€� said Uhrig, who has three cats, no kids and was in town with a friend for a Weezer show. “To me, itâ€s completely fine.â€�

She added Vance — her home state senator — is likely to learn that “you donâ€t mess with cat people,â€� but also explained why she found the comments offensive.

“But this country is not meant for just reproductive women, and we are all American citizens,â€� Uhrig said. “And if we donâ€t want to have children, we donâ€t have to have children. If we want to have a million cats, we can have a million cats.â€�

Like Uhrig, who has proudly claimed the “childless cat ladyâ€� pejorative, so, too, has Mount Purrnon. The cafeâ€s co-owners, Adam Patterson, 41, and his partner, Kristin Cowan, 36, said that about a week after Vanceâ€s comments first resurfaced, they decided to make “childless cat ladyâ€� T-shirts, which sell for $29.99 and go toward the cat rescue part of their operation.

The shirts were a hit. They sold 100 via preorder before they even arrived, and Patterson estimated they have sold more of the “childless cat lady� shirts than all their other shirts combined over the past four years.

Cowan said the shirts were not intended as a political statement. “This is to support the cats, and also to empower childless cat ladies and to show that even if you donâ€t have kids, youâ€re worth it,â€� she said.

Since Vance lives in Alexandria, she added: “If he does want to come discuss childless cat ladies, weâ€d welcome it.â€�