The ties that bind

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Last month, my husband and I piled our two kids and way too much stuff into our car for our annual summer trip to the Shenandoah mountains.

Every year, I think it will probably be our last, since our kids are 20 and 21 now. But we’ve adjusted as the years have flown by. I don’t plan comically long itineraries anymore and everyone has their space, plus their partners have been free to join us.

There’s nothing like having adult kids who still want to hang around you sometimes to make you feel that in spite of all your mistakes, you’ve done something right as a parent.

But I’m especially grateful because our blended family had to be built from the ground up a decade ago. My husband and I made a pact to always put the children first, even at the expense of our careers, and never regretted it. We both owned our own businesses and worked at home so we could be there more for our kids in their tweens and teens, which provided a strong foundation, especially during the pandemic.

Our kids aren’t related by blood, but they consider themselves siblings (even when they fight). And my husband and I love each other’s children like they’re our own.

It’s a family by choice and we all continue to choose each other.

But it’s not a real family, if you read Project 2025, the far-right blueprint for a second Donald Trump term.

“Married men and women are the ideal natural family structure because all children have a right to be raised by the men and women who conceived them,” according to “ The Family Agenda ” section.

Under that definition, the only legitimate family structure is a two-parent household with their biological children — those who have remarried, adopted or used IVF need not apply. As a single mom for six years , I was accustomed to being blamed for all of society’s ills, but I suppose I was naïve to not expect that stepfamilies would eventually end up in conservatives’ crosshairs.

Naturally, Project 2025 doesn’t just leave it at that. There are proposals to restrict birth control, eliminate abortion and institute a surveillance state on women’s fertility and health. Oh, and if you guessed they weren’t going to leave LGBTQ+ people alone, you were right.

Here’s how they want the next president (Trump) to reengineer our country:

“Families comprised of a married mother, father, and their children are the foundation of a well-ordered nation and healthy society. Unfortunately, family policies and programs under President Biden’s HHS are fraught with agenda items focusing on ‘LGBTQ+ equity,’ subsidizing single-motherhood, disincentivizing work, and penalizing marriage. These policies should be repealed and replaced by policies that support the formation of stable, married, nuclear families.”

It’s tempting to believe this is all a far-right fever dream that will never come to pass. But there’s no more fervent evangelist for a return to the patriarchal paradise of the past than Trump’s running mate, U.S. Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio), who obsessively vilifies single women as “ miserable ” for eschewing having children, their only “path to happiness and to fulfillment.”

He’s famously cavilled that the country is run by “ a bunch of childless cat ladies ,” citing Vice President Kamala Harris (who has stepchildren), U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg (who’s a gay married father) and U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) (who has a dog ).

This far-right plan isn’t just about societal conformity; it’s about control at the most intimate level.

– Susan J. Demas

And he said that American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten “ really disturbs me ” for not “having a single child” (she’s gay and a stepparent).

Some of this should sound familiar to those of us in Michigan, as GOP gubernatorial nominee Tudor Dixon went off during her failed 2022 campaign on “single women working” and leading a “pretty lonely life.” (Indeed, if right-wingers’ go-to insult on social media against any woman over 19 is that they’re lonely, aging, childless and can’t keep a man).

Dixon, who was challenging Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, also bizarrely declared that it was “time to elect a real woman to lead Michigan” and cast the race as being between “a conservative businesswoman and mother, and a far-left birthing parent and career politician.”

Dixon lost by 11 points, but her compulsion for telling people how to live their lives in the most personal ways lives on with Vance, who opposes same-sex marriage and is a big fan of far-right Hungarian leader Viktor Orbán’s pronatalist policies giving tax breaks to married couples having more kids.

Vance also wants to politically reward people who he sees as being more valuable to society.

“When you go to the polls in this country as a parent, you should have more power — you should have more of an ability to speak your voice in our democratic republic — than people who don’t have kids,” he said in a 2021 speech. “Let’s face the consequences and the reality: If you don’t have as much of an investment in the future of this country, maybe you shouldn’t get nearly the same voice.”

This far-right plan isn’t just about societal conformity; it’s about control at the most intimate level. Just to put a fine point on it, Vance has complained that it’s too easy to get divorced these days — naturally eradicating no-fault divorce is another item on the far-right wishlist — and has appeared to defend violent marriages.

“This is one of the great tricks that I think the sexual revolution pulled on the American populace, which is the idea that like, ‘Well, OK, these marriages were fundamentally, you know, they were maybe even violent, but certainly they were unhappy — and so getting rid of them and making it easier for people to shift spouses like they change their underwear, that’s going to make people happier in the long-term,’” he said in a 2021 video.

This is something I know quite a bit about, having grown up in an old-fashioned, intact nuclear family that was also extraordinarily unhappy and abusive.

I unwisely married at 18 to escape and had my first baby at the relatively young age of 25, which conservative traditionalists consider an ideal outcome for women. Finally asking my first husband for a divorce was one of the best things I ever did for myself and my daughter. I was able to raise her in a peaceful, loving home, first as a single mom and then in our blended family.

Everyone deserves to create the family life that works best for them without government intrusion. And Americans are doing just that, with over 2.5 million LGBTQ+ adults raising children and millions using IVF and other methods to start a family. At least 2.5 million children live with a stepparent, plus many more live with grandparents or other relatives.

At the Human Rights Campaign’s annual gala on Saturday, Harris’ running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, talked about why he’s been such a longtime supporter of LGBTQ+ rights.

“My marriage to my wife, Gwen, is the most important thing in my life. I love her deeply. Why would I stop anybody else from marrying the person they love?” he said. “That makes no sense.”

It would seem that the Walzes raised their children with those same values, as their 17-year-old son, Gus, was so moved by his dad’s acceptance speech at last month’s Democratic National Convention that he jumped to his feet and mouthed, “ That’s my dad! ” as tears streamed down his cheeks.

As for J.D. Vance, he doesn’t really appear to be living his best life, even though he’s achieved his idealized family structure with his wife quitting her high-powered attorney job to stay home with their three kids (although that was only after he joined Trump’s ticket).

The only time I’ve seen him smile is when he’s delivering lines eviscerating Democrats. In fact, when a Michigan reporter recently asked him the softball question, “What makes you happy?” Vance didn’t respond with the obvious answer (“My kids”) but instead launched into more criticism of Harris.

In his most memorable parenting story, Vance last month recalled that his 7-year-old, who’s “really into Pokémon cards,” was with him when Trump called about joining the ticket.

“So he’s trying to talk to me about Pikachu and I’m on the phone with Donald Trump and I’m like, ‘Son, shut the hell up for 30 seconds about Pikachu,'” Vance said. “This is the most important phone call of my life. Please just let me take this phone call.”

Now that’s the kind of fatherly love that just warms your heart.

No matter who’s elected president this year, it will be someone who doesn’t fit the classical family mold. There’s Trump, who has children by all three of his wives and his current spouse is almost never seen with him, or Harris, who’s known as “ Momala ” to the two stepkids she’s raised and has a close enough relationship with her husband’s first wife that she’s actively campaigning for her.

Like many of us who live in the modern world, Ella Emhoff seemed genuinely confused by conservatives slamming her stepmom for not being a “real” mother.

“How can you be ‘childless’ when you have cutie pie kids like [C]ole and I,” she wrote on social media. She later added: “I love my three parents.”

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