Kamala Harris is not "childless"

[Ms. Toad]

21. My reaction to this observation was "Yes, and so what if she was childless?"

Same as when the Right insisted Obama was Muslim. No, and so what if he was?

It is important to push back on both assumptions: That being childless is bad, and that there is only one way to have a parent-child relationship.

I was a mother to one of my students long before I had a child of my own, as well as to an individual struggling with their gender identity in my extended faith community when both needed parents other than their own. I still (30 years later) receive mother's day cards from my daughter/former student. This is an extremely common bonding in the LGBTQ community, when we are often kicked out of our families of origin.

My spouse was a mother to our daughter from before she was born, but the legal relationship was not established until our daughter was in her 20s.

And, my daughter has some kind of parental relationship with our (originally unknown) sperm donor and his wife (and sibling relationships with their children and 3-4 other half-siblings for whom the donor was was the same.

It is important to resist attempts to denigrate any parenting choice (the choice to have no biological children, to have some, to be a parent of choice - not kin, etc.)