Being a ‘Childless’ President Was Once Seen as a Virtue

Ask George Washington.

In the days since a 2021 clip emerged of the Republican vice-presidential candidate J. D. Vance criticizing the Democrats for being led by childless figures, people have responded with memes, outrage, and, occasionally, agreement. Vance targeted Kamala Harris as one of the “childless cat ladies” who run the country and also included Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg (who has since had children) in his criticism, because only parents could “really have a direct stake” in the nation. In a recent interview with Megyn Kelly, Vance dug in and stated that he believes that Democrats, especially those who aren’t parents, are “anti-family and anti-child.”

This criticism of political leaders who don’t have biological offspring would be a surprise to early generations of Americans, and not just because a third of our first 15 presidents, including George Washington, had no biological children. In fact, the absence of biological offspring was actually seen as a virtue in the 18th and 19th centuries, as Americans looked for leaders who could safeguard their fledgling republic.

A popular 1788 newspaper article praised Washington as the choice for America’s first president, partly on the grounds that “having no son,” he would not run the risk of “exposing us to the danger of an hereditary successor.” This was, after all, a country that had just overthrown a king and turned against the very notion of inherited power. Washington even considered emphasizing this point in his first inaugural address. In a draft, he noted that he had not had “my blood … transmitted or my name perpetuated by the endearing, though sometimes seducing channel of immediate offspring.” He continued, “I have no child for whom I could wish to make a provision—no family to build in greatness upon my Country’s ruins.” In other words, rest assured, fellow Americans; Washington didn’t have a son who might end democracy before it could truly take hold by seizing the presidency after him. (Descendants of a Black man named West Ford believe that Washington was his father, but historians, including those at Mount Vernon, argue that no documentation supports this.)

[Read: Kamala doesn’t have to be ‘Momala’ to the whole country]

The perceived benefit of a president without direct descendants extended to foreign affairs. John Adams recognized this in a 1787 letter to Thomas Jefferson when he worried that European powers might want to build domestic alliances with the children of American leaders, thus allowing hereditary power to take root in the new nation. “If General Washington had a Daughter,” he wrote, “I firmly believe, she would be demanded in Marriage by one of the Royal Families of France or England, perhaps by both.” A son, in turn, “would be invited to come a courting to Europe.” The absence of progeny was a boon to America’s independence.

That Washington had no biological children also made it easier to paint him as the father of his country. As one of his most famous eulogists exclaimed, “AMERICANS! he had no child—BUT YOU,—and HE WAS ALL YOUR OWN.” United States Senate resolutions published after Washington’s death stated plainly, “Our country mourns her father.”

Another key figure had no direct descendants: James Madison. The nation’s fourth president and the author of the Constitution had, like Washington, married a widow, and the couple never had children. (A Black family’s oral history claims Madison as their ancestor, but neither documentary nor DNA evidence have proved a link.) Biographies of Madison in newspapers when he ran for president didn’t mention his now-famous wife, Dolley, much less the fact that he had never fathered a child. When Andrew Jackson ran for president in the 1820s, the controversy over his campaign had to do with the timing of his marriage to his wife (she had not yet been officially divorced from her first husband when she married Jackson), not his lack of progeny. Lack of children was similarly a nonissue for James K. Polk in the 1840s and James Buchanan in the 1850s. Buchanan was not even married, although his supporters turned that into a positive trait by claiming that he was “wedded to the Constitution of his country.” It was not until the mid-20th century that our vision of a president, a first lady, and their children solidified into what we now refer to as the “first family.”

Still, every one of these “childless” presidents raised children, as has Kamala Harris (called Momala by her stepchildren). Washington, as I describe in my book First Family, raised stepchildren and stepgrandchildren who came from his wife’s first marriage. Martha’s children were just 4 and 2 years old when Washington became their stepfather, and he and Martha took in her two youngest grandchildren when they were babies. There was also a regular rotation of nieces and nephews who either lived at Mount Vernon or benefited from the Washingtons’ parental and financial support. Dolley Madison’s son was just 2 when she married James Madison, making him a stepfather. Jackson, Polk, and Buchanan all took in nieces and nephews and served as surrogate parents, bringing their extended families into the White House. In fact, the bachelor Buchanan’s niece Harriet Lane served as first lady during his presidency.

[From the March 2020 issue: The nuclear family was a mistake]

All of this raises the question of what we really mean when we label somebody a parent. Nearly 20 percent of American households with children under 18 include children beyond direct biological descendants: stepchildren, adoptees, grandkids, foster children, other relatives, and unrelated children. Tens of millions of Americans are currently raising children in families that don’t look like the “traditional” nuclear family, and throughout our history, communities of family, friends, and neighbors have helped with child-rearing. In an era of genetic genealogy and inexpensive DNA testing, it may be particularly tempting to see biological ties as what matters most. But that ignores—as does Vance’s nostalgia for an imagined past more committed than our present to childbearing—the richness of our family life. Many adults living in households without children (as the majority of married Americans of childbearing age now do) play key roles in the lives of the kids of their siblings and friends.

Neither our democracy nor our families should or even could be governed by biological parents alone. It is the very diversity of experiences of family and parenthood that offers the varied perspectives we need in a pluralistic society.