In Defense of Chappell Roan: Parenting Is Hard, and My Body Is Still My Choice
Parenting is hard. Informed choice matters. Let’s talk about what Chappell Roan actually said.
This morning, I opened my phone and immediately saw that the internet had begun canceling Chappell Roan. Why? Because she dared to say—on the " Call Her Daddy " podcast—that parenting isn’t for her and that she sometimes sees parents with young kids and thinks, “You look like hell.” Then, she doubled down with something like: “It’s giving anti-natalist.”
When I arrived at work, I heard about it again, this time from my marketing coach, who directed me to a Newsweek article1. Later, I found the USA Today2 piece as well. I belong to a community deeply committed to justice, care work, parenting, and building better systems. So when this issue came across my desk again, I had to pause.
Let’s be honest: Chappell Roan is right.
Parenting is hard. And we should stop pretending otherwise.
Even with support, it’s overwhelming, exhausting, and completely life-altering. No book, no “expert,” no grandma, friend, or podcast can fully prepare you for the emotional and physical toll parenting takes on your body, identity, relationships, and mental health. This is especially true if you’re doing it without genuine help or with a partner who thinks they’re assisting but actually leaves you to bear the emotional and logistical burden alone.
You don’t receive a manual customized to your child’s unique personality, family history, trauma patterns, and cultural lineage. Instead, you are thrown into the deep end—and expected to swim while smiling.
So when a queer pop star says, “That looks hard, and it’s not for me,” the response shouldn’t be to clutch our pearls. Instead, we should ask why we are so invested in policing women’s choices and their image in the first place.
Because that’s what this is about. Not about “attacking moms,” but about breaking a taboo: that not every woman wants—or should be expected—to become a mother. And that not choosing parenting can be an act of love, resistance, and self-preservation.
My body. My choice. Still.
That truth doesn’t vanish when someone becomes a mother, nor does it disappear simply because someone doesn’t wish to be one.
I’m a parent. I talk to other parents and caregivers all the time. I know the struggle intimately. It’s precisely because I understand how hard it is that I want people to have informed consent before deciding to bring another life into the world.
This society does not make parenting easy. It doesn’t provide universal paid leave, or affordable childcare, or culturally competent maternal health care. It barely acknowledges postpartum mental health. And it expects parents—mostly mothers—to somehow do it all, quietly, and without complaint.
So when someone like Chappell Roan says parenting looks exhausting, believe her. And instead of shaming her, ask why so many of us feel ashamed to admit the same thing.
We can support parents and support people who choose not to parent. We can make space for honesty, even when it’s messy. We can let women and gender-expansive people make choices about their bodies, their lives, and their futures without judgment.
And we can stop pretending that motherhood is the only valid expression of womanhood.
Chappell Roan wasn’t wrong. Parenting is hard. Not everyone has to do it—and no one should be shamed for saying so.
Patrick, Lydia. “Chappell Roan’s Viral Comments About Parents Spark Debate Online.” Newsweek, March 31, 2025. https://www.newsweek.com/chappell-roan-call-her-daddy-comments-parenting-2052934.
Cross, Greta. “Chappell Roan Says Parents of Young Kids Are ‘in Hell.’ The Internet Has Thoughts.” USA Today, March 31, 2025. https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/celebrities/2025/03/31/chappell-roan-parenting-comments-call-her-daddy-podcast/82746430007/.
I agree with you 1000%!
It’s part of the patriarchy to force women into loving being mothers. A woman or a person with a female body or even a man or a piece person with a male body however, a person identifies being a parent is the hardest job in the world.
Yes, it’s harder than hunting, yes, it’s harder than finance, yes it’s even harder than surgery. Because when you’re done doing any of those things, you might have to go home have a drink go to therapy, but that’s not who you are again on the Groundhog Day that his parenting.
Couple of decades ago there was this whole idea that takes the religion. Reality is about one out of every five people is really designed to enjoy parenting. That the patriarchy and the military industrial complex needs bodies so making bodies is glamorized. How do you feel after you make the new body is criticized. Then you need surgery and diets.
I celebrate every woman who has ever said I don’t wanna be a parent. I celebrate every man or every person who has ever said I do not want to be responsible to make another human being. The fact that we have to force so many people to have babies proves how out of balance it is. The effect that too many human beings is having on the planet is obvious. What’s the point of having a child that you can’t feed and educate and help optimize themselves as of being? Wouldn’t it be better to be a loving aunt that had the mental and emotional space to go and help a friend or a sister
This forced birth is so indoctrinated. I love my son. I wouldn’t trade him for the world, but it changed my life. My life will never be mine fully again. That is not a complaint men. My age have studied and traveled far more than I have many of the things that I’m feeling like I finally have the time in space to do they’ve already done and they want to settle down.
Good men good fathers matter so much and they can make or break a woman’s heart and soul when it comes to giving birth and raising a child.
But the very act of creating and pushing another human being through you and out of you an extension of you that always exist in the world being responsible in that way for the existence of another being takes everything.
I’ve recently been watching Grey’s Anatomy catching up because I didn’t get to watch it while I was raising my kid and working. No one works harder than Bailey in that show. She’s an amazing surgeon and she’s a loving mother, but the strain on her as a being the lack of rest The fact that our marriage is fallen apart and she is got no one filling her cut back up. Is the truth about parenting and mothering, especially in a world where you can almost count on a divorce, you can almost count on infidelity, and unless you have the rare part, who knows how to show up and love you While you’re doing the things that it takes to be a mom you can’t imagine.
I love the honesty. Great share Michelle.