(LifeSiteNews) — 27-year-old pop star Chappell Roan is making waves with her recent comments on the “Call Her Daddy” podcast in which she claimed that women who have children are “in hell.” 

Roan has talked frequently about her conservative Missouri hometown; her community was largely Christian and most of her relatives are Republicans. Her uncle, Darin Chappell, is a Missouri state representative who co-sponsored a bill last year to prevent public funds, including Medicaid reimbursements, from being directed to abortion providers. To her credit, Roan has refused to condemn her family, stating: “I have family that are very Republican, and they love me and I love them.” 

Talking about her hometown friends on the progressive “Call Her Daddy” podcast, however, Roan painted a grim picture of their “very different lives.” When host Alex Cooper asked her if she wanted marriage and children, Roan replied: “A lot of them are married with children, and they have their own houses, and to me, I’m like, I don’t know if that’s going to happen for me. I don’t know when that’s realistic, if ever. All of my friends who have kids are in hell.” 

“I don’t know anyone, I actually don’t know anyone who’s happy and has children at this age,” she continued. “I have not met anyone who’s happy, anyone who has light in their eyes, anyone who’s slept.”  

The national data, interestingly, paints precisely the opposite picture. As Brad Wilcox, professor of family studies and author of the recent book Get Married, noted recently in response to a new survey published by the Wall Street Journal: “No group of women is happier than married moms with children. No group of women [is] less happy than single, childless women.”  

The Media Research Center affirmed Wilcox’s point on X: “ Chappell Roan, a Gen Z popstar who dresses in drag, claims: ‘All my friends who have kids are in hell. I don’t know anyone who is happy with kids.’ Fact-check: Statistically, the happiest women in America are married and have children.”  

Charlie Kirk concurred: “Chappell Roan, who is apparently famous, is a biological female who finds the need to identify as a female but dresses in drag … says all her friends with young kids ‘are in hell. I don’t know anyone who is happy with kids.’ You should not be surprised that a person as obviously deranged as Chappell Roan, with the types of friends she probably keeps, would have such a dumb opinion. FACT: The happiest women in America, statistically, are married with kids.” 

Podcaster Noam Blum’s response may have gotten closer to the heart of the matter: “This sounds like the surface level observation of someone who hears a mother say she was up all night because of her kid and thinks ‘having a kid is making this woman unhappy.’” Indeed, Roan appeared to clarify her comments later in the interview, adding: “They’re in hell ‘cause they love their kids.” Roan hasn’t responded to the firestorm that greeted her comments, but not having children herself, she may simply be unaware of the joy that comes with having children, and only sees the sacrifices that parents make for them. 

Roan’s comments are an opportunity to re-emphasize the facts about family life in America. According to the comprehensive 2022 General Social Survey, among women aged 18-55, 40 percent of married women with children reported by “very happy,” compared with 25 percent of married women without children, and 22 percent of unmarried women without children (nearly double!) The same survey revealed that 80 percent of mothers aged 18-55 said they were happy with their lives, compared with 68 percent of women without children.  

One of the lies our culture tells us is that we can be happy living for ourselves. This is not merely untrue for spiritual reasons; it is also true according to the most comprehensive data sets we have. When women are asked about their lives, married mothers consistently rank as the happiest subgroup across all categories. As any pop star surely understands, there’s more to life than sleep.