The Problem With Telling Women to “Have Kids ASAP”
When Erika Kirk recently told Megyn Kelly that women should “have kids as soon as possible,” it hit wrong for one simple reason: she didn’t. She built her life first. She had choices. She had time. And now, she’s urging other women to skip the very freedoms she benefited from.
Kirk did not “have kids ASAP.” She didn’t begin adulthood with early motherhood, nor did she sacrifice her education, career, or independence to become a young parent. In reality, she spent her 20’s and early 30’s building a public profile, earning degrees, exploring multiple careers, and shaping a life with options. That’s why her recent statement on Megyn Kelly’s show — “children, family, marriages… are not a renewable resource” — felt so out of touch.
Women have children at many ages, including their 30s (as she did). Marriages are hardly guaranteed to last forever. And family has never been a one-size-fits-all unit.
A woman and her cats are a family.
A couple and their dogs are a family.
A queer couple without kids is a family.
Chosen family is real family.
Conservative commentators often erase this reality by insisting that only one version counts.
Kirk’s own life story contradicts the message she now promotes. She pursued ambition, mobility, and independence before becoming a mother — and only did so once she had stability and resources. When someone who lived a career-first life urges younger women to put motherhood first, it stops looking like personal advice and starts looking like ideology.
And this is honestly all part of a broader trend. Many conservative influencers built their platforms on autonomy and feminist gains — education, financial independence, career exploration — then pivot to pressuring other women to shrink their lives, limit their ambitions, or pursue early motherhood as a moral imperative. The pattern is consistent: enjoy the freedoms yourself, then discourage the next generation from doing the same.
The issue isn’t Erika Kirk’s timeline; it’s the hypocrisy in the message. She benefited from the very freedoms she’s now asking women to ignore. Her life was shaped by choice and other women deserve the same.
The Contradiction: “Do As I Say, Not As I Did”
None of this is about criticizing Erika Kirk’s personal decisions on having her children. In many ways, her trajectory reflects a truth many women understand intuitively: time can be a gift. Time to explore, to study, to work, to gain independence, to understand your identity, to make mistakes and recover from them — all before taking on the enormous responsibility of parenthood. Her life demonstrates how valuable that timeline can be.
The problem arises when someone who enjoyed that time turns around and insists that younger women shouldn’t — or worse, that delaying motherhood is reckless, shallow, or a failure of priorities. …And she’s not alone in this shift. Recently, she’s also referenced her husband’s passing in ways that seem to underscore her message. The implication lands like a warning: have children with your partner now, because you may not get the chance later. That kind of emotional framing puts pressure on women rather than empowering them.
This is an increasingly common pattern among traditionalist or “tradwife-adjacent” influencers. They spend their 20’s and early 30’s building careers, earning degrees, traveling, networking, and cultivating opportunities (the exact freedoms feminism made possible btw) and only later adopt the messaging that women should be prioritizing motherhood above all else. After benefiting from choice and autonomy, they pivot toward encouraging a more constrained script for the women coming after them.
It becomes a kind of retrospective myth-building, where their own lives are rewritten, softened, or selectively framed to support a narrative that younger women should shrink their horizons. The nuance vanishes. The independence disappears. The messy, ambitious, exploratory years get edited out in favor of a tidy storyline that fits their current ideology.
And this contradiction matters, because it does more than distort one person’s story — it reinforces a cultural pressure that:
Obscures the privilege they themselves benefited from (read: feminism made their freedom possible).
Ignores the structural realities other women face: childcare costs, lack of paid leave, financial instability, student debt.
Pressures women into life-altering decisions before they’re ready, often by invoking fear of regret or scarcity.
Presents an aesthetic, not a roadmap — a curated image of “traditional femininity” that doesn’t reflect the lived realities behind the scenes.
The contradiction isn’t just ironic — it’s influential. And that’s exactly why it needs to be named.
♡ This blog is free for everyone and supported by readers like you.
If you want to help keep it going, you can join the Full Blog or make a one-time contribution. ♡
Motherhood Looks Very Different When You Have Money
A truth often missing from “have kids early” rhetoric is that early motherhood is simply not the same experience for everyone. When a woman has a financially secure partner, family money, flexible work, and paid help, early motherhood becomes manageable — even easier.
Most women in the U.S. don’t have that. What early motherhood really looks like for them is unpaid leave, sky-high childcare costs, unstable work schedules, student debt, limited savings, insurance gaps, and very little support. Telling women to “have kids ASAP” without acknowledging these realities isn’t guidance, it’s erasure. It assumes every woman lives with the same safety nets, when the gap between those lives is enormous.
Autonomy Is the Missing Piece
Women don’t need ideological timelines. They need space — space to decide if they want children, when they want children, and what they want their lives to look like. Early adulthood is a time of massive cognitive and personal development. Most people are still figuring out who they are, what they value, and what they want. Pushing women to rush into motherhood out of FOMO guarantees they never get to explore the full life they might want.
Because the issue isn’t motherhood.
The issue is pressure — pressure framed as morality, tradition, or “concern.” Women thrive when they choose their own timelines, not when they’re told to squeeze their ambitions into a narrow window defined by someone else.
Why These Mixed Messages Matter
When influencers who spent years building careers, identities, and financial stability urge younger women to rush into motherhood, the impact isn’t harmless. It reinforces gendered expectations, romanticizes an outdated family model, shames ambition, and pressures women into life-changing decisions before they’re ready.
And it hides a simple truth: Most women don’t regret waiting. They regret rushing.
If Erika Kirk had every right to build her life before having kids — and she did — then every woman deserves that same freedom.
Conclusion: Every Woman Deserves Her Own Timeline
The question of when to have children is deeply personal — and it should stay that way. Influencers are free to share their experiences, but they shouldn’t rewrite their histories or use emotional pressure to steer other women into choices they didn’t make themselves.
Erika Kirk followed a long, flexible, modern path to motherhood, and she benefited from it. Women deserve honesty about that — not a narrative suggesting that early motherhood is the only “right” path.
Your life is yours.
Your timeline is yours.
Not tradition’s.
Not an ideology’s.
Not an influencer’s.
And certainly not a deadline disguised as advice.
Her Childfree Life exists because of readers who support the work through The Full Blog — where I share early releases, longer essays, and members-only reflections.
Support independent feminist writing and gain full access to every essay, reflection, and commentary on Her Childfree Life. Your subscription helps keep this space ad-free, community-driven, and open for meaningful member discussions.