JD Vance Seems to Blame Car Seats for Declining Birth Rates: JD Vance in the News

WASHINGTON – Comments by Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance during a Senate committee hearing last year in which he appeared to blame car seat laws for contributing to America’s declining birth rate gained attention on social media this week.

Vance, Donald Trump’s vice presidential nominee, spoke about family dynamics during the campaign leading up to the November election, often drawing criticism.

However, these comments were made in March 2023, when the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation heard testimony on proposals aimed at increasing consumer protections in air travel.

This week, thanks to social media, they’re getting attention again.

Vance’s comments about car seats came at the end of an exchange with Sara Nelson, international president of the Association of Flight Attendants (CWA), about tightening requirements for safe seats on airplanes. The exchange of words takes place after approximately an hour and 45 minutes of questioning.

The union advocated for new Federal Aviation Administration mandates requiring children under 2 years of age to be transported in special seats on flights.

Vance said he wasn’t sure that was the right approach and suggested to Nelson that the focus should be on “aligning it with other changes that would make parents’ lives easier because you’re advocating for this particular approach.”

He noted that a long flight with a small child strapped in a seat for hours would be “torture for everyone” and perhaps not worth the headache for parents, given that aviation incidents are so rare.

Then he focused on car seats.

“One thing I’m really concerned about, and I think both Democrats and Republicans should be concerned, is that we have real demographic problems in our country,” Vance said. “American families don’t have enough children.”

He then addressed the reasons.

“I think there is evidence that some of the things we are doing to parents are reducing the number of children born into American families,” he said. “In particular, there is evidence that the car seat laws that we have imposed – which, of course, I want children to be in car seats – have resulted in a drop of over 100,000 in the number of children born in this country. So when we think about how we keep children safe here, I believe we should do it in a way that meets the needs of American families, and I encourage your organization to do so.”

During his testimony, Vance did not specify where he got his estimate that there are more than 100,000 fewer children. Both USA Today and the fact-checking site Snopes reached out to Vance’s staff for comment, to no avail.

This week’s social media post on TikTok by user @WhatTheActualKaren, whose bio refers to her as “Team Kamala,” focused on the car seat comments and included a deposition excerpt.

By Thursday, the post had more than 1.4 million views. The commentators were merciless.

“When my husband and I were talking about having children, he turned to me and asked, ‘What about car seats?’ I said, ‘you’re right, let’s just forget about it,'” wrote TikTok user ktduncan33.

“Oh my God, yes! The $300 car seat turned out to be the biggest deterrent! (Not that $450-a-week child care, definitely not that one.)” ECEC said.

“Seriously, if a decent car seat didn’t cost $100, I could afford $24,000 a year for child care AND a $400,000 house,” therrblurr wrote.

Snopes speculates that Vance may have been influenced by an article written in 2020 about how parents view car seats, considering their price and other factors. The article, written by Jordan Nickerson, a finance professor at the University of Washington, and David Solomon, a finance professor at Boston College, made it clear that they do not support car seat regulations reducing birth rates.

“Anecdotally, it is rare to find people who openly admit that car seats specifically prevented them from having a third child. However, it is quite common to meet people who mention car seats as a nuisance and trouble that they have to deal with, especially in the context of having a third child.” Snopes quotes from the newspaper.

The newspaper appeared to advocate “easing” safety restrictions on car seats “in order to increase birth rates,” Snopes said.