Pop star Chappell Roan is no stranger to controversy: She’s gotten pushback for complaining about “abuse and harassment” by strangers in public, canceling a performance at the last minute to prioritize her health, and refusing to endorse a presidential candidate in the last election.
And now, with comments she made last week as a guest on the Call Her Daddy podcast, Roan has really stepped into a hornet’s nest: She’s angered moms.
When asked by host Alex Cooper if she’s still close with friends back home in Missouri, she said that she is, but that their lives are very different, with many of them parents to little children.
“All of my friends who have kids are in hell,” the 27-year-old said. “I actually don’t know anyone who’s, like, happy and has children at this age. I literally have not met anyone who’s happy, anyone who has light in their eyes, anyone who has slept.”
As the oldest of four kids herself, Roan added that her mom had her at 23, asking, “Why did my parents do that?”
The interview quickly moved on—to high school reminiscing, early idols, fame. But many moms have remained stuck on the parenting comments, taking to social media to call Roan out.
“What she said was deeply misogynistic,” noted one critic on Instagram. “Pushing the narrative against mothers. It’s so miserable, it’s so awful blah blah blah.”
Parenting, said another on Instagram, is “hard af don’t get me wrong but to openly sh*t on your friends? After they vented to her in confidence and probably already feel like crap. She’s not doing them any favors, I wouldn’t want to be friends with someone who needs to air out other people’s dirty laundry for the sake of fame. “
Some agreed with that criticism over on X, with one noting that the comments are “a prime example of why you cannot just vent to anyone because I guarantee she has this perspective because a few of her mom friends are going through it,” adding, “May the friendships of narcissistic childless women with no sense of loyalty [never] find me lol.”
Another person on X admitted that, though she loves the pop star, her comment “reinforces the stigma that if you complain about motherhood you must hate your life and your kids. :/ motherhood is hard, not miserable and we don’t hate our kids.”
On the Mom Wars Substack, author Kara Kennedy went so far as to suggest Roan is mom-bashing to further her career, as “hating kids right now is in vogue.”
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Still others defended Roan, criticizing those who took offense.
“If you’re a mom and she offended you by sharing her personal opinion from her life (not yours), ask yourself why,” noted an Instagram commenter. “You’re projecting your unhappiness on her. You heard what you wanted to hear, not what she said.”
Added another, “Kids aren’t for everyone. I respect her answer and found it to be honest; not negative.”
Why were Chappel Roan’s comments so triggering?
Laura Markham, a Brooklyn-based clinical psychologist, mother, and parenting coach, understands why the pop star’s comments were a “profound emotional trigger.”
“Parents are doing one of the most difficult jobs imaginable, with very little societal support,” she tells Fortune. “They are often exhausted and sleep-deprived. They feel constant pressure to be ‘perfect’ from social media. Deep down, they desperately need affirmation that their sacrifice matters.”
Moms feeling defensive about what Roan said, Markham explains, is “not insecurity so much as a fear that if they acknowledge the profound challenges too openly, the difficult feelings might overwhelm them.” Our culture, she points out, “offers parents almost no structural support while simultaneously romanticizing parenthood. This creates a perfect storm where parents must convince themselves and others that the struggles are ‘worth it’ because the alternative—admitting how much they need help—feels too vulnerable in a society that judges parental struggle as personal failure.”
TikToker and mom Stella Joy, in a video now seen over 1.2 million times, touched on some similar ideas, and says she believes people got so defensive because “they don’t like having a mirror held up to the fact that they fell for the greatest lie ever told,” which is, from the moment they hold their first baby doll as a kid, that “being a mother is our ultimate goal.”
Markham, meawhile, points to evidence that confirms what Roan observed about unhappiness and parenting: One study, for example, found a decline in well-being once parenting begins. Another found that couples without children were happier in their relationships.
But the big response to Roan’s comments is also evidence of an American political clash, Markham says.
“There is also a significant political backlash right now that glorifies motherhood as women’s ultimate fulfillment, precisely as reproductive rights are being curtailed nationwide,” she says. “For this ideology to succeed, motherhood must be portrayed as universally blissful despite mounting evidence of parental struggle in a society without adequate support systems … When young women like Roan speak openly about the struggles their parent-friends face, it directly challenges a narrative that aims to channel women back toward traditional roles without acknowledging the profound difficulties involved.”
Instead of responding with compassion and acknowledging these systemic issues, she says, “we’re shaming women who speak truthfully about their experiences,” which only further deepens parents’ isolation and “manipulates parents’ genuine love for their children into a weapon against honest conversation.”
Some are really trying to be honest, though—especially on TikTok, where many of the responses to Roan addressed these complexities.
“I struggle with happiness on a daily basis,” said Mallory Brooks, a 26-year-old single mom who defended Roan’s honesty in a video (above) viewed over 900,000 times. “I love my child more than anything in the world,” she said. But on top of the day-to-day difficulties, she added, “a lot of moms are promised happiness as the result of motherhood.” Now she realizes, “I was promised a village that I don’t have.”
More on parenting:
- American families have an increasingly bleak outlook, and 4 factors are driving their gloom
- The ideal age that Americans think you should get married and have kids may surprise you
- Kate Hudson, mom of 3, admits that ‘parenting is hard.’ But learning this important lesson can help, she says
