French President Emmanuel Macron recently said, “I always say: ‘Present me the woman who decided, being perfectly educated, to have seven, eight, or nine children.” When Catherine Ruth Pakaluk heard this, she took to social media to showcase the big families that educated women choose to have. “I thought let’s keep this simple and friendly—I am not interested in picking a fight with the president of France,” she said.
I spoke to one such woman, Catherine Ruth Pakaluk, an assistant professor of social research and economic thought at the Catholic University of America, who has 8 children—and no regrets about that.
“When I saw [Macron’s] quotation, my first thought was, ‘Hey, wait a second, I exist, and I know lots of people like me that exist,’” Pakaluk, who received her bachelor’s degree at the University of Pennsylvania and her doctorate at Harvard University, told The Daily Signal in an interview.
She added that she thought plenty of moms of large families would share the reaction to Macron of thinking that, “Hey, wait, I exist, and my family is not the product of ignorance.”
Pakaluk also started a hashtag: #PostcardsforMacron, to showcase the big families some educated women choose to have.