'Timing matters': Erika Kirk slams NYT op-ed on her speech that Americans should have 'more children than you can afford'

Erika Kirk, the widow of Charlie Kirk, accused a New York Times column titled “The Gap Between the Families We Have and the Ones Conservatives Want” of missing the point about marriage and children.

The Turning Point USA boss took to X to share her lengthy contrasting opinion, saying, “This @nytimes op-ed completely misses the point about the purpose of marriage and children, and completely misrepresents my views in the process. The entire article is laced with a view of family through the lens of money and career, as if those things bring fulfillment and purpose.”

“When you’re on your deathbed, your money and your career won’t be whispering ‘I love you’ in your ear as you take your last breath. The material possessions and riches of this world mean nothing when we go to our eternal resting place,” Erika wrote.

In her X post, Erika noted that the author “conveniently leaves out the part of my Hillsdale commencement speech where I said ‘marry young, not rushed, but young.’

Erika said that people shouldn’t put off having children – “We serve a God of order, and if you live your life in order, there is a double portion of grace. That means marriage first, then children and everything else.”

“Timing matters because life is shorter than you might think and you never know what can happen. The point is don’t put it off. Don’t rush it or force it if it’s not right, but don’t put it off,” Erika wrote.

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Erika married her husband in 2021 at the age of 32. Charlie was 27 at the time, which she didn’t think was too old or too young. However, Erika said she wishes they had met sooner and could have started a family sooner.

“There is no such thing as perfect timing to have children. Financial struggles are a part of life, but the problem is that many Americans are surviving alone, are not self-sacrificing, and expect to live very different lifestyles based on what they see online,” she wrote.

“When Charlie encouraged young people to have more children than they could afford, he wasn’t saying they should recklessly bring a child into this world and have them on welfare. He was saying that children are not a luxury item that you should have once you meet a certain threshold in your tax bracket. You don’t need a mansion to raise a family,” she added.

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What did the NYT article say?

Jessica Grose’s NYT op-ed specifically cited Erika Kirk’s comments at Hillsdale College’s commencement ceremony in May.

“Erika Kirk said that if her late husband had been alive, he would have encouraged them to marry young,” says Jessica. She also said that Charlie would say, “Have more children than you can afford.”

Jessica said, “Kirk presents his message as countercultural, and in a sense it is. The 21-year-old married speaker at Turning Point’s Women’s Leadership Summit in June said she is going against the culture by declaring her husband the head of her household and feminism a ‘psyop.’ But young marriage is not what most Americans want.”

She argued, “Encouraging more Americans to have families does not have to involve a stubborn, unwanted return to the mid-century patriarchal Christian idea of marriage.”

“By framing the ideal 21st-century relationship in outdated terms, conservatives ignore the stark reality of how Americans actually want to live and how they live their lives,” the NYT article said.

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Jessica cited Stephanie Coontz’s book “For Better and Worse” throughout the piece, which argued that marriage varies across cultures and times.

“I take conservatives at their word that they want more people to marry and have more children than they currently have. But it makes absolutely no sense to create a definition of marriage that excludes the desires and ideals of a substantial majority of Americans,” she said.