Is Taylor Swift Canceled For Wanting A Family?

Once again, the world’s biggest pop star has become a mirror for western women’s collective hopes and hang-ups. This time, the debate isn’t about melodies or marketing. It’s about what it means, in 2025, for a woman to say she wants love, marriage, and children. 

Conservatives are divided over whether to claim Taylor Swift. Some are cheering what they see as a long-overdue embrace of traditional values. In “Midnights” (2022), she brushed off marriage as “1950s shit” (Lavender Haze). Now, in her new album, she’s daydreaming in her songs about lifelong love and a house full of kids. On Track 5, “Eldest Daughter” she plainly admits, “When I said I didn’t believe in marriage, that was a lie”. For many on the right, that sounds like repentance; a recognition that family is not a cage but a calling. It’s a return to the honesty of her younger years, calling back to the teenage dreams of being rescued by Prince Charming in “Love Story” and “Fearless” (2008), before feminist independence and girlbossery took center stage in later chapters (see 1989, New Romantics: “We’re too busy dancing to get swept off our feet”).  

Evie published an article to this effect over the weekend. Yet the backlash was strong. Some conservatives bristled at the thought of Swift being labelled amongst their ranks. They point to the glittering, suggestive bodysuits, the bold choreography, the sensual and explicit lyrics. How conservative can a woman be, they ask, when she still sells sexuality as spectacle? 

Liberals are just as split. TikTok progressives have accused Swift of turning “MAGA,” even “racist,” after she said she wants to marry Travis Kelce and have lots of babies that look like him (Wi$h Li$t). They accuse her of aligning with what they view as a disturbing Trumpian agenda to boost marriage and birth rates. Other liberals push back, calling that outrage absurd. Wanting marriage and children, they argue, isn’t a political statement; it’s simply human. The backlash exposes a strange tension in modern feminism: it celebrates choice, until a woman chooses something traditional. 

The backlash exposes a strange tension in modern feminism: it celebrates choice, until a woman chooses something traditional. 

The debate is a mess. The truth is simpler. Of course Taylor Swift hasn’t suddenly become a staunch conservative activist. But through her own experience, even as a self-proclaimed liberal, she has stumbled upon something deeper than ideology. She has lived the dream of independence, success, and self-sufficiency, and found it wanting. Her new longing for permanence and commitment isn’t propaganda. It’s honesty. And all who believe in marriage should be delighted that she is showcasing this to the watching world.

Swift embodies the millennial experiment with the boundaries of liberalism. She spent her twenties and early thirties chasing autonomy and trophies instead of kids. She represented the ultimate pinnacle of girlbossery. And yet, in “The Tortured Poets Department” (2024), she confessed the ache of having all of that, but a love that never committed: “You swore that you loved me but where were the clues? I died on the altar waiting for the proof.” She spoke of her years dreaming of “imaginary rings” that never materialized, and her anger for her non-committal forever-boyfriend letting her waste “all that youth for free.” Those aren’t the words of a woman content with endless independence. They’re the words of someone realizing that so-called freedom without belonging feels hollow. 

That realization isn’t ideological; it’s human nature. The Yale Paradox of Happiness shows that despite having more education, money, and liberty than any generation before them, women today report being less happy. The message is clear: autonomy alone doesn’t satisfy the soul. 

If we want young women today to hear a case for marriage, she may perhaps be the most strategic mouthpiece one could hope for. 

So when Taylor sings about wanting to marry and have children, she isn’t just turning right. She’s turning home. She’s rediscovering what women across time have always known: that love and family don’t diminish us; they complete us. Her message isn't political. It's just true.

Both sides will keep arguing over what she represents. But maybe that’s the point. In a culture that tells women to be everything except content, Taylor Swift’s quiet confession cuts through the noise. Her refusal to take on a “conservative” label only underscores the pervasive truth of the message even more: feminism cannot satisfy. Marriage and family are worthy goals to be celebrated, not smeared. Her immense stature and influence can help spread this truth further, even if it isn’t wrapped up in a traditional political bow. And if we want young women today to hear a case for marriage, she may perhaps be the most strategic mouthpiece one could hope for.