Erika Kirk, widow of Charlie Kirk and head of Turning Point USA, responded to a New York Times newsletter on Friday on X, accusing it of completely missing the point on marriage and children.
"This @nytimes op-ed completely misses the point on the purpose of marriage and children and completely misrepresents my views in the process. The entire article is laced with viewing family through the lens of money and career as if those things bring fulfillment and purpose. When you’re on your death bed, your money and your career won’t be whispering in your ear 'I love you' as you take your last breath. The material goods and fortune of this world mean nothing when we go to our eternal resting place," Kirk wrote.
New York Times opinion writer Jessica Grose wrote the piece headlined, "The Gap Between the Families We Have and the Ones Conservatives Want," and specifically cited Kirk's comments at the Hillsdale College commencement ceremony in May.
Kirk said, per Grose, that if her late husband were alive, he would have encouraged them to get married young.
She also said Charlie would have said, "Have more kids than you can afford." Grose pointed to backlash over Kirk's statement, due to elevated gas and grocery prices.
"Kirk pitches her message as countercultural, and in a sense, it is. A 21-year-old married speaker at Turning Point’s Women’s Leadership Summit in June said she was going against the culture by proclaiming her husband as the head of her household and feminism as a 'psyop.' But a young marriage isn’t what most Americans want," Grose wrote.
Kirk said in her post that the author "conveniently leaves out the part of my Hillsdale commencement speech where I said "marry young, not rushed, but young."
"Encouraging more Americans to have families doesn’t have to involve a stubborn, unwanted return to a patriarchal, midcentury Christian idea of marriage," Grose argued. "By casting the ideal 21st-century relationship in antiquated terms, conservatives are ignoring the glaring reality of how Americans actually want to live and are living their lives."
Kirk said in her response that people shouldn't put having kids off.
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"We serve a God of order and when you live a life ordered there’s a double portion of grace. Meaning marriage first, then kids, and everything else. Timing matters because life is shorter than you might think, and you never know what could 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," Kirk wrote in her response to Grose's piece.
Kirk married her husband in 2021 at the age of 32 — Charlie Kirk was 27 at the time — which she neither viewed as too old nor too young, but said she wished they met sooner and were able to start their family sooner.
"There is no such thing as perfect timing to have kids. Financial struggles are a part of life, but the problem is a lot of Americans are self-surviving, not self-sacrificing, and they expect to live a very distinct lifestyle based on what they see online. When Charlie encouraged young people to have more kids than they can afford, he wasn’t saying to recklessly bring a child into this world and have them on welfare. He was saying children aren’t a luxury item to have once you meet a certain tax bracket threshold. You don’t need a mansion in order to build a family," she said.
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Grose cited Stephanie Coontz’s book, "For Better and Worse," throughout the piece, which argues marriage varies across cultures and eras.
"I take conservatives at their word that they want more people to get married and for those people to have more children than they are currently having. 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.
The New York Times did not immediately return Fox News Digital's request for comment.