Alec Neel Vance arrived Sunday morning at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland. An eight pound bouncing baby boy born to Vice President JD Vance and his wife, Second Lady Usha Vance. Alec joins siblings Ewan, 9, Vivek, 6, and Mirabel, 4 to give the Vance family 2 boys and 2 girls.
The last time a sitting vice president's wife gave birth was April 1870, when Schuyler Colfax's wife Ellen delivered a son under the Grant administration. 156 years is a long time between babies born to the second highest ranking official in the United States.
"We are excited to announce that our baby boy, Alec Neel Vance, was born this morning," Vice President JD Vance posted on social media. "Usha and the baby are happy and healthy, and our kids are overjoyed to meet their little brother."
Usha Vance, 40, and the baby were reported healthy, with the Vice President thanking the military doctors and staff at Walter Reed and the White House Medical Unit for their care. JD and Usha met at Yale Law School, married in 2014, and apparently meant it when they said the whole "family" thing wasn't just a campaign talking point.
Vance had said earlier this year he was unlikely to take parental leave. Which, for a guy who grew up in the circumstances he described in "Hillbilly Elegy," tracks. The man wrote a bestselling memoir about Appalachian poverty, got himself to Yale Law School, married brilliantly, won a Senate seat, became Vice President of the United States, and now has four kids. That's not a résumé. That's the American Dream operating exactly as designed.
The historical angle here is genuinely remarkable. Schuyler Colfax served under Ulysses S. Grant. The country had just finished the Civil War. Reconstruction was underway. The transcontinental railroad was five months old. And no vice president since then has welcomed a child while serving — until now. Presidents, sure. JFK had children in the White House. But not a Vice President.
The second lady originally said she was against having a fourth child despite husband JD asking her to have another child. Usha said that a pivotal moment of her changing her mind came while comforting Erika Kirk after the brutal assassination of her husband Charlie. A grieving Erika bemoaned the fact she only had two children before her husband was taken from her. She wished she'd had more children.
Usha Vance deserves particular credit here. A Yale-trained lawyer who clerked for Chief Justice John Roberts, she left a partnership-track career at a major law firm to raise their growing family. The feminist establishment has never quite figured out what to do with women like her — accomplished enough to meet every credential test, traditional enough to make choices they can't celebrate.
The name is worth noting, too. Alec Neel. Neel is Usha's family name. Ewan, Vivek, Mirabel, and now Alec — each one reflecting a family that pulls from Indian heritage and Appalachian roots.
That's not a political statement. That's just a family that keeps showing up.
