The role of religion in JD Vance’s family life

Editor’s note: This story was originally published in July. It was updated ahead of Tuesday’s vice presidential debate.
Sen. JD Vance and his wife, Usha Chilukuri Vance, do not share a faith, but they do both believe that religion plays an important role in family life.
During a June interview with “Fox & Friends,” Usha Vance described how her Hindu parents helped her recognize that personal faith can make you a better parent.
“My parents are Hindu and that was one of the things that made them such good parents, that make them really good people. I’ve seen the power of that in my own life,” she said.
That’s one reason why Usha Vance supported JD Vance’s religious journey. The Ohio senator, who this week was chosen by former President Donald Trump to be his running mate, grew up attending evangelical Christian churches but was baptized as an adult when he joined the Catholic Church, as the Deseret News previously reported.
JD and Usha Vance met at Yale Law School.
In addition to taking the same classes, they worked together to create a campus discussion group on “social decline in white America,” according to The New York Times.
The pair got married in Kentucky about a year after they graduated from Yale Law School. They had a traditional Christian ceremony, as well as a separate ceremony in which “they were blessed by a Hindu pundit,” The New York Times reported.
Over the past decade, as Vance navigated newfound fame after the publication of “Hillbilly Elegy” and then entered the world of politics, Usha Vance worked as a lawyer, specializing in topics like higher education, entertainment and technology, and completed a Supreme Court clerkship, per The Washington Post.
She, along with her husband, also focused on raising their young children. JD and Usha Vance have three kids: Ewan, Vivek and Mirabel.
Vance referenced the difficulties of balancing a political career with fatherhood while speaking on the Senate floor earlier this year.
“I have a little guy named Vivek who was 3 years old yesterday but turned 4 today. And I’m sorry that they could I can’t be with you for your birthday dinner, but I want you to know that Daddy loves you very much,” Vance said in February during a debate on Ukraine, according to The Hill.
Vance was seen out and about in Milwaukee with his three kids during the Republican National Convention, one day after being named as Trump’s running mate.
Vance referenced being a father during a 2019 interview about his Catholic faith.
He told Rod Dreher of The American Conservative that, before converting to Catholicism, he had to consider what that choice would mean for his son, Ewan, who was then 2.
“(My conversion) probably would have happened sooner if the sex abuse crisis, or the newest version of it, hadn’t made a lot of headlines. It forced me to process the church as a divine and a human institution, and what it would mean for my two year old son,” Vance said in 2019.
Vance ultimately chose to move forward with getting baptized and received in the Catholic Church. That decision followed a period of religious exploration and, before that, a period of near-atheism.
“I’ve been going to church for the past year or so. Not as much as I should, but more than I have been,” Vance told the Deseret News about his faith in 2016.
In the June interview with “Fox & Friends,” JD Vance and his wife, Usha, spoke about Vance becoming a Catholic and their family’s approach to faith.
Vance noted that Usha Vance was not raised Christian and that she’s not a Christian today. He added that she was supportive of his religious journey.
The interviewer then asked if the Vances find it difficult to raise kids in an interfaith household. Usha Vance said they stay focused on the beliefs they hold in common.
“There are a lot of things we just agree on when it comes to family life and how to raise our kids. I think the answer is we really just talk a lot,” she said.