A quiet conversation inside the Vice President’s residence offers a glimpse into the personal faith and family life of Vice President J.D. Vance and his wife, Second Lady Usha Vance, as they speak openly about religion, marriage and raising a young family in Washington.The couple spoke to Sunday Morning national correspondent Roberto Costa about life at the Vice President’s mansion, where they are raising three children aged four, six and nine, with a fourth child due soon.Vance joked about the unusual circumstances, saying even the president would tease him about it.“The president actually surprises me sometimes because he’ll say, ‘Your house is nicer than mine,'” he said.The interview also focused on Vance’s most recent book, “Communion: Finding My Way Back to Faith,” which details his 2019 conversion to Catholicism and the impact it had on his politics, marriage and personal life.Usha Vance spoke about how her husband’s faith journey has impacted their relationship, including her past comments about therapy and church.Usha once told her husband: “Treatment doesn’t work for you, church does.”She added to the idea in the interview.“It’s not that therapy doesn’t work for other people,” Usha says, “but JD just didn’t have the right trust in the process. He just didn’t feel comfortable in it and couldn’t really explore some of his feelings and try to figure out how he wanted to be who he wanted to be for the rest of his life.”In his book, Vance describes his search for stability after a turbulent childhood. Growing up in an ever-changing family environment, he said, he often felt uneasy.“In a way, I grew up in a very non-traditional household, you know? People were coming in, people were going out, sometimes being raised by my grandparents, sometimes being raised by my parents, my mom, my dad. So, there was a certain fluidity and chaos to my youth. I do think I was looking for something that felt more grounded, that felt more stable.”
Did Vance force Usha to convert?
Usha grew up in a Hindu family in California. She said there were often misunderstandings about their relationship and differences in beliefs.The second lady cleared up any misunderstandings, saying, “I think people at one point did understand the idea that J.D. was interested in my conversion. I think the root cause of the misunderstanding is that he is Catholic; part of his faith is wanting to spread his faith. But he doesn’t preach to me every day. “She also described how she often provided input on her husband’s political rhetoric.“Well, she would just text me or call me or if we were sitting in the house together, she would tell me,” Vance said. “Usha is very outspoken. That’s one of the reasons I liked Usha from the beginning.”The interviews also touched on how personal conversations influenced their family decisions. Usha said discussions after the killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk helped formulate their thoughts about having a fourth child.“I think it really heightened JD’s sense, which he’d been talking about for a while, about the possibility of having another child that he could love as much as the three we have,” she said.She added: “It really crystallized [him]that feeling that if you can have another child, then you have nothing to regret. If we couldn’t have another child, we would be perfectly happy with the one we had. “
