Kelsea Ballerini's haunting new song exposes the loneliness feminism forgot
Kelsea Ballerini’s new viral song, "I Sit in Parks," is haunting. It’s not another breakup anthem or empowerment track. It’s a confession — an elegy for something missing, something she only realized she wanted after the world told her not to want it.
"I sit in parks / It breaks my heart / ’Cause I see just how far I am / From the things that I want."
In just a few lines, she captures the ache of a generation of women who were told to chase freedom, ambition, and self-discovery — but never told what to do when they found themselves alone, wondering if they ran too far from the very things that would have grounded them.
Three years ago, Ballerini divorced her husband, saying she wasn’t sure if she wanted children.
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Ballerini sat down with Alex Cooper for an episode of her "Call Her Daddy" podcast, where she opened up about the demise of her marriage and her divorce EP.
"I don’t know if I want kids at all or not, but that was something we had talked about early on and that was something that I was changing on, you know, because he was ready," the "Heartfirst" artist said on the podcast. "He was like, ‘I don’t want to be an old dad,’ is what he kept saying. And I was like, ‘I’m just not there yet.’"
Now, she’s writing songs about sitting in parks watching families, other women’s families, and wondering if she missed her moment.
It’s heartbreaking, not because she’s weak or naïve, but because she’s honest. She’s saying out loud what millions of women feel but are too afraid to admit: that the promises of feminism —the ones that said motherhood would chain them, that domesticity was a trap, that real meaning lay in career success and unencumbered independence — left them emptier than before.
"Did I miss it? By now is it / a lucid dream, is it my fault / for chasing things a body clock doesn’t wait for?"
That line should be carved into the cultural record because it’s not just about fertility. It’s about time, and how unforgiving it is. Our bodies, our hearts, and our souls have rhythms that no ideology can rewrite. For decades, women were told that "you can have it all" meant "you can have it all, later." But "later" comes faster than we think.
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This is why Kara Kennedy and I started "The Mom Wars" on Substack — to paint a different picture, to push back against the steady drumbeat that tells young women that motherhood is a burden, not a blessing.
We wanted to create a space where women could tell the truth about what makes life full, not hollow. A space to remind the next generation that love, family, and sacrifice aren’t signs of surrender; they’re signs of strength.
Ballerini’s song is powerful because it’s not bitter, it’s sad. It’s reflective. And it’s real. She doesn’t villainize anyone, not even herself. She sits, in that park, with her vape and her Lexapro, staring at the life she thought she didn’t want.
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"They lay on a blanket / And — d** it, he loves her / I wonder if she wants my freedom / like I want to be a mother."*
That lyric cuts straight through the performative feminism of our time. We were sold a freedom that was supposed to make us happy. Instead, it’s made us lonely. We traded roots for wings, but no one told us how to land.
I read those lyrics and felt this strange mix of sorrow and gratitude. Sorrow for the women who believed the lies, who gave up marriage or motherhood because they were told those things would limit them. Gratitude that I didn’t listen.
Just this week, I bought myself a necklace with a charm for each of my children’s names, six in all. When I clasp it around my neck in the morning, it feels like armor against the world’s cynicism. Each letter is a reminder that I chose a path the culture sneers at, but my soul celebrates.
I think about the conversations I’ve had with younger women, smart, driven, beautiful, who whisper that they "might" want kids one day, but not yet, not while they’re building something. I want to grab their hands and say: you are building something every time you love someone, every time you nurture, every time you choose connection over distraction.
Motherhood doesn’t end your story. It deepens it.
"I Sit in Parks" is both a warning and a mirror. It shows us what happens when a culture teaches women to measure their worth in metrics — such as tours, degrees, promotions, and followers — rather than in love, faith, or legacy.
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And yet, maybe Ballerini’s honesty can also be a beginning. Maybe this song, with its haunting melody and piercing regret, can spark a new conversation. Maybe it can help young women ask better questions before it’s too late.
Because this quiet, reflective grief is what’s waiting at the end of the "girlboss" rainbow, and we can do better by our daughters.
I applaud Kelsea Ballerini for being so vulnerable, so human, and so brave. She’s speaking for a generation that was told motherhood was a detour — only to discover it was the destination all along.
So yes, I sit in parks too, but with six little charms who call me Mom. And I thank God every day that I didn’t miss it.
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This essay was first published on the author's Substack "Mom Wars."