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Call her daddy? More like call her mommy.

“Call Her Daddy” podcast host Alex Cooper’s pregnancy announcement sent the internet into a frenzy — not because a woman is having a baby, but because this woman is. The host who built an empire telling young women to stay unattached, sleep around, and never apologize for it is now married, expecting, and apparently just fine with all of it. Critics cried hypocrisy. But are they right?

Now, I’m not here to defend Alex Cooper’s rhetoric, content, or influence over young women’s decision-making in any way, but I can’t help but notice that the criticism of her supposed anti-marriage, anti-motherhood stance misses the point.

Most criticisms surrounding Cooper’s announcement were that she “secretly” dated, decided to get married, and now is becoming a mother after she had told young women to be forever single. So much for a secret! Cooper announced her “intimate beachside wedding in the Riviera Maya” in Vogue. And her pregnancy announcement was foreshadowed by, ironically, a full episode titled, “I’m Not Ready For A Baby…” in which she openly discussed trying to get pregnant with her husband Matt Kaplan, including going off birth control and questioning whether she was fertile, ultimately concluding the timing wasn’t right. Hardly the words of someone opposed to motherhood.

Cooper’s podcast has unashamedly encouraged young women to hook up with whomever they want, whenever they want, for however long they want. She has sold a young woman’s twenties as a time to explore any and all desires, party on, and not give an “eff” about what anyone else says. It’s the Samantha Jones philosophy for sex. But unlike the “Sex in the City” character, Cooper has chosen monogamy and motherhood — fortunately, as will many other girls who grew up listening to her bad advice.

Millennial women grew up in one of the most “sex-positive” moments in history, choosing to not align with traditional timelines for marriage or child-bearing and to “enjoy their youth” instead. But this doesn’t mean they’re not getting married or having kids, just like Cooper. Rather, women are delaying these milestones into their late-20s and 30s.

According to a senior fellow at the Institute for Family Studies, Cooper’s pregnancy comes at a, dare I say, “normal” time in her life. Lyman Stone, who shared a study on X, says this:

For a non-Hispanic white woman married to a non-Hispanic white man with no children prior to marriage where both have a college degree, 48% of first births were between ages 29 and 33.

Since virginity at ages 29-33 is a statistical minority, and even single-partneredness is, we…

— Lyman Stone 石來民 🦬🦬🦬 (@lymanstoneky) May 18, 2026

If Cooper’s timeline isn’t exactly late, and even with her pro hook-up culture rhetoric, she still has the natural desire to get married and have kids, then some may argue, what’s the harm in all of this?

The reality is that women (and certainly men) are using their twenties to party and sleep around — and for some, it might even result in finding the right person. It did for Cooper. But the larger dilemma is that in the name of bodily autonomy, many women find themselves entering a life of adult adolescence, which delays these milestones for a larger portion of the population than in the past. Many women eventually find themselves asking: Where did I go wrong? When in reality, the choices they made may not have been shaping them into the kind of women men envision as “wifey material,” and leave them feeling like a shell of themselves.

There are many nuances to this theory, but what time cannot change is this: the standards are different for men and women. Society has encouraged young men to “sow their wild oats” and choose to settle down once they reach a place of financial stability that is enough to support a family. Women, on the other hand, even after decades of so-called “progress” and feminism, will still be called slanderous names for having multiple sexual partners.

In season 2 of “Sex and the City,” Carrie wrestles this truth: “If you’re a 30-something woman living in Manhattan and you refuse to settle and you’re sexually active, it’s inevitable that you’ll rack up a certain number of partners. But how many men is too many men? Are we simply romantically challenged — or are we sluts?”

The danger in Alex Cooper’s so-called advice and laissez-faire sexual philosophy is that although she may have ended up in the right place, the question remains: is it working out for the women who have listened to her? It may have for some, as many women desire marriage and motherhood even while playing the field. But for others, they’re left confused and wondering why, at 30 or older, they still can’t seem to find a husband.

The truth is, women still want these things, and they are very good things. The best, actually. And rather than empowering themselves by sleeping around like men — without emotion, detached, and “just for fun” — many women are turning up feeling left behind, unprepared, and diminished by choices they once thought were liberating. This is the real danger.

Alex Cooper’s story has a happy ending. The question worth asking is whether the philosophy she sold along the way leads other women to the same place, or leaves them stranded somewhere in the middle, wondering where the script went wrong. Empowerment that only works for the person selling it isn’t empowerment at all. Call her what you want. Just don’t call her a role model.

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Isabella Redjai is a New York City-based writer who covers media, culture, and politics.

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Alex Cooper Told Women To Delay Settling Down. Now She’s Having The Fairytale Ending.