We live in only one direction in time, from birth to childhood to adulthood to old age. Children need families and caretakers, and those families and caretakers need time. This can be supplied only by sound policy: maternity leave, paternity leave, predictable work scheduling, paid sick days, public childcare, and vacations. I have lived with children in countries that have these policies, which lend the gentle hint of freedom to the roughness of the everyday. Families need calm to navigate life’s passages, and thus they need public school, health care, and retirement pensions. When such
...more
