Why Warren Won't Win...

or, Think of the Children!

There are a lot of female journalists, many of a certain age, plumping for Elizabeth Warren for president! It's time for a woman! She's smart, she's tough, she'll take the bully pulpit right back from President Trump to focus on our families!

But... have you seen how that shakes out for the children, the promises she intends to keep?

Paid government daycare subsidies for all, not means-tested, as soon as the new mother -- and her employer -- deem it necessary, and lawful, for her to return to work...

After-school programs -- government funded -- until 5pm or 6pm, when the working parent is able to pick the child up from daycare, and return him or her to the family home for care. Likely we will also see, daycare subsidies for weekend work, to free women up to be competitive with the men, and the singles, who are willing to work weekends to advance their careers, as well as pull long weekday shifts when a project demands.

The poor little ones, pretty soon, we'll have an Uber app -- in a self-driving vehicle? -- that eliminates the daycare dropoff, where distracted and tired parents sometimes forget -- "It could happen to any of us!" -- to actually remove their charge from the car and sign him or her in to the facility for care.

Do most Americans prefer subsidized care -- even when the choice might be a stay-at-home grandma collecting as the caregiver -- paid for by taxes, and distributed according to regulations of who qualifies as a provider?

Do we want to subsidize more of the private religious choices of others as our country diversifies: yeshivas where the children do not learn math or society-contributing roles greater than their religious studies; mosques with segregated classes for boys and girls; Catholic schools where only "appropriate" religious role models serve in staff and support positions to protect the youngsters from viewpoint diversity?

America, despite our failings, has always been better for our families. Together, we built, conquered, travelled, settled, planted, grew, overcame and indeed, struggled with foes from indigenous groups to slavemasters alike, in keeping the family together and overcoming through the ages. Women in history are anonymously credited, of course, compared to the men. They didn't object loudly, when history was being written, as the fruits of their labors were evident in their times, and ours.

The ending to "My Antonia" is worth rereading, for those students of American history who think that women need more leadership roles, or checks to help them raise their families and subsidize the outsourced work. The great immigrant success story, Antonia greeted her old friend Jim on her land, surrounded by sons and daughters, her body strong from the pioneering work of breaking land and nurturing life.

"She was a battered woman now, not a lovely girl," he says of Ántonia, "but she still had that something which fires the imagination, could still stop one's breath for a moment by a look or gesture that somehow revealed the meaning in common things. She had only to stand in the orchard, to put her hand on a little crab tree and look up at the apples, to make you feel the goodness of planting and tending and harvesting at last. All the strong things of her heart came out in her body, that had been so tireless in serving generous emotions. It was no wonder that her sons stood tall and straight. She was a rich mine of life, like the founders of early races."

Warren Won't Win because we're not ready to surrender our own American Dreams of family to the government-sponsored diversity that takes in taxes and redistributes. Values about the importance of life, and the choices we make in how best to transmit family values, are not shared from the coasts inward.

Some are still taught to look at the pricetag before buying in...