I defend the Romney child allowance plan against criticism from Senators Marco Rubio and Mike Lee in The New York Times. The senators called the Romney proposal “welfare assistance” and added: “An essential part of being pro-family is being pro-work. Congress should expand the Child Tax Credit without undercutting the responsibility of parents to work… Read More
Tag: featured
Snow Days and Slack
The covidtide winter was already hard, and then schools started doing away with snow days in favor of digital school. I'm at Breaking Ground defending the snow day and its power to interrupt our overscheduled, strained routines. Slack is a necessary part of life, both for the individual and for the community. In Prayer as a… Read More
Defending Dependence
My essay, "Dependence: Toward an Illiberalism of the Weak" is part of Plough's Family issue. Everyone is dependent (at least some of the time) but women have a much harder time than men pretending not to be. Hiding dependence hurts us all. On January 21, I'll be joining Ross Douthat, Sarah C. Williams and Peter… Read More
Bridging the Divide Within Feminism
At Newsweek, I'm discussing some of the tensions within modern feminism, and where we can find common ground across the abortion divide. Women are divided over how to respond to a world that treats us as defective men. Do we try to elbow our way in by adjusting our lives to a norm that may… Read More
Bad Art Warps Our Vision
At First Things, I take a crack at explaining why smutty art is bad in the way airbrushing and CGI Yoda are bad. It’s the same reason we should object to airbrushed skin and photoshopped waists. It’s the same reason we should object to sending barely pubescent girls or anorexic teens down the catwalks to model clothes ostensibly being… Read More
Will the Real Mrs. America Please Stand Up
I reviewed Hulu/FX's Mrs. America for The American Interest. The show turns on one question: Who gets to claim the mantle of a women’s movement? In episode four, Schlafly and Friedan square off in a debate. Both women relish the fight—Friedan more obviously, exclaiming “God, I’d like to burn you at the stake,” just as… Read More
All the Screen’s a Stage
When the American Shakespeare Center in Staunton, VA had to close its playhouse due to the pandemic, I audited their online classes as a reporter for The American Interest. During a discussion of alliteration, one smaller girl, attending the class with her big sister, stumbles on Bottom’s tongue-twister of a line, “I trust to take of truest… Read More
Discernment in Plague-Times
I wrote at First Things on Kristen Lavransdatter as a primer for living a life of Christian service and witness in a pandemic. It was intended, among other things, as a rejoinder to the idea that sheltering in place was cowardice. Someday when our children ask us “What did you do during the coronavirus pandemic?,” it won’t… Read More
Fear and the Benedict Option
Any sort of retreat will also attract people who are tempted to hate the part of the world they are withdrawing from. Any group gathering in a BenOp spirit should expect to attract people at varying levels of weariness, anger, fear, and despair. Even a legitimate righteous anger can curdle into contempt or despair. To… Read More
Locating Our Invisible Wounds
At Comment I wrote about how the coronavirus links us in a solidarity of suffering. But we'll have to work to retain that solidarity with the more everyday kinds of suffering when the pandemic passes. This piece was published in partnership with the Breaking Ground project, which asks how we can use this time of disruption… Read More
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