by Devon Balwit
A few months before he began his 2022 Senate campaign, JD Vance reached out to a conservative family policy group with an idea for an opinion essay. He wanted to write about why government-subsidized day care was bad — and why most young children do better when one parent stays home... “We cannot get away from the fact that a child is hard-wired to bond with mom,” said Jenet Erickson, a co-writer of Mr. Vance’s 2021 essay and a fellow at the Institute for Family Studies, a conservative policy group that advocates for raising the birthrate. “They know her smell, they know her heartbeat, they know her voice. I just think, why should we deny that?” —The New York Times, May 12, 2025
It is impossible for any situation to go on well where one is at the bottom who ought to be either independent or at the top. I am at the bottom and ought not be there. —Florence Nightingale, private note, 1851, in Ever Yours, Florence Nightingale: Selected Letters
Lacking a penis, the young Florence Nightingale
had to satisfy herself with the yearly sorting of linens
and kitchen utensils. She noted, wryly, in her journal
that, as for the latter, form didn’t follow function—
she hadn’t the faintest idea of their use. She hoped,
that Capital, by creating a need for them, had allowed some
at least, to earn their bread. Luckily, proper scope
for her talents emerged in the war hospitals of Crimea.
Now, talk has again turned to what
is “natural” for women—surprise—a predilection for babies
and scutwork. Out comes the myth, trailing dust,
that career women are selfish and their children unhappy.
Have we learned nothing since the Victorians—
that if unchosen, a woman’s home is her prison?
When not making art, Devon Balwit walks in all weather and edits for Asimov Press and Asterisk Magazine.
