Every time a woman leaves the workforce because she can't find or afford childcare, or she can't work out a flexible arrangement with her boss, or she has no paid maternity leave, her family's income falls down a notch. Simultaneously, national productivity numbers decline.

We're all basically made of the same stuff: generosity and selfishness, goodness and greed.

“Job Killer.” Those are the two words you are most likely to hear uttered by most American CEOs when confronted with proposals to enact family-friendly work policies.

It is the future, of course, which politicians grapple with, and that is why politics is so disorderly. Only history clears away some of the debris.

Money often determines not only who gets elected, but what gets done. Which voices do lawmakers listen to, the banks or home owners, coal companies, or asthma sufferers, the CEOs or the unemployed?

Life experience is not something to be denied, but to be celebrated.

Every time a woman leaves the workforce because she can't find or afford childcare, or she can't work out a flexible arrangement with her boss, or she has no paid maternity leave, her family's income falls down a notch. Simultaneously, national productivity numbers decline.