AND IF I BUILT THIS FORTRESS AROUND YOUR HEARTH: Helen Rittelmeyer turns her politics-as-tribalism shtik, with which I usually disagree (maybe just because I'm too busy trying to build my own tribe from materials I find at home?), into a series of terrific insights, of which this

I can imagine a world in which fatherhood (or motherhood) is simply a matter of love and tenderness, but do we really want to relieve parents of the burden of leadership?

is the center. (Although the footnote is the best part.)

Go, read!

(And hey, be grateful I didn't title this post, "A Woman So Hearthless"!)