VICTOR JOECKS: In world of AOCs, be a Leavitt

Even celebrated and thriving women cannot escape the realities of trade‑offs. This month, Representative Alexandria Ocasio‑Cortez announced on Instagram that she is freezing her eggs. The 36‑year‑old congresswoman even administered an injection on camera. She told her followers that she would need another round of shots before her upcoming appearance on ABC’s “This Week.” “I privation you each to spot that, due to the fact that women tin bash anything,” she said. “And I deliberation it’s badass that I’m gonna be, you know, giving myself shots successful the greenish room, get my glam on, rotation out, speech planetary events, home policy, elections, popular out, unrecorded my life, bash my thing.” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt holds different priorities. The 28‑year‑old recently welcomed her second child. On Wednesday she said she was leaving her position to devote more time to her children. “Since returning to the White House aft the commencement of my daughter, I person felt successful my bosom that I cannot beryllium the champion ma my 2 young children merit portion devoting the changeless time, vigor and attraction required of the White House property secretary,” she wrote connected X. These represent two starkly different approaches to motherhood, reflecting a broader national debate. Ocasio‑Cortez is living out the dogma of modern feminism. She places career aspirations above having children, employs modern technology to sidestep biological realities that men do not face, and prioritizes her own independence. It previously emerged that she had ended her engagement with her longtime fiancé. Leavitt, by contrast, embraces traditional values. She puts her children ahead of her career, accepts the biological reality that children reshape mothers, and prioritizes her children’s needs over personal independence, though she appears likely to remain engaged in some professional pursuits. These two worldviews are not compatible. Libertarian passivity is simply a poor option. A nation will ultimately orient itself toward one purpose or the other, and the direction it chooses will substantially shape government policy and the country’s future. While authorities should not compel any woman to have a child, the nation should encourage young people to follow Leavitt’s example. Two reasons support this view. First, it benefits women. As the Institute for Family Studies has documented, mothers report greater happiness than women without children. Children provide both substantial effort and a deep source of meaning and connection. In contrast, many women who spend years climbing the corporate ladder later realize they feel isolated. As numerous women have learned too late, frozen eggs offer no guarantee of a successful pregnancy. Teenage girls cannot know what it feels like to be 40 years old. Over millennia, most women have regarded motherhood as an essential part of womanhood. It is cruelty, not kindness, to mislead young women about this reality, or to withhold the fact that female fertility declines markedly after a woman turns 30. Second, the nation’s future—its freedoms, culture, and material prosperity, which many take for granted—depends on American mothers having children. The more children born, the better. A useful test for any idea is to imagine its universal adoption. If every woman prioritized career over children, the state would cease to be a recognizable entity as years passed. If every woman married, had multiple children in her 20s, and focused on raising them, many of the nation’s most pressing social problems would decline sharply. If you have daughters or granddaughters, encourage them to emulate Leavitt, not Ocasio‑Cortez.