No Exit: What Parents Owe Their Children and What Society Owes Parents

Rating:
Summary: Worth reading
Review: Anne Alstott is an clear, thoughtful writer and this book is fascinating.

She is unusually skillful at making incisive arguments of two different kinds:
- moral arguments, in this case arguments about what society owes parents (given what parents do for society), and
- practical policy arguments about how her new policy initiatives should be shaped to help parents the most without being overly paternalistic.

This book links those two kinds of arguments, and the result is a convincing moral case for some major policy changes. They may not be quite the ones you expect. Alstott is hard to pigeonhole as either a traditional feminist or a traditional economic liberal. Her proposals have their own logic. I think they're worth reading whatever your political/philosophical views.