There are two values that occupy the highest places in my heart: Helping all children develop to their fullest potential, and supporting individuals in their quests to live full lives outside of the restrictive social roles that we learn from very young ages. The two values are related, but not the same.

I don't have children, and I do not plan to have any. Yet, in my mind, child care and early childhood education is the most important issue any nation faces. In the United States, we pay a lot of lip service to the importance of child care and early education, recognizing the field as critical to parents' ability to go to work, as a way to prepare young children for school, and as a safe place for older kids to go after school while their parents are at work.

My sister has a degree in elementary education. Because she lives in a college town that churns out education majors in a dying state in the Midwest, it took her a few years to find a teaching job. In the meantime, she clocked some serious hours as the director of a before- and after-school program. On days like Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, the regular teachers had the day off. Dana had to be at work at 6 am. The parents who used the program needed to send their kids to school while they worked. Schools may be closed, as are banks and the government, but increasingly people are working in jobs that don’t observe federal holidays or give it to workers as a paid day.