Anna Paulina Luna’s incredible (and ridiculous) tantrum

Florida Republican Rep. Anna Paulina Luna shut the House of Representatives down Tuesday night, after forcing a vote to allow members of Congress to work from home instead of having to come to the Capitol. It’s a wild move, which she justified by citing the real needs and duties of young motherhood, sowing confusion among the pro-family policy set who believe the government should actively work to encourage pregnancy and growing families.

There's reason for skepticism, however. Luna’s justification repeats the devastating lies of “you can have it all” feminism and the conceits of the laptop class. More: The change she wants would set a terrible precedent.

Faced with the rebellion and not willing to throw out 236 years of precedent, Johnson declared the House in recess and sent its members home.

First: What happened? On Monday, the congresswoman raised a ruckus over forever-standing rules that members of Congress must be present to vote. The issue has been a point of conflict over the past few years, accelerated by COVID but also pushed by the advanced age and general feebleness of so many of our elected leaders. Democrats, by and large, have supported remote voting, while Republicans have opposed it. Luna, a young mother herself, supports proxy voting and says it is essential to properly raising families in your home state. Then, on Monday night she attacked her colleagues, publicly lambasting and resigning her membership in the conservative Freedom Caucus over its members' opposition to her plan.

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-La.) joins most of his fellow Republicans in opposing the precedent of remote governance, but on Tuesday, Luna recruited eight Republicans to join the Democrats on a successful discharge petition, which would have forced a vote on the issue by the end of the week. Faced with the rebellion and not willing to throw out 236 years of precedent, Johnson declared the House in recess and sent its members home.

So now the confusion. It’s an exciting time for pro-family policies, which until recently were a fringe issue pushed to the back by concerns about regulation and an obsession with the GDP. Today, conservatives have dispensed with the idea that government couldn’t possibly incentivize growing families or provide relief for the time and money they require. The vice president himself is one of this shift’s most vocal champions.

This is clear-headed. Not only are children quite literally the builders of our future, but the breakdown of nuclear families and its devastating effects are keenly felt across the entire country. What’s more, Democrats and supporting activists from Black Lives Matter to the public schools and the children’s “rights” set have actively worked to undermine what remains. That doesn’t mean, however, that every carve-out for motherhood and family life is a wise one. This is where Luna goes wrong.

Starting a family is a sacrifice. No amount of tinkering will take that away, but nor should it. That sacrifice of putting your children before yourself is an essential, character-forming stage of motherhood and fatherhood alike. I’m not talking about travel sports and all the other eccentricities of our wealthy and overbearing parent class; I’m talking about the day-in and day-out of not being in charge of when you go to sleep, when you wake up, or much of what’s in between.

One of the most terrible myths most in my generation were told as children is that you can have it all. “Don’t get married young,” “don’t start having children until your 30s,” “the most important thing is going to college, then striving in your career, then success and making a difference, and then you can start a family, no problem.” “You have all the time in the world, kid.”

None of the above is true, but millions were misled until it was too late. “Failure to launch” is now a feature in the New York Times. America’s wealthiest and most career-focused cities are teeming with single women in their late 30s and early 40s. Of course, Luna did not fail to launch. She’s a married, elected member of Congress with an infant at home. But that brings us back to sacrifice. Among the things you must surrender to your children is the ability to do whatever you want for work. Those days are over! Travel demands, late nights, weekends away, and yes, in-office vs. remote schedules play nearly as big a factor in the jobs a parent with young kids can take as health care and compensation. I know almost no one who hasn’t had to turn down this or that opportunity because he or she has kids or intends to soon.

And that’s proper! Because once you start having children, you can’t do everything you want and still be a good parent. You can’t hang out with your friends like you used to or travel on that trip you were hoping for. You can’t take a job that puts you on the road four days a week or move to your dream house if your family’s got roots where you are or is simply not ready to move yet. That’s meant a lot of things for my wife and my career choices and the town we live in and the trips we take — and will continue to for quite a while longer.

This basic understanding wasn’t at the front of everyone’s minds these past few years, though. COVID ushered in a wave of techno-optimism that society no longer needed offices and the cultures and productivity and habits and relations that form around on-site work. Singles and families alike left the coasts and moved all over the country, sometimes keeping their jobs remotely and sometimes finding new work. Some employers have learned they can make remote employment work and that maybe it even improves on the product. Most, however, learned that arrangement is far from ideal.

Of course, one massive group of Americans who didn’t get to enjoy the luxury of the work-from-home utopia are blue-collar workers. It was incredible to hear Democrats and NPR and the rest wonder how they could possibly return safely to work when garbagemen and police and bus drivers and plumbers and deliverymen and soldiers and truckers had never taken a day off. That reality was barely noticed by the laptop class, who comfortably demanded that the privilege be extended to a right while the basic functions of society continued all around them.

Congressional Democrats were among the loudest of this set, and the 2020 news is chock-full of congressmen joining hearings they couldn’t possibly attend in person from foreign vacation homes and other luxury spots around the world. Why should they come to work? Do they need to be in the Capitol, wearing pants, debating and conversing with their colleagues to vote “yea” or “nay” and govern these United States? Can’t we do it on Zoom?

But governing is hard work. It’s public service and a sacrifice. It’s a lot of travel and time away from home. It can mean late nights, early mornings, and constant demands on your time and attention. It’s very hard on children of any age, but particularly young ones. And it doesn’t take a whole lot of deep thought to realize it’s not an ideal position for a parent of either sex.

There are policies that ought to be tinkered with and changed. Making life easier for mothers and fathers with young kids is a crucially important area of public policy. Even then, it will always take sacrifice. That sacrifice will mean we can't always bend the realities and duties of every job and every service to our needs. It means something’s got to give.

If you want to stay in your beautiful town and raise your kids outside this ugly city, God bless you. Do it. Family is more important than anything you’ll ever do in Manhattan or Los Angeles or Washington, D.C. You can’t just can’t work remote. That’s not how we govern.

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