Massachusetts Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren’s 2003 book The Two-Income Trap reported that “having a child is now the single best predictor that a woman will end up in financial collapse.” Not to impugn Warren’s reporting, but it seems that, to the contrary, having babies worked out pretty well for the former Obama administration official. According to the profile of Warren out in The New Yorker today, her daughter Amelia, born when Warren was only 22, has been her longtime accomplice, starting when Warren began law school on Amelia’s 2nd birthday.
“It was difficult to find child care,” she told [the crowd at a campaign event]. “They would only take children who were dependably potty-trained,” she explained. “So I just want to say that I am here today courtesy of three bags of M&Ms.”
Amelia, now married to film producer Sushil Tyagi, went on to realize her toddler potential, studying at Wharton, working for McKinsey consultants, founding a health benefits firm, and eventually co-authoring The Two-Income Trap, according to the Boston Globe. And they did it while caring for yet another baby, Tyagi’s first.
Warren went to stay with her for a month, and they discussed her research as they cared for the baby, Tyagi said. “The book was born over a zillion hours of chatting as one or the other of us rocked the baby,” Tyagi wrote. “A month or so later, Mom asked my help on some analysis (I’m something of a closet numbers geek). But it soon hatched into a giant book project.”
The mother-daughter team co-wrote the 2005 personal finance book All Your Worth: The Ultimate Lifetime Money Plan while Tyagi was pregnant with her second child. Republicans have criticized Tyagi for her involvement with Demos, a liberal organization that sponsored lawsuits to improve voter registration drives for welfare recipients in Massachusetts, although Demos has said that Tyagi, who lives in California, was not involved in the lawsuits.
It’s enough to make you reconsider the capabilities of political children. Where were Sasha and Malia when the whole Obamacare fight was going down?
