Why Socialist Europe Is Better for Families than America

Just days before the American presidential election which, according to most pundits, could go either way - in large part based on how successfully the candidates appeal to women voters - an American expatriate mom has taken Mitt Romney's Europe-bashing rhetoric and raised him one “Trapped by European-style Socialism-And I love It!”

Claire Lundberg, a freelance writer and consultant who lives in Paris with her husband and one-year-old daughter, declared Friday in a column on Slate, the U.S. online magazine, “The coming presidential election represents a choice, says Mitt Romney: a choice between evil European-style socialism and good old American can-do capitalism. As a new mother in France, I'm here to argue that he's wrong. Neither candidate represents actual European-style socialism. And it's a damned shame they don't. The women of America would have a much better shot at having it all if they did.”

Ms. Lundberg makes a pocketbook argument, which see ms pretty ironclad in both its facts and its arguments, that middle-class families are afforded opportunity and freedom in France because of the bill the state foots for childcare and, especially, free universal preschool from the age of 3. She and her husband earn, combined, the equivalent of about $85,000 a year, a solidly middle-class-household income in the United States, but, she writes, “not enough to handle child care in the United States without making some difficult choices.”

These are choices familiar to many young families striving for both professional success and work-family balance. Would one of us have to stay home rather than pay our full salary toward a nanny? Would we move to a city where our parents live, regardless of the job opportunities there, so that we could have their help with child care? Would one of us need to take a “money” job, if we could find one, that we didn't love in order to afford care for our kids? Here, becau se care is so affordable, we don't need to answer any of these questions.

Later she writes:

My husband and I now joke that we're trapped by socialism-once those Europeans get hold of you, with their high taxes and affordable health care and child care, it's hard to break free. It's certainly hard for us to imagine returning to the United States on our current salaries. But though we make less money and pay more taxes in France, we haven't felt the hit as hard-in fact, with health care, child care, and education so affordable, our money seems to go further. Maybe a little socialism would give American women a better shot at having it all.

So, do you agree? Is it better - easier, more affordable, fewer “opportunity costs” - to have young children in France or Europe generally than in the United States? Are there drawbacks to the European support of families? Do other qualities of American society make up for the fina ncial burden on families? We want to hear your thoughts.