Similarities Between Parenting and Geopolitics

What can international relations theory teach us about parenting? As Stephen Walt observes, there’s plenty of strategic maneuvering in both worlds. For example, once kids are mobile, parents learns about a key concept of geopolitics:

the window of opportunity. You’re feeding or changing Kid #1, and Kid #2 makes a bolt out the front door, just like North Korea tested a nuclear weapon while we were busy with Iraq. Or you’re in the middle of a crowded department store and they each decide to head down different aisles. The potential complications of a multipolar order were never clearer the first time this happened to me.