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.
