When I go grocery shopping with my year-old daughter Mirabel, it’s clear that what she lacks in life experience she makes up for with a keen sense of which products were designed just for her. The cereal boxes clad in cartoon characters and soup cans outfitted with Disney princesses already attract...

Last week, researchers found a host of toxic chemicals in the bodies of pregnant women throughout the U.S. Industry reps quickly trotted out their favorite messages in response: "Chemicals are a fact of modern life," "just because toxins are in your body doesn't mean they'll hurt you," and "the...

Education reform: I fervently believe women who are in the schools every day--as parent volunteers, and as teachers--have a great deal to tell policymakers what works and what doesn't. What we need is a pointilist approach: steady application of dots of information about how schools are working--or not working--that add up to a big picture. We need it from parents, students, and educators themselves.

Save lives, help small businesses, cut the deficit, and grow jobs. How could anyone be against that? Yet efforts are afoot in Congress to repeal the new health care reform law, the Affordable Care Act, before it's even fully implemented as is planned over the next several years. In fact, there's a...