Usha's Awesome Opportunity

I’m not alone in my sense that the highlight of President Trump’s Inauguration on Monday was Vice President and Second Lady Vance’s young children behaving, despite the pomp and circumstance, as children do. When one of the little Vance boys reached over to tousle his mother’s hair (which doubtlessly took great effort to perfect), there were glimmers of Catherine the Princess of Wales negotiating with Prince Louis on the balcony at Queen Elizabeth’s Platinum Jubilee. The way a public-facing mother manages discipline of an overstimulated child, while maintaining her sequin smile, certainly inspires sympathy, and perhaps some knowing laughter, in fellow mothers looking on.

Usha and Catherine already have much in common: unassuming backgrounds relative to their current status, impressive educational accomplishments of their own, natural grace under extreme public scrutiny, tall husbands, three young children, and last but not least, excellent taste in clothing. However, I think the thing that unites them most powerfully in the public conscience is that, however you may feel about either one of their husbands’ politics, their presence in public life as mothers of young children gives those who are onlooking, who frequently struggle with loneliness or a sense of disconnection, hope.

For Catherine and Usha, simply having the courage to be seen as they are is a publicity win for the vocation of motherhood. Yes, behind the scenes, they may have resources and access to help that would be unimaginable to the average person. But still, the way these women hold themselves in an upright, dignified manner, publicly and alongside their children, confers status onto the rest of us by proxy. These are the mechanics of mimesis. Especially in a particular age where motherhood feels so very alienating and low status for so many, images of Usha and Catherine are cathartic. As the cliché goes: representation matters!

Like the Princess of Wales, our lovely new Second Lady will have the opportunity to choose a platform for which she will advocate during her tenure. I hope that Usha chooses exactly what she cares about most, be it harsher punishment for parole violators or saving the American honeybee. But I would also like to humbly suggest to her that she is now presented with a unique opportunity to initiate a Family-Friendly America.

The American family needs encouragement. Morale is low, anxiety is high, and ambivalence is giving way to culture war partisanship. This problem—nebulous and complicated as it is—demands attention. For the sake of men who hope to be good fathers, children who represent the future of American dynamism, and women, especially, either whose lives feel impossibly strung between work and home, or those who are alienated and disregarded in their lives as mothers, or those who are terrified by the prospect of losing everything they’ve worked to build in order to start a family, a public project oriented toward building a family-friendly society has the potential to address the needs of many. Battles in the ongoing feminist/antifeminist debates seem to occur along these fault lines, but we all have much more in common than we think. There are ways to win-win-win here.

How? First, we can only hope that our legislators will address the most basic needs of the family by confronting stagflation and criminality. Nothing could help families more at this point than to simply be able to afford groceries again and not fear driving or venturing into public space. But it would be a mistake to believe that the only meaningful changes to be made would be through the formal legislative process.

The role of the Second Lady, though constitutionally unscripted and devoid of formal power, is one of immense cultural and symbolic consequence. It echoes the quiet but indispensable contributions of the feminine ideal in the American republican order. Like the keeper of a hearth that illuminates a great house, the Second Lady embodies the grace, poise, and constancy that so often elude the churning machinery of political life. She is at once a public figure and a moral exemplar, reminding the citizenry that governance, at its best, seeks not only to chart the course of nations but to safeguard the sacred precincts of home and family. To this end, her initiatives—whether championing the arts, advocating for mental health, or uplifting the American family—are less about bureaucracy and more about nourishing the invisible threads of culture that hold our civilization together. In a time when dignity and tradition are themselves countercultural acts, the Second Lady’s presence is a bastion of quiet excellence, a whisper of the enduring values that transcend the cacophony of politics as usual.

So many of our problems vis a vis the family are cultural. As a cultural touchstone, the Second Lady is uniquely posed to make a difference. For instance: perceptions about inaccessibility keep many families from participating in public life today. In one of the greatest cultural-political accomplishments of the 20th century, through a combination of the introduction of wheelchair ramps through federal mandate, the raising of awareness of the needs of disabled people, and technical developments of wheelchairs themselves, businesses and public facilities together made it so that paraplegic veterans no longer had to exist in the shadows of isolated obscurity for the rest of their lives after a catastrophic injury. There’s no reason the same logic cooperation can’t be leveraged in favor of families.

Imagine if towns or private businesses across America could be publicly awarded on the basis of their accessibility to young families. Who has walkable plazas where bars and restaurants surround a central playground so that parents can enjoy their time in public with their children? Which architects, city planners, or restaurant owners are accomplishing these things? Which gyms provide high quality childcare at an affordable pricepoint? Which museums include interactive children’s exhibits? Which companies within the child product industry are drastically improving the lives of children and parents?

Through innovative recognition programs, partnerships with forward-thinking architects and planners, and collaboration with international counterparts like Princess Catherine or nations like Hungary, Usha Vance could embody a new kind of public diplomacy—one rooted not in abstract policy but in the tangible, universal value of family life.

Second Lady Usha Vance could create an awards system to recognize the leaders making it happen, adding to the value of their mission and the social capital of young families, once again. She could design a method of recognition for heroism and excellence in motherhood or fatherhood. She could find new ways to honor the critical, civilization-building work of caretakers, who have fallen through the cracks. Any way she wants to fashion it, medals communicate value. Simple recognition is very powerful. 

Furthermore, the general attitude toward SLOTUS is very positive, even among Democrats. She is uniquely situated to unite Left and Right using traditional tools of influence to advance the cause of the family. Doing so would be a huge win for our culture. Pursuant to this objective, following in the footsteps of previous Second Ladies, she could develop partnerships with existing charitable institutions, philanthropists, and researchers in order to bring awareness to their work. Given her brain power, she could publish her own thoughts on the matter in leading newspapers and magazines. Her project could represent a real moment of togetherness for a solely divided society.

Her potential for influence here even extends to the international realm. In June 2021, Princess Catherine announced the The Royal Foundation Centre for Early Childhood, her organization which aims to push for increased awareness of and new research into the impact of the early years. After spending the first year advocating for her mission and visiting domestic institutions that exemplify excellence in the area, Princess Catherine visited Denmark in 2022. While the trip was brief, it was her first solo visit, a landmark step for her role in the royal family. She made official visits to a Danish project working to protect vulnerable women and children from domestic violence, the LEGO Foundation Playlab at University College Copenhagen, and Stenurten Forest Kindergarten, in each case raising awareness for her own project and highlighting innovation in research and development of another country.

It was an iconic moment for public diplomacy, artfully executed by the Princess.

The purpose of public diplomacy is to foster mutual understanding through the strategic integration of cultural, ideological, and informational elements to achieve long-term national security goals and international cooperation. This is a meaningful aspect of American grand strategy that has been sorely missing for many decades. And yet it is one path to restoring moral confidence in our country.

Family friendliness represents an opportunity for Second Lady Usha Vance not only to advance the cause on its own merits domestically but to reach across the aisle, and across the Atlantic, to advance good relations between countries. There’s no reason SLOTUS and POW couldn’t come together on these terms — and what an incredible image that would make. I could see cooperation with my current host country, Hungary, who has experimented with many different kinds of family-first legislation in the past 10 years. From South Korea to the Scandinavian countries, there are countless opportunities for statesmanship here.

To conclude: the opportunity before Second Lady Usha Vance is one of profound cultural and diplomatic importance. By championing family-friendliness as her platform, she could elevate the standing of the American family at home while projecting a vision of societal flourishing abroad. Such a mission would not only address the isolation and anxieties that modern parents feel but also reinvigorate our collective imagination about what public and private life can look like when centered around strong, thriving families. Through innovative recognition programs, partnerships with forward-thinking architects and planners, and collaboration with international counterparts like Princess Catherine or nations like Hungary, Usha Vance could embody a new kind of public diplomacy—one rooted not in abstract policy but in the tangible, universal value of family life. This is more than a platform; it is a path to inspire hope, restore dignity, and foster connections both within our borders and beyond. And in an era of so much division, it offers something sorely needed: a shared vision of excellence that unites us all.

Helen Roy is a visiting fellow with the Danube Institute focused on family flourishing, demographics, and political philosophy. She runs the Substack Roy House in Budapest. This article appeared first on the author's Substack and is reprinted here with her permission.

*Photo: Shutterstock