Tesla CEO Elon Musk spent the day on Capitol Hill last week meeting with members of Congress in order to discuss his plans for the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE. Reporting on the day, CNN’s Haley Talbot tweeted (and then deleted), “Elon Musk is on the Hill today meeting with lawmakers about DOGE. Unclear why but he has a small child in tow.”

Why did Musk have a small child in tow? Probably because that’s his child, and he preferred to have him with him. 

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Over the course of my career, I’ve done the same, bringing my children to conferences, meetings, podcast tapings, speeches, and even to Capitol Hill. We’ve had some funny moments, but the vast majority of the time, my kids sit quietly and observe until it’s time to leave, knowing that there’s some sort of sugar-laden treat in their future as a reward for good behavior. 

Why do I bring my children with me in professional settings? Honestly, the most practical reason is I am a stay-at-home parent with no built-in childcare and no family nearby. But over the course of the last decade of bringing my kids to professional settings, they’ve had incredible experiences the likes of which I could never have dreamed. Once my daughter was spirited away to the House floor by House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA) so he could vote on a bill; at another meeting on the Hill, the speaker’s office found interns to give three of my children a tour, and they had a lovely photo taken of them while I sat in a meeting with the speaker’s staff.

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But more important than my lack of childcare, the reason I bring them with me is because my children are learning how the world works in the best way imaginable. During the meeting with Scalise, my daughter learned about how a bill becomes a law in a far more memorable way than I did, via Schoolhouse Rock. She has been present at so many briefings and meetings that during one meeting between a Israeli hostage family and a congressional staffer when we were asked the current status of the hostage negotiations, she launched into a detailed explanation of the emergence of the Philadelphi corridor as a point of contention between Hamas and the Netanyahu government. 

Marissa Streit of PragerU aptly remarked about Musk’s day on the Hill with his son, “The best education is apprenticeship. For many years, it was the American way. Elon Musk’s kids are getting the best education by learning from their dad.” 

Ultimately, as a parent, I believe that my most important responsibility is to my children and furthering their learning. 

The discomfort many felt at Musk’s decision to bring his son alongside him is a rejection of that notion. We have become a child-free society, where they are neither seen nor heard. As fewer Americans are having children, that’s the preference of many who are childfree by choice. Musk’s decision to bring his child to these settings is viewed both with contempt and hostility because many of his detractors do not appreciate the vital importance of children or the value in giving them transformative experiences. 

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Musk has become a champion for the notion that children are the most important natural resource for any society, and, albeit untraditionally via several mothers, he is putting his money where is mouth is and has fathered an entire baseball team. The decision to bring his child to professional settings is an extension of that belief system: that children need and deserve to be more visible. Musk has emerged as an advocate for children, and making his own child more visible in public is part of that advocacy. 

Normalizing the presence of children, and putting their needs first, is a critical component of how Western civilization saves itself by reversing plummeting birth rates. Musk is leading by example on how to talk the talk and walk the walk on pro-natalist messaging.

Bethany Mandel (@bethanyshondark) is a homeschooling mother of six and a writer. She is the bestselling co-author of Stolen Youth.