I still remember the first time one of my toddlers bolted into the street — every cell in my body shifted from principle to protection in an instant. Fatherhood doesn’t just stir the heart; it rewires the brain. In those early years, my focus stretched from the next news cycle to the day my kids might walk their own children to school. Sacrifice stopped being a slogan and became second nature.

New York Assemblyman and socialist wunderkind Zohran Mamdani, 33, is newly married and — so far — childless. But he’s busy trying to reshape a city where roughly one-third of children already grow up without fathers. That void correlates with higher poverty, lower academic performance, and a 279% spike in gun-carrying and drug-dealing among boys. These aren’t abstract numbers. They’re generational failures — and Mamdani’s agenda would only make them worse.

Fatherhood teaches trade-offs. Socialism hides them behind someone else’s money.

Take his signature proposal for “free” cradle-to-kindergarten care. He wants universal day care seats, baby-supply “baskets,” mental health counselors in every school, and car-free pickup zones. The cost? Roughly $12 billion per year, funded by higher taxes on employers and top earners.

Parents hear promises like that and think about the paycheck covering piano lessons and groceries. Government doesn’t create money; it redirects it. And new taxes on employers show up as thinner paychecks, higher prices, and fewer jobs.

His rent policy isn’t any better. Nearly 30% of New York renters are families with children. Mamdani wants to pack the city’s Rent Guidelines Board with activist votes to lock rent increases at zero. But freezing rent doesn’t create bedrooms. It discourages builders, shrinks housing supply, and drives growing families out of the city. Ask any parent in a cramped walk-up: When the family grows and the square footage doesn’t, someone ends up sleeping in the hallway.

Mamdani’s approach to crime is just as detached from reality. In 2020, he tweeted: “There is no negotiating with an institution this wicked & corrupt. Defund it. Dismantle it. End the cycle of violence.” Today, he promotes a $1 billion Department of Community Safety — $600 million of it reallocated from existing programs — staffed largely by social workers.

But dads hauling strollers through subway stations at midnight know what real safety looks like. It involves more than pastel-vested mediators. When train platforms feel lawless, families don’t stick around. They drive. Or they leave the city altogether.

And culture matters too — especially for kids. Mamdani defends the slogan “globalize the intifada,” claiming it’s rooted in the same Arabic term used by the Holocaust Museum to describe the Warsaw Ghetto uprising. He co-sponsored the “Not on Our Dime!” Act to cut off donations to charities linked to Israel and once refused to sign a Holocaust remembrance resolution. Jewish leaders call it anti-Semitism. Parents call it reckless — because they know their kids might hear the echo of that rhetoric in homeroom tomorrow.

Data confirm what dads already know: Kids without a father in the home are 47% more likely to live in poverty. Fathers who show up daily help blunt toxic stress and behavioral problems. It’s not just about income. It’s about modeling restraint, responsibility, and the long-term thinking Mamdani’s high-spend, low-accountability vision systematically undermines.

RELATED: Establishment Dems say Mamdani and his allies are in for a ‘painful lesson’

Photo by Barry Williams/New York Daily News/Tribune News Service via Getty Images

Our political compass is broken. Résumés stuffed with Ivy League credentials, activist hashtags, and crowdfunding clout now pass for qualifications. Meanwhile, we discount the experience that actually trains a person to lead — especially the crucible of parenthood.

Raising children demands long-term planning, hard budgeting, and a deep sense of stewardship. It builds moral seriousness — and exposes policies that collapse under the weight of real-world trade-offs.

Even California Democrat Gov. Gavin Newsom just proved the point. On a recent podcast with retired Navy SEAL Shawn Ryan, Newsom admitted that pushing “gender-affirming care” on 8-year-olds is “tough, man.” He acknowledged that Democrats have a “major problem” with voters on the issue.

And then he said it: “Now that I have a 9-year-old ... I get it.” One of the left’s crown princes backed off the party line the moment fatherhood entered the chat.

Of course, not everyone can have children. Many serve the next generation through adoption, teaching, mentoring, or public service. Their sacrifices matter. The point isn’t that only parents deserve a voice — but that people who have shouldered the daily demands of raising children tend to lead with more foresight, more restraint, and more care than the abstract theorists ever do.

Now picture Zohran Mamdani pacing Gracie Mansion at 2 a.m., rocking a colicky newborn. Would he still blow $12 billion on sprawling social programs instead of cutting waste and letting families keep more of their earnings? Would he still gamble his child’s walk to school on unarmed crisis counselors? Would he still bet her rent on policies that shrink the housing supply?

Fatherhood teaches trade-offs. Socialism hides them behind someone else’s money.

New York needs leadership rooted in faith, family, and lived responsibility — not hashtags or hollow credentials. Until Mamdani graduates from theory to midnight diaper duty, voters who already live in the real world shouldn’t hand him the baby.