Paid paternity leave is important and should be more widely available than it is. However, the standards are and must be different from the average employee for a man charged with running a government agency.

Politico reported this week that Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg has been on paid paternity leave since mid-August after he and his husband, Chasten, adopted two infants. Probably more fathers should take time to spend with newborn children, but notice how during this same period, U.S. ports ran into serious backlogs, as did the airlines, leading to a transportation crisis that threatens to upend the entire supply chain.