A lousy myth about moms, kids and work makes a comeback. Republicans are running with it.

These narratives, then and now, have the same theme. It is, after all, an American character trait to take personal responsibility for solving a systemic failure — like millennials who think they don’t have enough savings because they order avocado toast, instead of because they’re drowning in student loan debt. Similarly, women, pushed out of the workforce by our family-unfriendly workplaces, lack of care-taking infrastructure and the continuing societal expectation that women — and not men — are the primary parent responsible for the well-being of children, often say they are decisive actors in their own stories. But as Pamela Stone, a professor at Hunter College and author of “Opting Out?” and co-author of “Opting Back In,” told me when I interviewed her a few years back, “Their perception was all about choice, but the stories they told were all about constraints.”