“Americans on the move, chasing jobs, leave behind family and other deep connections again and again and again. Then we wonder why our relationships and marriages go bad and why we feel lonely.”
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“Today, parents face crises alone as a result of:
Providing no government-funded services for childcare while at the same time encouraging (actually, forcing, though social pressure about what is ‘cool’ to do) both parents to work outside the home—even when they have very young preschool children.…”
“Providing a space for the inner stillness a child needs to contemplate the beauty of life—their very own encounter with the spirit of the Primavera—is what grandparents are ‘for.’”
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“Parenthood is often delayed past what makes sense biologically. That’s because people are given no good choices. Help from family evaporates into thin air when jobs change and people move far away.”
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“There’s a reason infant and child mortality rates dropped when kids were with parents during the Covid lockdown rather than with strangers.”
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“Younger people with callous or indifferent or (most likely) uninformed attitudes about the elderly are cutting their lifespans shorter.”
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“Kids who grow up with active grandparents involved in their daily lives do far better through their entire lifetime than those deprived of such contacts.”
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“What is evolution “telling” us? Answer: if we’re deprived of love, we wither. If we get “born again” into the religion of greed, we kill ourselves.”
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“What is true of hurried sex and bad cooking is true of hurried family life ‘cut’ (as it were) to the pace of a TV commercial or a frantic sex scene.”
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“Great sex is (to me anyway) relaxed, happy, and friendly and built on learning what another treasured person loves to do, feel, and be.”
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“Can we see our relationships as acts of cooperation, not as a competition? Why should it take a pandemic to remind some parents of the pleasures of actually being parents? Can more parents be freed to be parents and stay home for a few years even when there isn’t a pandemic?”
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“Some of us are pushing back against the careerist survival-of-the-fittest time and soul famine.”
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“What if we changed our definition of success so none of us faced social pressures or economic pressures during our children’s little-child years (say birth to four years old and preschool) to conform to a pro-business, one-size-fits-all, Goldman Sachs’— style model of life focused on our job title?”
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“Why aren’t both parents’ jobs flexible enough to accommodate parenthood during, say, the years one to four of any child?”
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“Bonds form when you become home, protector, caregiver, nurse, best friend, teacher, co-adventurer, and above all a most constant and loyal figure in your child or grandchild’s life can’t be faked with ‘quality time’ or visits. I’m sorry I didn’t know this many years ago.”
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“In other words, evolution taught us that we actually are our brothers’ (and children’s) keepers long before the idea was folded into religious concepts expressed in passages such as these: “Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ” (Galatians 6:2), and “I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me” (Matthew 25:35).”
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“Morality is real. It is absolute.
Morality does not need religion.
Morality came first and religion a very distant second.”
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“But what if an individual in a community reduces their relationship with others to brute strength and/or to a career stepping stone? What if we call for family values and then do everything we can to undermine them by refusing to support parents?”
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“We evolved mercy and forgiveness because we evolved the ability to feel empathy, and we aren’t alone. Love is a thing but not only a human ‘thing.’ Love is bigger than just us. Dogs too evolved the capacity to crave love and to return love and service to others.”
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“Other people can’t change us but we can do the hard work to change ourselves. Love is a powerful motivator. When our bad ideas that run counter to evolution’s message of cooperation assail us, such as fundamentalist Nationalist Hinduism, White evangelical Christianity, fundamentalist Saudi-style women-trashing Islam, some versions of fundamentalist Judaism, or rape-the-Earth capitalist “achievement” greed cults, we can choose to fight back.”
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