The Depression era generation of mothers, reared on the values of flag, Mom, and apple pie, believed in self-sacrifice and commitm...ent to others. For them, the worst fate was to be independent: a spinster, or married to a man who couldn't support his family on his salary alone, and have to work. Their daughters, jolted by Vietnam, the sexual revolution, and feminism, were largely committed to themselves. For them, the worst fate was to be dependent.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
According to the historian, they escaped as by a miracle all roving bands of Indians, and reached their homes in safety, with thei...r trophies, for which the General Court paid them fifty pounds. The family of Hannah Dustan all assembled alive once more, except the infant whose brains were dashed out against the apple tree, and there have been many who in later time have lived to say that they have eaten of the fruit of that apple tree.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The life in us is like the water in the river. It may rise this year higher than man has ever known it, and flood the parched upla...nds; even this may be the eventful year, which will drown out all our muskrats. It was not always dry land where we dwell. I see far inland the banks which the stream anciently washed, before science began to record its freshets. Every one has heard the story which has gone the rounds of New England, of a strong and beautiful bug which came out of the dry leaf of an old table of apple-tree wood, which had stood in a farmer's kitchen for sixty years, first in Connecticut, and afterward in Massachusetts,--from an egg deposited in the living tree many years earlier still, as appeared by counting the annual layers beyond it; which was heard gnawing out for several weeks, hatched perchance by the heat of an urn. Who does not feel his faith in a resurrection and immortality strengthened by hearing of this? Who knows what beautiful and winged life, whose egg has been buried for ages under many concentric layers of woodenness in the dead dry life of society, deposited at first in the alburnum of the green and living tree, which has been gradually converted into the semblance of its well-seasoned tomb,--heard perchance gnawing out now for years by the astonished family of man, as they sat round the festal board,--may unexpectedly come forth from amidst society's most trivial and handselled furniture, to enjoy its perfect summer life at last! I do not say that John or Jonathan will realize all this; but such is the character of that morrow which mere lapse of time can never make to dawn. The light which puts out our eyes is darkness to us. Only that day dawns to which we are awake. There is more day to dawn. The sun is but a morning star.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Pessimists say that the family is eroding. Optimists say the family is diversifying. Both points of view are right. Families are m...ore diverse and they are more in trouble--but not because of their diversity. The families of today--whatever their size or shape--are in crisis because our economy is failing, our national resources are shrinking, and our governmental policies to support them are inadequate.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
... the aspiring immigrant ... is not content to progress alone. Solitary success is imperfect success in his eyes. He must take h...is family with him as he rises.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The naturalistic literature of this country has reached such a state that no family of characters is considered true to life which... does not include at least two hypochondriacs, one sadist, and one old man who spills food down the front of his vest.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I come from a long line of male chauvinists in a very traditional family. To rebel against my background, I didn't shoot dope--I m...arried a working woman.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
... what's been building since the 1980's is a new kind of social Darwinism that blames poverty and crime and the crisis of our yo...uth on a breakdown of the family. That's what will last after this flurry on family values.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »