15/10, a must read.

Our culture is oddly stuck. We want stability and rootedness, but also mobility, dynamic capitalism, and the liberty to adopt the lifestyle we choose. We want close families, but not the legal, cultural, and sociological constraints that made them possible.

Admittedly, the first part of the article made me feel like a downer. A future reality of being stuck in this oxymoronic space forever made me panic for a hot second. The description of a mother with a baby carriage walking alone in the middle of the suburbs with few (to no) others around, none of them interacting with one another, is something I have regularly witnessed in the places I've lived. And that image has always made me scratch my head.

The good news is that human beings adapt, even if politics are slow to do so. When one family form stops working, people cast about for something new—sometimes finding it in something very old.

So glad that David Brooks continued on a higher note, telling stories of those who have dedicated their days to creating communities outside of the nuclear and extended family. I'm excited to see if towns and cities will adapt housing blueprints that optimize for community living and creating forged families.

This story of All Our Kids made me beam:

Some years earlier, Kathy and David had had a kid in D.C. Public Schools who had a friend named James, who often had nothing to eat and no place to stay, so they suggested that he stay with them. That kid had a friend in similar circumstances, and those friends had friends. By the time I joined them, roughly 25 kids were having dinner every Thursday night, and several of them were sleeping in the basement.

I joined the community and never left—they became my chosen family. We have dinner together on Thursday nights, celebrate holidays together, and vacation together. The kids call Kathy and David Mom and Dad. In the early days, the adults in our clan served as parental figures for the young people—replacing their broken cellphones, supporting them when depression struck, raising money for their college tuition. When a young woman in our group needed a new kidney, David gave her one of his.This story gives me so much hope for the future of families, and how they may look different from the nuclear family we often envision. It makes me excited for the evolution of parenthood, and what parenthood may mean for future generations.

Government support can help nurture this experimentation, particularly for the working-class and the poor, with things like child tax credits, coaching programs to improve parenting skills in struggling families, subsidized early education, and expanded parental leave. While the most important shifts will be cultural, and driven by individual choices, family life is under so much social stress and economic pressure in the poorer reaches of American society that no recovery is likely without some government action.

I am inclined to agree with this. It's so difficult to break out of our routines of doing everything on our own. On top of that, I feel that there is a declining trust in both our institutions and in people around us. There seems to be a hesitation in wanting to engage with people we don't know, even if they may live in the same town/space as we do.

Incredibly important read! This article does an amazing job of demonstrating the importance of family structure and also pointing out the pitfalls of both contemporary conservative and liberal positions on the subject. With increasing amounts of focus on the loneliness epidemic and diseases of despair this article delves deep into many of the causes but also ends on a high note with some emerging remedies.

I have no idea how David Brooks gets away with saying some of the sh*t he says (example: “The black extended family survived even under slavery”) but I think it has something to do with how hungry we are for a singular explanation that brings all of societies ills under one umbrella - in this case, the failure of the family.

It’s true that wealthy people have a tendency to pat themselves (and each other) on the back for raising strong nuclear families, when, in reality, they’re just paying to outsource the hard (emotional) work to hired help.

It’s also true that universities are a farce. I have been saying this for years, but I really do believe that some big changes will happen in this generation. Higher education is an engine to protect wealth, privilege, and class-status. Period. That’s the singular purpose of these institutions. Almost everything else that happens at colleges and universities is bona fide fake news, but everyone loves the illusion.

And because universities have a monopoly on scientific research and intellectualism in general (it’s extremely abnormal to study Shakespeare if you’re not in college) we all allow this farce to continue. The opportunity cost is huge. If we could turn all people into lifelong learners instead of squeezing it into the margins of a four year party for rich kids (And look! Now they have some poor friends too!) that would be great for society. Perhaps the most damning aspect of the whole thing is the grand illusion of diversity going on at these places. The obsession (borderline fetishization) with first generation students and non-white students actually screws everyone up. It’s a cover-up act and it works.

I’m not saying I have the answer, but I’m concerned that too few people are actually discussing the problem. The way that conservatives fight affirmative action plays right into the hands of elite, liberal colonizers. That’s frightening. So too is the way that democratic candidates for president are promising free college education to all. Just take a fuckton of money and burn it. That would be faster and less brain-damaging for our 20 year olds.