Each marriage bears the footprints of economic and cultural trends which originate far outside marriage.

And the Republican Party especially associates the market with the idea of progress, goodness, family, and points us toward the mall as an answer to all our personal dreams.

And were in the middle of a perfect storm. These days, government social services are being bad-mouthed and defunded. The non-profit world is looking more and more like the for-profit world. The growing gap between rich and poor makes most of us very anxious about where we stand.

In response to our fast-food culture, a 'slow food' movement appeared. Out of hurried parenthood, a move toward slow parenting could be growing. With vital government supports for state-of-the-art public child care and paid parental leave, maybe we would be ready to try slow love and marriage.

If in previous decades large historic events drew people together and oriented them toward collective action, the recent double trend toward greater choice but less security leads the young to see their lives in more individual terms. Big events collectivize. Little events atomize.

Just as the archetype of the supermom--the woman who can do it all--minimizes the real needs of women, so too the archetype of the"superkid" minimizes the real needs of children. It makes it all right to treat a young child as if he or she were older.

Many women cut back what had to be done at home by redefining what the house, the marriage and, sometimes, what the child needs. One woman described a fairly common pattern: I do my half. I do half of his half, and the rest doesn't get done.