When a family is free of abuse and oppression, it can be the place where we share our deepest secrets and stand the most exposed, a place where we learn to feel distinct without being better, - and sacrifice for others without losing ourselves.

The risk for a woman who considers her helpless children her "job" is that the children's growth toward self-sufficiency may be experienced as a refutation of the mother's indispensability, and she may unconsciously sabotage their growth as a result.

To me, a person's identity is composed of both an 'I' and a 'we.' The 'I' finds itself in love, work, and pleasure, but it also locates itself within some meaningful group identity - a tribe, a community, a 'we.' America is too big and bland a tribe for most of us.

A toy has no gender and no idea of whether a girl or boy is playing with it.

If the family were a boat, it would be a canoe that makes no progress unless everyone paddles.

A family stitched together with love seldom unravels.

America is a nation fundamentally ambivalent about its children, often afraid of its children, and frequently punitive toward its children.