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The Shelter of Each Other
In The Shelter of Each Other, Mary Pipher does for the American family what she did for adolescent girls and their parents in her bestselling book Reviving she opens our eyes wide to the desperate realities we are facing and shows us a way out. Drawing on the fascinating stories of families rich and poor, angry and despairing, religious and skeptical, and probing deep into her own family memories and experiences, Pipher clears a path to the strength and energy at the core of family life. Wise, compassionate, and impassioned, The Shelter of Each Other challenges each of us to face the truth about ourselves and to find the courage to protect, nurture, and revivify the families we cherish.
"A canny mix of optimism and practicality gives Pipher's fans a way to resist the worst of the culture around them and substitute the best of themselves."
*Newsweek
"Eye-opening . . . Pipher's simple solutions for survival in this family-unfriendly culture are peppered throughout the heart-wrenching and uplifting stories of several of her client
families. . . . Highly readable, passionate."
*San Francisco Chronicle
"Compelling."
*USA Today
"A canny mix of optimism and practicality gives Pipher's fans a way to resist the worst of the culture around them and substitute the best of themselves."
*Newsweek
"Eye-opening . . . Pipher's simple solutions for survival in this family-unfriendly culture are peppered throughout the heart-wrenching and uplifting stories of several of her client
families. . . . Highly readable, passionate."
*San Francisco Chronicle
"Compelling."
*USA Today
282 pages, Paperback
First published July 5, 2000
About the author
Mary Pipher
25 books322 followersMary Elizabeth Pipher, also known as Mary Bray Pipher, is an American clinical psychologist and author, most recently of Women Rowing North, a book on aging gracefully. Prior to that, she wrote The Green Boat, which was published by Riverhead Books in June 2013.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 68 reviews
July 16, 2011
This is a must-read for families.
Although this was written in the 90s, I think it's even more relevent today. Pipher says that in a deteriorating society, we all need to find shelter within our families. She compares her mother's family in the 1920s-30s to a family she helps in couseling in the 90s. Her mother's family had no money, but plenty of time. The 90s family had plenty of money, but no time. Her mother's family's problems were external: natural disasters, economic depression, crop failure. The 90s family's problems were internal: eating disorders, drug problems, insecurities. Pipher says when families properly define an external enemy to unite against, they are stronger as a family unit. She talks about a family who had a child with Down syndrome. That family united against unkindness and misunderstanding, and they were strong.
There are so many things I loved within "The Shelter of Each Other," but I'll just pick one more thing to include:
She talks about why people are more obsessed with looks now than they have been in the past. Back then, the communities were closer and people came in contact with fewer people. Now, communities are bigger and the number of people we pass during the day is much greater: "Demographic shifts explain much of our obsession with looking good. As we’ve moved from primary to secondary relationships, appearance has become much more important to us. In an earlier time, we had various kinds of information about the people we encountered. We knew their families, their house, their work habits, religion and amiability. Now often appearance is all we have to go on." (Page 85)
Although this was written in the 90s, I think it's even more relevent today. Pipher says that in a deteriorating society, we all need to find shelter within our families. She compares her mother's family in the 1920s-30s to a family she helps in couseling in the 90s. Her mother's family had no money, but plenty of time. The 90s family had plenty of money, but no time. Her mother's family's problems were external: natural disasters, economic depression, crop failure. The 90s family's problems were internal: eating disorders, drug problems, insecurities. Pipher says when families properly define an external enemy to unite against, they are stronger as a family unit. She talks about a family who had a child with Down syndrome. That family united against unkindness and misunderstanding, and they were strong.
There are so many things I loved within "The Shelter of Each Other," but I'll just pick one more thing to include:
She talks about why people are more obsessed with looks now than they have been in the past. Back then, the communities were closer and people came in contact with fewer people. Now, communities are bigger and the number of people we pass during the day is much greater: "Demographic shifts explain much of our obsession with looking good. As we’ve moved from primary to secondary relationships, appearance has become much more important to us. In an earlier time, we had various kinds of information about the people we encountered. We knew their families, their house, their work habits, religion and amiability. Now often appearance is all we have to go on." (Page 85)
June 27, 2011
I picked this up on a whim since we have it and her other book "Reviving Ophelia" in our home library. Suffice it to say everything she wrote in here resonates strongly with me. Our society and our culture have become more toxic as the years have passed. Advertisers and businesses look at people in America as "consumers" - not as people. The continuously promote and market to segments of our population that, in the past, would have been considered sensitive (i.e. children) and what they peddle is not good. While it would be simplistic to simply dump the blame on the marketers and the advertisers Mary Pipher does an excellent job of noting that parents have faced a harder time in protecting the space that children live in. The omnipresence of TV and other media (Internet, magazines targeted to youth at the supermarket, billboards) has made it much harder to filter out the unwanted and to allow parents to decide what is appropriate. Even if you, like me, kill your TV your children are still exposed to undesirable advertising via the homes of their friends where the parents don't make such an effort to protect their children's innocence.
Mary Pipher also notes that work has become more demanding - she notes several cases where the business pushes the employees to work harder and more hours causing the family to suffer. We cannot continue this way and must make our families our priorities. If we continue to go down this self-destructive path we will eventually end up in a dystopian society where families are under assault from all corners and where our quality of life will be severely diminished.
Mary Pipher also notes that work has become more demanding - she notes several cases where the business pushes the employees to work harder and more hours causing the family to suffer. We cannot continue this way and must make our families our priorities. If we continue to go down this self-destructive path we will eventually end up in a dystopian society where families are under assault from all corners and where our quality of life will be severely diminished.
July 25, 2016
I actually couldn't even make it through the first chapter. I was so hoping this book would be valuable. But I just can't get over how much Pipher generalizes and makes broad statements about families as if all families are the same. I feel like her views on family and what makes or breaks them, as well as people individually, is so heavily biased by the small set of people she works with, that it leaves little room for the diversity that exists in North America alone. But perhaps that's because it was published in the 90s, despite her believing it's still relevant a decade later. I'm sure her attempt at looking at how families evolve and wanting to take into consideration cultural and individual influences is valuable on some level. But she just made so many general yet shallow comments about how families work, that I couldn't continue reading. Family dynamics and cultural influences, in any decade, are so diverse and I think deserving of a much deeper analysis than Pipher attempted here.
July 1, 2009
Because I previously read Pipher's book Reviving Ophelia and found it to be very useful and insightful, I decided to give this book a try, and I am very glad that I did. In this book, Pipher explains why the American family is decaying and what to do about it. For me specifically she inspired me to reduce and be more selective about my media consumption and to be wiser in my use of time. After reading this book I wrote down a list of things that I can and will do in my family to make it strong and stable. This is my list:
Have regular mealtimes (dinner) together as a family
Hold a weekly Family Home Evening
Establish bedtime routines with my children
Develop holiday traditions unique to our family
Have daily family scripture study
Go on yearly vacations
Spend time outdoors regularly
Visit the library regularly
Celebrate my spouse's and children's life transitions, big and small
Serve others with my children alongside me
Have regular mealtimes (dinner) together as a family
Hold a weekly Family Home Evening
Establish bedtime routines with my children
Develop holiday traditions unique to our family
Have daily family scripture study
Go on yearly vacations
Spend time outdoors regularly
Visit the library regularly
Celebrate my spouse's and children's life transitions, big and small
Serve others with my children alongside me
May 27, 2010
I felt Pipher is right on about her opinions on what families need today. The TV needs to be turned off, and people should be creating their own stories and memories. Her case studies presented didn't impress me or really illustrate her points further for me, but I enjoyed her messages. Families should be making conscious decisions about what media is entering their homes and also be conscious about the effect today's popular culture is having upon their specific families. A family's history is what is remembered, not material objects. This book was written over a decade ago. I wonder how Pipher feels now? The 90s references were a blast from the past. All in all, a good read cementing my beliefs on how to create a positive community.
January 2, 2009
Sharing several family stories about her own and client's backgrounds, therapist Mary Pipher, Ph.D. touches on some recipes for family success. Focusing on collaboration, balance, understanding and love, this guidebook highlights many individual and family therapy principles to find meaning and purpose in the midst of crisis and challenge. Dr. Pipher also lovingly critiques the therapy professional to foster 2nd order change.
October 17, 2010
How families can help each other by sticking together rather than quarreling. Too often, family members in the mistaken notion that they are right refuse to listen to and respect each other. This book explains about the disintegration of the family during the past one hundred years and how we need to change to bring our families back together.
August 13, 2011
Mary Pipher definitively lays out something missing in much of our society, the shelter of each other. The book expounds on the distance people in our country are separated from their families and the subsequent results. I was touched by this book on many levels, professionally, personally, and as a citizen.
January 20, 2009
This book got me thinking about the sociology of family - several years before I got my degree in Soc. I loved her analysis of how our speed and entertainment-oriented culture whittles away at the family. Her famous book. Reviving Ophelia, is a must read for moms and daughters.
January 15, 2012
I read this book many years ago, but it is still relevant. I use the concepts for making families work in my own life and with the families with whom I work. Good stories to support the concepts presented and easy to read.
January 29, 2009
Very good. Very applicable. Maybe the author/doctor is Mormon!
March 5, 2010
Also read back in the mid-1990's and I remember being in adoration of this woman's writing because she wants people to love and respect each other. Good ideas on how to start in this book.
December 30, 2020
This book has timeless and prophetic qualities that made me feel the author was writing today, versus 1996. Some things haven't changed, and some have certainly become worse. Clearly she is a therapist with a heart for families and children (and thus for humanity, in general) and her stated wish to see young adults take a pledge of "I won't do work that hurts children," really communicates her underlying purpose in writing about the harmful culture that undermines the stability of the family and the health of children in America. Some may think Pipher idealistic and I say, "What's wrong with that?" We are in need of a healthy dose of hope, optimism, and idealism in a world where young people are hurting and far too cynical. She leaves the reader with an appropriate kick-in-the-seat to actually believe and keep fighting for the notion that even one person can effect change, and how much it would serve us all to get out from behind our screens and experience human connection and the natural world. I started this title fairly soon after the pandemic began, and it was a great one to close out the year finishing!
March 17, 2018
Had to read this book for a class.
It works from the basic assumption that families are good, well-intentioned, and safe; the outside world and culture are not. It is us (the family) vs them (not family). Her conclusions (and very, very, very broad generalizations and suggestions) all come from that assumption. It doesn’t address anything outside of an idealized family unit that is experiencing “normal” family issues.
Her idealized of family and familial relationships skew everything else. If a mom/dad/etc picks up this book in the midst of real crisis? Or a family that has an emotionally or physically abusive member?
It works from the basic assumption that families are good, well-intentioned, and safe; the outside world and culture are not. It is us (the family) vs them (not family). Her conclusions (and very, very, very broad generalizations and suggestions) all come from that assumption. It doesn’t address anything outside of an idealized family unit that is experiencing “normal” family issues.
Her idealized of family and familial relationships skew everything else. If a mom/dad/etc picks up this book in the midst of real crisis? Or a family that has an emotionally or physically abusive member?
August 24, 2024
Mentions my cousin’s husband, Ron, as an example of a good neighbor.
April 18, 2012
I picked this book up because I loved the title. Being shelter for each other seems like a wonderful aspiration for families.
I found the book a bit uneven. The first third of the book was all about romanticizing the values of the Depression era while vilifying the modern day ("modern day" being the mid-90s when the book was written--heaven only knows what Mary Pipher thinks of our world now). She talks about how happy her grandparents were growing up on the Nebraska prairie, and contrasts it with how miserable everybody is living in the 90s. She spends a chapter going through a list of things that contribute to the deterioration of American values: TV, advertising, etc. I suppose I agree with her about some things, but it mainly just made me feel sad for Mary Pipher that she could only see the bad things about this world we've created.
And parts of it are already dated. The book, published in 1996, was largely pre-internet. At some point Pipher remarks with horror that soon people will be able to BUY THEIR GROCERIES online, and at that point society as we know it will fall apart--or something like that. Since I've been happily ordering my groceries online for many years (just call me Heidi the Subversive) I can definitively say that society wasn't destroyed.
Pipher, a therapist, is critical of parts of her profession. Therapy has done more harm than good in many cases, especially when it encouraged people to break away from their families or caused struggling families to lose confidence in themselves. She says, "In the 1920s the emphasis was on proper behavior, and people rarely shared feelings. In the 1990s the expression of honest feelings is often valued, while behavior is overlooked. But feelings and moral behavior must be connected if families are to survive."
She also talks about modern therapy's love affair with self-esteem and how it quickly crosses the line into narcissism. True self-esteem, she says, comes from the belief that one is making the world a better place. "It's a by-product of a life lived wisely." I usually turn off my ears and mentally walk away when someone starts talking about their self-esteem, so I couldn't agree with her more.
I suppose that being a therapist, she's in contact with much different types of people than I'm normally in contact with. In her eyes, the younger generation (defined as those who came of age post-Vietnam, post-Watergate, post-Chernobyl, and post-Exxon-Valdez) has values that entirely come from ads, pop psychology, and media. Other than Buddhism, she never talks about religion except in a derisive sense. As a person whose values were largely shaped by religion and a religious family, and as a person who's often around other religious people, I have to disagree with her on the source of values for everyone younger than herself. And I would also have to point out that her parents were probably lamenting the deteriorating values of her own generation, as were their parents, and probably every generation of parents extending back to Noah.
The saving grace of the book is that Pipher is a wonderful storyteller. She spends some time talking about how she, as a therapist, tries to encourage people to build their values and to strengthen their families. The case studies she uses in the middle third of the book are wonderful. She shares concrete examples of things people have done that worked.
The last third of the book is full of suggestions about how to protect and shelter families. Once again, she uses solid examples and I thought her ideas had a lot of merit. I think this book would be helpful to people looking for ideas on how to strengthen their families. But all the good stuff is in the end--I'd suggest starting in the last chapter and working your way backwards until the moralizing starts getting boring.
I found the book a bit uneven. The first third of the book was all about romanticizing the values of the Depression era while vilifying the modern day ("modern day" being the mid-90s when the book was written--heaven only knows what Mary Pipher thinks of our world now). She talks about how happy her grandparents were growing up on the Nebraska prairie, and contrasts it with how miserable everybody is living in the 90s. She spends a chapter going through a list of things that contribute to the deterioration of American values: TV, advertising, etc. I suppose I agree with her about some things, but it mainly just made me feel sad for Mary Pipher that she could only see the bad things about this world we've created.
And parts of it are already dated. The book, published in 1996, was largely pre-internet. At some point Pipher remarks with horror that soon people will be able to BUY THEIR GROCERIES online, and at that point society as we know it will fall apart--or something like that. Since I've been happily ordering my groceries online for many years (just call me Heidi the Subversive) I can definitively say that society wasn't destroyed.
Pipher, a therapist, is critical of parts of her profession. Therapy has done more harm than good in many cases, especially when it encouraged people to break away from their families or caused struggling families to lose confidence in themselves. She says, "In the 1920s the emphasis was on proper behavior, and people rarely shared feelings. In the 1990s the expression of honest feelings is often valued, while behavior is overlooked. But feelings and moral behavior must be connected if families are to survive."
She also talks about modern therapy's love affair with self-esteem and how it quickly crosses the line into narcissism. True self-esteem, she says, comes from the belief that one is making the world a better place. "It's a by-product of a life lived wisely." I usually turn off my ears and mentally walk away when someone starts talking about their self-esteem, so I couldn't agree with her more.
I suppose that being a therapist, she's in contact with much different types of people than I'm normally in contact with. In her eyes, the younger generation (defined as those who came of age post-Vietnam, post-Watergate, post-Chernobyl, and post-Exxon-Valdez) has values that entirely come from ads, pop psychology, and media. Other than Buddhism, she never talks about religion except in a derisive sense. As a person whose values were largely shaped by religion and a religious family, and as a person who's often around other religious people, I have to disagree with her on the source of values for everyone younger than herself. And I would also have to point out that her parents were probably lamenting the deteriorating values of her own generation, as were their parents, and probably every generation of parents extending back to Noah.
The saving grace of the book is that Pipher is a wonderful storyteller. She spends some time talking about how she, as a therapist, tries to encourage people to build their values and to strengthen their families. The case studies she uses in the middle third of the book are wonderful. She shares concrete examples of things people have done that worked.
The last third of the book is full of suggestions about how to protect and shelter families. Once again, she uses solid examples and I thought her ideas had a lot of merit. I think this book would be helpful to people looking for ideas on how to strengthen their families. But all the good stuff is in the end--I'd suggest starting in the last chapter and working your way backwards until the moralizing starts getting boring.
Want to read
March 26, 2011c 1996 trade paper
from the library computer:
Kirkus Reviews
~ Psychologist Pipher (Reviving Ophelia, 1994) provides a sharp, often unsettling critique of many of the values that currently define our lives, coupled with solid advice for rebuilding families. Maintaining that ``much of our modern unhappiness involves a crisis of meaning and values,'' Pipher contends that technology and consumerism have become the gods of the '90s. Hours spent viewing cable television programs and commercials not only discourage meaningful communication among family members, it also leaves the viewers with the impression that happiness can be purchased. This, in turn, triggers such a need for money that work--even when meaningless or despised--becomes the individual's raison d' tre. True happiness, insists Pipher, comes from meaningful, ethical work. What people really need is ``protected time and space'' and the need to reconnect with one another and the outside world. Simple rituals, such as saying grace at dinner and unplugging the telephone and television, can ``hallow family time.'' Shifting the lens to her own profession, Pipher further contends that most therapists only harm their clients by focusing on their particular neuroses while ignoring the negative impact of contemporary culture. Therapists can be most helpful by encouraging the building of family connections, as well as links to the natural world and community resources. Pipher supplements her thesis with case studies. We hear of families that thrive when a parent cuts back on work hours and when a disaffected teen discovers the joys of helping the elderly. Lively, straightforward, and somewhat subversive, The Shelter of Each Other offers hope for the American family in a time that challenges its viability. (First printing of 125,000; first serial to Good Housekeeping; Book-of-the-Month Club main selection; $100,000 ad/promo; author tour) Copyright 1999 Kirkus Reviews
from the library computer:
Kirkus Reviews
~ Psychologist Pipher (Reviving Ophelia, 1994) provides a sharp, often unsettling critique of many of the values that currently define our lives, coupled with solid advice for rebuilding families. Maintaining that ``much of our modern unhappiness involves a crisis of meaning and values,'' Pipher contends that technology and consumerism have become the gods of the '90s. Hours spent viewing cable television programs and commercials not only discourage meaningful communication among family members, it also leaves the viewers with the impression that happiness can be purchased. This, in turn, triggers such a need for money that work--even when meaningless or despised--becomes the individual's raison d' tre. True happiness, insists Pipher, comes from meaningful, ethical work. What people really need is ``protected time and space'' and the need to reconnect with one another and the outside world. Simple rituals, such as saying grace at dinner and unplugging the telephone and television, can ``hallow family time.'' Shifting the lens to her own profession, Pipher further contends that most therapists only harm their clients by focusing on their particular neuroses while ignoring the negative impact of contemporary culture. Therapists can be most helpful by encouraging the building of family connections, as well as links to the natural world and community resources. Pipher supplements her thesis with case studies. We hear of families that thrive when a parent cuts back on work hours and when a disaffected teen discovers the joys of helping the elderly. Lively, straightforward, and somewhat subversive, The Shelter of Each Other offers hope for the American family in a time that challenges its viability. (First printing of 125,000; first serial to Good Housekeeping; Book-of-the-Month Club main selection; $100,000 ad/promo; author tour) Copyright 1999 Kirkus Reviews
May 9, 2014
Even though this book was written in the 1990s, I was intrigued by the title and premise of it so I decided to read it. Mary Pipher is a beautiful writer, a natural storyteller with a gift for telling detail, so that kept me reading the book when I otherwise probably would not have. It just seemed a bit overwrought to me, and really is more appropriate for a troubled family seeking answers. Much of the book focuses on therapy. She seemed to separate families into two extremes. There's the kind that almost completely cuts themselves off from popular culture, which she seems to feel is thoroughly damaging to children, choosing to homeschool and limit their children's exposure to the broader culture around them. Then there are the families that are a total mess. When critiquing pop culture - and I can't even imagine what she'd have to say about it today - she almost completely focuses on the negative. Not much here for just the normal people like us, trying to do the best we can to raise good kids in a fast-paced world.
September 27, 2016
My review of this is the same as for her other book, Reviving Ophelia. I give it 4 stars because the good stuff is SO GOOD. There is really fantastic, important cultural analysis throughout the whole book. I'm so glad I read it. But her writing style is a little...fluffy, as opposed to dense and concise. So that's a bummer to have to wade through at times. Still, it is totally worth the laborious sections.
Maybe I'm just an impatient reader, because I have this exact complaint about a lot of writing that I love--I love the "meat" of it, but I struggle to be patient with how they seem to take forever to get there. Perhaps it's a pattern forced on writers by their publishers. In my own and other's experience of writing, I know that publishers make a habit of asking writers to expand their content, make it fuller to simply become a larger book that's easier to market. That's my suspicion...that these writers are just responding to the demands on them!
Maybe I'm just an impatient reader, because I have this exact complaint about a lot of writing that I love--I love the "meat" of it, but I struggle to be patient with how they seem to take forever to get there. Perhaps it's a pattern forced on writers by their publishers. In my own and other's experience of writing, I know that publishers make a habit of asking writers to expand their content, make it fuller to simply become a larger book that's easier to market. That's my suspicion...that these writers are just responding to the demands on them!
July 31, 2007
It's an interesting premise: that marriages/families were more sucessful in the past because their stresses were external and thus more dependant on one another, which created a stronger bond in the long run. I'm not sure I agree that outside stresses created a stronger bond, maybe a more immediate and requiring less conscious effort to sustain - but stronger? I'm not sure. and is that better, don't know? and maybe we are at a point where we need to redifine dependance and it will be based on emotional or spiritual or whatever dependence and maybe that wont be so bad for the people that can do it? Then again maybe it wont work and we'll all go back to being quietly content potato farmers???
June 23, 2013
This book might be 17 years old, but we still need the author's message: That to be healthy, children need families, tribes, tiospayes, that our culture is not supportive of families and raising healthy children, and that we can individually and collectively take small and large actions to shelter each other. She's a therapist, and she even has rather pointed words for her field, saying they have too often undercut rather than helped families.
As I finished reading it, I felt myself missing my family, wanting to create more and deeper connections for my long-distance loved ones.
As I finished reading it, I felt myself missing my family, wanting to create more and deeper connections for my long-distance loved ones.
July 9, 2008
I cannot say enough good things about this book! I think it is very timely (even if it is 10 years old) and well written. Pipher talks very adeptly about the importance of families, how families have been torn apart by the larger culture and how to fix this problem. I think everyone needs to read this book. Pipher ends the book with a really hopeful tone, giving the reader a feeling that one person can make a difference and that the ills of society really can be repaired.
July 6, 2008
Pipher, the acclaimed psychologist and author of Reviving Ophelia, is dedicated to helping us rebuild our families and withstand the onslaught of out-of-control consumerism, impulsiveness, entitlement, violence, and isolation. The Shelter of Each Other describes the crises and obstacles we Americans face daily in trying to maintain and protect our families, develop character, and demonstrate commitment to our ideals....
December 16, 2013
This book really broke down more of my judgement of other parents. Parenting is just... hard. Our culture doesn't support us. The main message is to widen your circle of support and begin to rely on those around you to help you. I didn't change my behaviors so much, but the main growth that I made in reading this book was to really see how unsupportive nuclear family scenario works against us. We need community. And everyone is doing the best that he or she can.
July 2, 2023
I have recommended this book over and over to everyone that I know. Do not be turned off by the fact that it is non-fiction. It is an amazing book and should be read by everyone.
From Newsweek:
"Eye-opening . . . Pipher's simple solutions for survival in this family-unfriendly culture are peppered throughout the heart-wrenching and uplifting stories of several of her client"
From Newsweek:
"Eye-opening . . . Pipher's simple solutions for survival in this family-unfriendly culture are peppered throughout the heart-wrenching and uplifting stories of several of her client"
April 15, 2008
Normally, this kind of book is not my style - I've always thought this genre looked at the past with rose-colored glasses and ignored the problems with earlier times. But I thought Pipher did a good job acknowledging the problems from both periods and incorporating the strengths into a new model. It still seems relevant 10 years later.
October 22, 2008
This was an eye-opener...on how much the culture affects our families...and how much it rips us apart. Pipher really illuminates a lot of problems with current psychology and counseling...and how it can sometimes be more detramental than effective. She has counseled for a long time and wrote Reviving Ophelia. I really liked this.
January 19, 2009
An interesting book about the struggles different families go through. Mary Phipher writes about how technology and media have changed the dynamics of families in bad and good ways. She writes of the importance of families and communities. It really motivated me to reach out to family and neighbors.
April 14, 2011
Pipher has an interesting argument about how psychology has damaged the family instead of rebuilding the family. I think she has some great points about the negative impact of consumerism on family life. She falls short in looking at the pressure of gender roles. She hints at being political, but glosses over some of these points.
May 13, 2008
I don't remember feeling like she offered anything specific to remedy the problems she describes so well, but maybe I need to reread it. I liked her discussion of TV and media---how we allow things into our home via the screen that we never would allow otherwise, etc.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 68 reviews