I Wonder Whether Our Adoption Of Shrink-ese

Every Thing, Even The So-called Timesaving Device And Energy-efficient Machine, Comes These Days With An Elaborate Set Of Instructions For Its Care And Feeding. Buying A Machine Has Become More And More Like Buying A Pet. ... We Are Time-crunched. Not Just By The Number Of Things We Have To Do, But The Number Of Things We Have. In The Late Twentieth Century, Things Have Become Our New Dependents.

I Suppose We Make Kids The Repository Of Our Highest Ideals Because Children Are Powerless. In That Way We Can Have Ideals And Ignore Them At The Same Time.

The Average Parent May, For Example, Plant An Artist Or Fertilize A Ballet Dancer And End Up With A Certified Public Accountant. We Cannot Train Children Along Chicken Wire To Make Them Grow In The Right Direction. Tying Them To Stakes Is Frowned Upon, Even In Massachusetts.

We Owned What We Learned Back There; The Experience And The Growth Are Grafted Into Our Lives.

Parents Remain Our Touchstones, Fellow Travelers, Even After Death. They Are Both Missing And Present.