The Myth of Normal 146

Chicago’s Loyola University, told me in an interview. “Even though the value of individualism was there, the social structures that bound people together were more evident. Many of those have atrophied or people have chosen to opt out of them, not realizing how important they were for their well-being in the past. These structures—people didn’t consciously know how important they were, and so they felt they could get rid of them with no cost.” Joni Mitchell was right: we truly don’t know what we’ve got till it’s gone. A culture where Nature has become the exception is a culture in trouble. To do the job evolution has tasked us with, and to access and trust our natural instincts designed for that job, we need each other, and we need communal and social support—just as surely as our children need us. Isolated parenting is stressed parenting, as is trying to keep up with the latest counter-instinctual “expert” advice from the (apologies to Dwight Eisenhower) parentingindustrial complex.[*] Troubled parenting, in turn, is a breeding ground for personal and societal malaise.