Hospitality with a Purpose
This is a lovely passage:
We wanted our children to grow up in a kind of extended family, or at least with an abundance of “significant others.” A house full of people; a crowded table ranging across the generations; four-hand music at the piano; nonstop conversation and cooking; baseball games and swimming in the afternoon; long walks after dinner; a poker game or Diplomacy or charades in the evening, all these activities mixing adults and children–that was our idea of a well-ordered household and more specifically of a well-ordered education. We had no great confidence in the schools; we knew that if our children were to acquire any of the things we set store by–joy in learning, eagerness for experience, the capacity for love and friendship–they would have to learn the better part of it at home. For that very reason, however, home was not to be thought of simply as the “nuclear family.” Its hospitality would have to extend far and wide, stretching its emotional resources to the limit.
Hat Tip Front Porch Republic.
I find that passage totally baffling and alien. I know people do think that way, but it’s not a thought process I can ever relate to.
— Peter Suderman · Oct 21, 07:40 PM · #
Peter, Lasch is describing the Ozzie and Harriet family. He is describing many traditional families. He is probably describing the way he grew up and wanted to perpetuate in his own family. He is describing my family and many others that I knew about when I was a kid. I also knew people who set an extra plate at their table for “hoboes” who might come by needing a meal. (They lived near a railroad line.)
I admit his take on education is unusual, or would have been when I was young. The suspicion of education seems too modern to be traditional. But the rest? Good stuff, not unusual, and pretty desirable.
What the hell is wrong with you?
The last sentence of the paragraph, however, smells of liberal do-goodism and guilt.
I prefer this version: Do not forget to entertain strangers, for by so doing some people have entertained angels without knowing it.
— jd · Oct 21, 08:07 PM · #
Peter,
It surprises me that you find that passage totally alien — you enjoy entertaining friends in your home, endless conversation, and poker. Megan enjoys those things and cooking for guests. You both value “joy in learning, eagerness for experience, the capacity for love and friendship.”
I imagine that whatever your household looks like 10 years from now, it’ll be a places that often welcomes friends, and where the inhabitants gain value from frequent, wonderful visitors, as is true now.
What’s alien about that?
— Conor Friedersdorf · Oct 22, 03:24 AM · #
Peter,
How so?
What I dislike about the passage is that it fantasizes family life, something which I find extremely dangerous to do because, by definition, life never conforms to the fantasies, and in the case of fantasies about family life, often parents take it out on the children.
But as for the fantasy itself, it’s a beautiful one, not necessarily mine, but beautiful nonetheless. What is it that you find non-relateable?
— PEG · Oct 22, 08:38 AM · #
I don’t know that it fantasizes family life so much as leaves out the negatives… you can certainly have all of the things listed above, and also have screaming arguments, occasional thrown objects, sibling bullying, lack of privacy, and rampant cruelty. I think the key to the “fantasy” is not that there is no bad, but that there is real interaction between everyone, and a true sense of community and belonging. It doesn’t have to be an Ozzie and Harriet family at all. In fact, I think less traditional families often develop this kind of support network (of both family and friends) out of necessity. And this kind of family easily absorbs new additions, adopting random friends who don’t have (or aren’t close to) their own families.
— Sunny · Oct 22, 08:10 PM · #
(I am too late to the party for anyone to see this, but nevertheless:)
Shorter Lasch: It takes a village to raise a child.
I agree.
— David A · Oct 26, 02:28 PM · #