FAMILIES : FAMILY DIALOGUE

“There cannot be found in the animal kingdom a bat, or any other creature, so blind in its own range of circumstance and connection, as the greater majority of human beings are in the bosoms of their families.”

-- Helen Fiske Hunt Jackson (1830-1885)

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“The Universal Declaration of Human Rights describes the family as the natural and fundamental unit of society. It follows that any choice and decision with regard to the size of the family must irrevocably rest with the family itself and cannot be made by anyone else.”

-- United Nations

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“Parenthood remains the single greatest preserve of the amateur.”

-- Alvin Toffler, “Future Shock”

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“The child learns more of the virtues needed in modern life--of fairness, of comradeship, of collective interest and action--in a common school than can be taught in the most perfect family circle.”

-- Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1860-1935)

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“We do not discuss the members of our family to their faces. . .”

-- Ivy Compton-Burnett (1892-1969)

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“The average family exists only on paper and its average budget is a fiction, invented by statisticians for the convenience of statisticians. . . .There is no sense in attempting to fit into a ready-to-wear financial pattern which ignores your own personal wants and desires.”

-- Sylvia Porter (1913- )

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“Total commitment to family and total commitment to career is possible, but fatiguing.”

-- Muriel Fox (1928- )

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“Discipline is the symbol of caring to a child. He needs guidance. If there is love, there is no such thing as being too tough with a child. . . .If you have never been hated by your child, you have never been a parent.”

-- Bette Davis, The Lonely Life , 1962

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“All unhappy families resemble one another, but each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”

-- Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910) Anna Karenina

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“What the world needs is not romantic lovers who are sufficient unto themselves, but husbands and wives who live in communities, relate to other people, carry on useful work and willingly give time and attention to their children.”

-- Margaret Mead in Redbook magazine, Nov. 1965

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“ ‘Tis a shame that your Family is an Honor to you! You ought to be an Honor to your Family!”

-- Benjamin Franklin, P oor Richard’s Almanac, 1750

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“Far from being the basis of a good society, the family, with its narrow privacy and tawdry secrets, is the source of all our discontents.”

-- Sir Edmond Leach (1910- ) BBC Reith Lectures, 1967