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Letty Cottin Pogrebin

Letty Cottin Pogrebin Books

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“Like plowing, housework makes the ground ready for the germination of family life. The kids will not invite a teacher home if beer cans litter the living room. The family isn't likely to have breakfast together if somebody didn't remember to buy eggs, milk, or muffins. Housework maintains an orderly setting in which family life can flourish.”

IfsHomeKidsTogetherRememberWorkRoomsTeacherReadySettingSettingsBeerEggsBreakfastInvitesMilkFamily LifeLiving RoomOrderlyHouseworkMuffinsPlowing
Author:Letty Cottin Pogrebin
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“As the mother of a son, I do not accept that alienation from me is necessary for his discovery of himself. As a woman, I will not cooperate in demeaning womanly things so that he can be proud to be a man. I like to think the women in my son's future are counting on me.”

ThinkingMenMotherAcceptingSonProudDiscoveryMy SonBe ProudAlienationBe A ManCountingMother And SonDemeaningWomanly
Book:Family politics: love and power on an intimate frontier
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“Over the years, I've found that I either live life or write about it. I can't seem to do both simultaneously - I have to do it sequentially. When I write incessantly, I lose touch with the issues and passions that fuel the work. But when I get too involved in organizations or movement endeavors, I almost forget that I'm a writer. It's a constant struggle to find a balance between these two worlds - the solitary writing life and the life of a social justice activist.”

WorldWritingYearsI CanTwoSeemsPassionFoundSocialLosesJusticeForgetStruggleIssuesMovementBalanceInvolvedOrganizationSocial JusticeConstantActivismLive LifeFuelActivistEndeavorSolitaryWriting LifeTwo WorldsIncessantlyConstant Struggle
Author:Letty Cottin Pogrebin
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“It angers me that sick people have to wait for everything and everybody - doctors, nurses, callbacks, lab results, prescriptions, medications, technicians, treatment rooms. If illness is the embodiment of powerlessness, which, believe me, is true, then waiting is its temporal incarnation.”

PeopleIfsBelieveWaitingRoomsResultsDoctorsSickIllnessTreatmentNurseBelieve In MeIncarnationPrescriptionsMedicationLabsEmbodimentPowerlessnessTechniciansCallbacks
Book:How to Be a Friend to a Friend Who's Sick
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“Like many another romance, the romance of the family turns sour when the money runs out. If we really cared about families, we would not let 'born again' patriarchs send up moral abstractions as a smokescreen for the scandal of American family economics.”

IfsRunningRomanceTurnsBornMoralEconomicsAbstractionScandalSourBorn AgainAbout FamilyAmerican Family
Book:Family politics: love and power on an intimate frontier
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“I find it profoundly symbolic that I am appearing before a committee of fifteen men who will report to a legislative body of one hundred men because of a decision handed down by a court comprised of nine men--on an issue that affects millions of women.... I have the feeling that if men could get pregnant, we wouldn't be struggling for this legislation. If men could get pregnant, maternity benefits would be as sacrosanct as the G.I. Bill.”

IfsMenFeelingsBodyWould BeWomenDecisionMillionsStruggleIssuesBenefitsHundredBillsCourtNineReportsPregnantFifteenCommitteesLegislationSymbolicAppearingMaternity
Author:Letty Cottin Pogrebin
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“The all American work ethic, destructive enough by itself, also packs a gender double standard that strip-mines the natural resources of both parents. It has taught us that as their earnings and success increase, men become "more manly," while women become "less feminine." This perverse cultural dynamic gives fathers an incentive to stay away from their families and kill themselves at work, while coercing mothers to limit their career commitment, which in turn limits their wages and shortchanges their families.”

MenGivingEnoughMotherTurnsFatherParentWomenNaturalCareersMinesTaughtLimitsStandardsEthicsCommitmentResourcesIncreaseGenderDestructiveFemininePacksEarningWagesWork EthicIncentivesNatural ResourcesManlyTaught UsDouble Standard
Author:Letty Cottin Pogrebin
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“In the supposedly enlightened eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, parental indifference, child neglect, and raw cruelty appearedamong Europeans of all classes.... In mid-nineteenth- century France, families abandoned their children at the rate of thirty-three thousand a year.... It took sixty years after the criminalization of cruelty to animals for cruelty to children to be made punishable under English law.... Industrialized America added brutalizing child labor to the oppressions of the young.”

YearsChildrenMadeAmericaLawYoungThreeWorkAnimalClassCenturyThousandLaborRateCrueltyOppressionFranceIndifferenceThirtyEnlightenedNeglectAbandonedSixtyNineteenth CenturyParentalAnimal CrueltyChild LaborEnglish Law
Author:Letty Cottin Pogrebin
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“Compared to other parents, remarried parents seem more desirous of their child's approval, more alert to the child's emotional state, and more sensitive in their parent-child relations. Perhaps this is the result of heightened empathy for the child's suffering, perhaps it is a guilt reaction; in either case, it gives the child a potent weapon--the power to disrupt the new household and come between parent and the new spouse.”

GivingChildrenStatesSeemsSufferingParentResultsCasesEmotionalWeaponsEmpathyRelationGuiltReactionsSensitiveApprovalHouseholdSpouseParent ChildRemarriage
Book:Family politics: love and power on an intimate frontier
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“The ultra-right would have us believe that families are in trouble because of humanism, feminism, secular education, or sexual liberation, but the consensus of Americans is that what tears families apart is unemployment, inflation, and financial worries.”

BelieveWorryTroubleFeminismTearsFinancialHumanismLiberationSecularUnemploymentInflationConsensusUltrasFamily Apart
Book:Family politics: love and power on an intimate frontier
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“Much is made of the accelerating brutality of young people's crimes, but rarely does our concern for dangerous children translateinto concern for children in danger. We fail to make the connection between the use of force on children themselves, and violent antisocial behavior, or the connection between watching father batter mother and the child deducing a link between violence and masculinity.”

PeopleChildrenDoeMadeUseYoungMotherFatherForceViolenceFailingDangerousCrimeDangerBehaviorConcernConnectionsViolentLinksMasculinityBrutalityAntisocialUse Of ForceAntisocial Behavior
Book:Family politics: love and power on an intimate frontier
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“The risk for a woman who considers her helpless children her "job" is that the children's growth toward self-sufficiency may be experienced as a refutation of the mother's indispensability, and she may unconsciously sabotage their growth as a result.”

MayChildrenSelfJobsMotherGrowthResultsRiskHelplessSabotageSelf SufficiencySufficiencyRefutation
Book:Family politics: love and power on an intimate frontier
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“If the family were a fruit, it would be an orange, a circle of sections, held together but separable - each segment distinct.”

IfsChildrenHomeWould BeTogetherFamilyMy FamilyFruitCirclesSectionsOrangeFamily LoveAbout FamilyHappy FamilyInspirational Family LoveInspirational FamilyLarge FamilyFunny FamilyLovely FamilyFamily TogetherFunny Family ReunionLove Life And FamilyCute Family
Book:Family politics: love and power on an intimate frontier
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“When a family is free of abuse and oppression, it can be the place where we share our deepest secrets and stand the most exposed, a place where we learn to feel distinct without being better, - and sacrifice for others without losing ourselves.”

FeelsSecretSacrificeShareTrustLosingAbuseOppressionExposedFather SonSacrifice For OthersSelf TrustLosing Ourselves
Book:Family politics: love and power on an intimate frontier
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“The family endures because it offers the truth of mortality and immortality within the same group. The family endures because, better than the commune, kibbutz, or classroom, it seems to individualize and socialize its children, to make us feel at the same time unique and yet joined to all humanity, accepted as is and yet challenged to grow, loved unconditionally and yet propelled by greater expectations. Only in the family can so many extremes be reconciled and synthesized. Only in the family do we have a lifetime in which to do it.”

FeelsChildrenSeemsHumanityGrowsGreaterGroupsOffersUniqueExpectationsLifetimeEndureExtremesAcceptedImmortalityMortalityClassroomCommunes
Author:Letty Cottin Pogrebin
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