Part one focused on how ancient, cosmic, and communal sources of myth yielded over time to more private, family-centered versions of ritual. Part two centered on motherhood, fatherhood, and the changing face of ritual in a quickly changing world. The following edited version includes portions of both interviews. Dialogue is distributed in the United States by Public Radio International and in Europe by World Radio Network, and is produced in association with Smithsonian Productions. You attribute to human creativity how people have over time designed for themselves the ideal families to meet their needs.
Family is a historical creation.
It is subject to inventiveness, human creativity, multiple definitions, and disputes. If we take family out of the realm of the natural and place it back in history, then I think many of these disputes that we have today would go away. Nothing could be further from the truth. Children left home as young teenagers, never to return in many cases. In fact, home was a way station, a camping spot.