They seem practically perfect to me, but I'm not taking anything for granted until they too have made good on their implicit threat to grow up and lead lives of their own. To assume anything before that happens, it strikes me, is just asking for trouble. There is a conviction circulating around various publications these days that it is harder to be a family than it used to be. Well, it's always the end of times, you know, human beings tend to see things in crisis terms. The truth is it's always been hard to raise and care for children, and it always will be.
Expectations are different now from what they have been at any time in history.
Over the last thirty years or so the expectations for standard of living have steadily climbed. So the number of things we think we need has changed. Another thing that has changed radically in the last thirty years is the expectation we have for the shape of women's lives. And hallelujia for that. But one thing hasn't changed, and it won't change unless we evolve into a different sort of animal from the one we are.