Bookmarked for future reference. Think I'll also need to get a copy of Dr. Hrdy's book.

I don't know if the problem is unique to the US, but our cultural memory is pretty short. By viewing the nuclear family as traditional, we ignore the centuries before the 1950s when the norm was multi-generational households and rural compounds incorporating grown siblings and hired hands' families. It's just like the Christian fundamentalists, who assume their biblical literalism and opposition to science date back to Jesus's time and not to the pamphleteers of the early 1900s.

It seems to me, our social experiment of isolating couples with their children may have worked for some, but it started breaking down when the pace of social change accelerated in the 1960s, as evidenced by rocketing divorce rates. And it's completely unsustainable now that we have given up our commitment to economic democracy.

Thank you for yet another insight-filled and thought-provoking essay.