However painful the process of leaving home, for parents and for children, the really frightening thing for both would be the prospect of the child never leaving home.
About this quote
- What does it mean?
- While leaving home is difficult, staying dependent forever poses a greater long-term risk for both generations.
- In plain terms
- Leaving home is hard but staying too long is worse.
- What can you take from it?
- Independence is essential despite pain.
Where it applies
Putting it to work
Questions to consider
- What does independence mean to you?
- How do you support leaving home?
Another view
Some circumstances make leaving unsafe or impossible.
More from Robert Bellah
The family is in flux, and signs of trouble are widespread. Expectations remain high. But realities are disturbing.
Permalink to quote #1 Leaving home in a sense involves a kind of second birth in which we give birth to ourselves.
Permalink to quote #3 While there are practical and sometimes moral reasons for the decomposition of the family, it coincides neither with what most people in society say they desir…
Permalink to quote #4
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