What kind of family does it take?
[Bruce Frohnen  02/22 08:01 PM]

Frederica's point about the limited horizons of family concern brings to mind the coming challenge for crunchies: will they care for their parents when they can no longer care for themselves? Will their children care for them when the time comes? Will all those granny-flats in the neotraditional neighborhoods be occupied by grannies, or by game rooms? I'm not at this point yet, myself. My parents remain healthy, thank goodness, and more to the point don't want anything to do with being considered "dependent" on anyone.

It was in part rebellion against the comfortable, individualist, and to be honest sterile and boring (sorry, Mom) suburban culture in which I was raised that I became a trad (my somewhat crunchy term for traditionalist). But my parents have lived better than they thought — caring for their kids as a way of life, not as something they could articulate. We don't have that leftover social capital any longer. Now that we all live in the post-apocalyptic world in which both the consumerism of the 50's and the self-indulgence of the 60's are at the center of popular culture, the real question may be, can we reconstitute a way of life in which both young and old are valued? From conception to natural death, perhaps?

I loved Caleb's quotations, which reminded me of the greatest gift I think Pope John Paul II left to the world — his example of a truly, transcendently good death. We're all going to have a death, of one kind or another. Mainstream society wants us to amuse ourselves until it hits us, suddenly, alone, and in a hospital surrounded by professional "caregivers." Conservatism ought to offer something better — an end of life rooted in a decent life, surrounded by people we actually know, with whom we've built real lives.