Many left-wing feminists have written insightfully about families: Stephanie Coontz, Martha Gimenez, Rickie Solinger, Judith Stacey, etc. It is just that their narratives of the history of families, observations on the present state of families, and perspectives of the future of families have not and will not be mass marketed by the corporate media.
Then, there's an aspect of American family lives that the Right refuse to mention:
***** Savage Love by Dan Savage November 13 - 19, 2002
_My parents are bugging me to come home for Thanksgiving. The thing is, as a kid I always hated holidays. No, I loved holidays; what I hated was my parents. Growing up, I was ignored on holidays except when my mom would order me to wait on my brothers and dad. As an adult, it's no better. My family spends most of the time talking about work, but I'm not allowed to talk about my job because it isn't a "real job": I do low-paying social work. (My dad and brothers work in computers.) Despite my mom being so sentimental about Thanksgiving, she and my dad don't "do" Christmas because it's "too much trouble" to buy gifts. And several years ago my mom curtly told me the day before my birthday that we wouldn't be celebrating my birthday, "since no one will have a good time." When I told them a few months ago that I wouldn't be coming home for Thanksgiving due to the complete lack of consideration for me (last time I was home my dad demanded that we all go to a steak house though he knows I'm a vegetarian!), my mom angrily denied that any of this ever happened. When I tried to argue with her she screamed, "Are you calling me a liar?"
I'm an adult. Do I still have to swallow my mother's lies, my father's tirades about my job, and their insistence that we're really a happy family? The only thing making me even consider going home for Thanksgiving is the guilt. My brothers are no help-they're too spineless to stick up for me. Please give counsel, and soon! -Give Me Any Dumb Name You Want_
You don't need my counsel, GMADNYW. You need your very own spine. No one can force an adult to go home if she doesn't want to, so there's no need to bore the whole friggin' planet with scab-pickers about your awful parents, your miserable childhood, your miserable holidays, dad's steak dinners, and unwelcome career advice. So your parents are grade-A, gold-plated, lemon-scented assholes. Then don't go home for Thanksgiving. If they lay a guilt trip on you, try saying something like this: "You know what, Mom and Dad? You suck. The only way I'd spend Thanksgiving at 'home' this year is if I knew for a fact that Russian security forces were going to fill your house with gas and put me out of my fucking misery."
<http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0246/savage.php> *****
Cf. _An American Family_ (Craig Gilbert, Susan Raymond, Alan Raymond, PBS, 1973): <http://www.nytimes.com/2002/04/14/arts/television/14WOOD.html>
Cf. Frederick Wiseman: <http://www.zipporah.com/>, <http://film.guardian.co.uk/Century_Of_Films/Story/0,4135,401800,00.html>, <http://www.salon.com/people/conv/2002/01/30/wiseman/>. -- Yoshie
* Calendar of Events in Columbus: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/calendar.html> * Anti-War Activist Resources: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/activist.html> * Student International Forum: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/> * Committee for Justice in Palestine: <http://www.osu.edu/students/CJP/>