The Mathematics of Love: A Talk with John Gottman
A snippet:
'Once again, like Head Start, it looks like families are changing in a major way, in terms of social class, from the bottom up. And the government is thinking that when these scientifically based programs will teach social skills to lower-income couples, couples on welfare, that they'll learn and they'll be better. They'll learn from what the middle class is doing. But I think the major learning's going to come the other way because many of the couples we have worked with who have been through a history of slavery, forcible breakups of families by slaveholders, bad schooling, racism, poverty, unequal employment opportunities, bad parenting, criminals as their only successful role models, incarceration, drug addiction, and alcoholism, and violence, and some of these couples are still together. Many of these people who have triumphed despite it all are amazingly articulate when my wife talks to them, and helps them to reveal their highly articulate wisdom. We are seeing a new kind of commitment on the part of men, and on the part of women supporting the men, and who are staying with them in spite of incarceration and addiction. It's breathtaking, because it's a real existential change.
'The learning is going to come from the bottom up because a lot of the middle-class couples in this country are lost, existentially. They're focusing much more on money and accomplishments and status, and achievement, and having things. We see something different among these so-called "fragile families", a spiritual sense of meaning and purpose that is coming largely from the baby — from the optimism of having this new baby, and saying, it stops here. The violence stops here. The lack of a father stops here. We're ending the heritage of slavery (African-Americans are saying) and it stops with me, right now. Here I am, I am not going anywhere. I am going to be a consistent presence in my baby's life. And I will mentor other fathers to take this same journey with me. It's a breathtaking change. I think with the scientific application of studying people who really triumph through this, compared with the people who have tremendous difficulty and the relationships are breaking up, or there is increased violence and addiction, we can create a major change in this country. What an opportunity.'