“Marriage is no longer the only place where people make major life tran...” — Stephanie Coontz Quote

Marriage is no longer the only place where people make major life transitions and decisions, enter into commitments, or incur obligations.

Social and economic policies constructed around the male breadwinner model have always disadvantaged women.

In personal life, the warm glow of nostalgia amplifies good memories and minimizes bad ones about experiences and relationships, encouraging us to revisit and renew our ties with friends and family. It always involves a little harmless self-deception, like forgetting the pain of childbirth.

Using the existence of a marriage license to determine when the state should protect interpersonal relationships is increasingly impractical.

Social Security and Medicare represent promises made and we must keep these commitments.

Hollow commitments to action in the future are insufficient. Deferring difficult issues must not be tolerated. Our children and grandchildren expect us to speak and act decisively.

We must keep the promises and commitments we've made to our military veterans by ensuring needed services and care are always available and delivered in a timely fashion.

It's a very good thing to teach kids to finish what they started in the sense of fulfilling their commitments. So when my daughter told me on the second track meet that she was done with it because she discovered she didn't like competing, I made her finish the season.