It may be that people are finally getting the idea. After years of pretending that Ozzie and Harriet’s “nuclear family” (what an expression!) was the norm, we seem to have noticed that it was only ever really widespread among the upper middle class or in parts of the country so isolated and wild that not even mothers-in-law came to call. That vision had its brief and waxily shining moment, for a small portion of the population, for a very little while (by 1980, more women worked outside the home than didn’t). For the rest of us, we realize more every day that each branch and twig of love that can be put to use to support our families, whether sprawling and far-flung or tiny and barely afloat, is necessary.

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