Life Is A Gift, Given

Great Problems That Face The World Today In Both The Private And The Public Sphere Cannot Be Solved By Women – Or By Men – Alone. They Can Only Be Surmounted By Men And Women Side By Side.

Can You Write A Book And Have Children At The Same Time? Yes, If You're Content To Do It Very Very Slowly.

Perhaps Both Men And Women In America May Hunger, In Our Material, Outward, Active, Masculine Culture, For The Supposedly Feminine Qualities Of Heart, Mind And Spirit — Qualities Which Are Actually Neither Masculine Nor Feminine, But Simply Human Qualities That Have Been Neglected.

The Signs That Presage Growth, So Similar, It Seems To Me, To Those In Early Adolescence: Discontent, Restlessness, Doubt, Despair, Longing, Are Interpreted Falsely As Signs Of Decay. In Youth One Does Not As Often Misinterpret The Signs; One Accepts Them, Quite Rightly, As Growing Pains. One Takes Them Seriously, Listens To Them, Follows Where They Lead. ... But In The Middle Age, Because Of The False Assumption That It Is A Period Of Decline, One Interprets These Life-signs, Paradoxically, As Signs Of Approaching Death.

We Americans, With Our Terrific Emphasis On Youth, Action, And Material Success, Certainly Tend To Belittle The Afternoon Of Life And Even To Pretend It Never Comes. We Push The Clock Back And Try To Prolong The Morning, Over-reaching And Over-straining Ourselves In The Unnatural Effort. ... In Our Breathless Attempts We Often Miss The Flowering That Waits For Afternoon.