Kinship is forever
Callahan, Sidney
ens the obligations that we owe to the old. In the mirror I see my face turning into my father's face with the same wrinkles and deep shadows, while my-body slowly begins to resemble my mother's in...
...How foolish it would be to try and run a society which does not respect and cultivate the abiding biological roots of kinship...
...Infants exact worship always and everywhere...
...As for our children, the genetic tie also becomes more important as they age...
...The physical likeness, which is so undeniable, reminds me that these particular filial obligations cannot be denied...
...In the mirror I see my face turning into my father's face with the same wrinkles and deep shadows, while my-body slowly begins to resemble my mother's in her advanced old age...
...Like it or not, we're all in this family together...
...Having loved these physical bodies I can better come to terms with my aging bodyself...
...Through my aging parents I begin to empathize with other old people...
...The mutual obligations of the flesh are not forgotten...
...T 7...
...When one's children become adults and move out into their grown-up lives, the family's daily encounters and mutual exchanges lessen...
...We value our growing children not as personal property or as personal achievements, but partly because they are biologically like us, like one's spouse, and like our other family members...
...The irreversible biological bond helps hold parents to their task...
...When grown children marry and begin having their own families, the sense of biological kinship becomes renewed by the miracle of grandchildren...
...But kinship ties, despite many difficulties, can still operate over a distance to buffer struggles and to enhance celebrations and triumphs...
...In this trying period of separating and achieving independence, many members of a family might choose to divorce (if not murder) each other if they could...
...one's parental authority is augmented when the parent-child tie is irreversibly "just the way it is," courtesy of nature's genetic throw, with no undoing possible...
...My genes are shared with my parents and siblings, after all, and my biological child shares in these family resemblances...
...The biological link to children is particularly supportive to parents in the crisis time of adolescence...
...Biological similarities make it easier for me to understand and be attuned to a child of my flesh, akin to me and mine...
Vol. 121 • November 1994 • No. 20
