Wendell Berry on Parenthood

But I have thought, too, that the term of human judgment is longer than parenthood, that the upbringing we give our children is not just for their childhood but for all their lives.  And it is sure the duty of the older generation to be embarrassingly old-fashioned, for the claims of the “newness” of any younger generation are mostly frivolous.  The young are born to the human condition more than to their time, and they may face mainly the same trails and obligations as their elders have faced.

Wendell Berry, “Family Work” (1980) in The Gift of Good Land.

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