Leaving The “Distinctive” Lifestyle — Regaining Farm-Family Values In A High-Tech World
In a world of lengthening commutes, longer workweeks, and high-stress, gridlocked suburban sprawl, we may often wonder about the undeclared “values” that are motivating us to live the way we do (and how to get back on the right track).
When we find ourselves envying the gleaming new SUV in the next lane over, or the larger home a friend has just bought, or the private university tuition the neighbors can afford, it may help us to stand back and ask ourselves about the “distinctive” lifestyles that so many of us seem to yearn for, and the sacrifices in family togetherness, joy, and satisfaction that the “distinctive” lifestyle demands.
Indeed, after some thought on the trade-offs — pollution, rampant materialism, rootless waves of people ebbing and flowing around us and our children — you may well conclude that the “distinctive suburban way of life” everyone is chasing is actually what we have come to call the DISTINCTIVE suburban way of life: Dual Income Striving to Impress Neighbors and...