characters have intense passions and dramatic lives . Intense passions may generate remarkable stories , filled with romance and treachery , but they do not generate happy families — at least not in this novel . By contrast , Tolstoy implies , there are few stories to tell about happy families . When families are happy , nothing remarkable appears to be happening . I think of a time when my father , night after night , rocked one of my twin brothers to sleep while my mother tended to the other . While he rocked , as I remember , Dad sang quietly . Here was no great drama , just a weary father quietly rocking and singing to one son while his weary wife bathed the other . Yet , this unremarkable moment is an instance of the kind of ordinary life that sets the conditions for family happiness to thrive .
Whatever may be unremarkable and ordinary about happy family life , to have a stable , loving home is no small thing . We believe that every child should have a fair chance to flourish in childhood and to succeed in life . We know that a fair chance for every child includes a family that will provide for their material needs and raise them lovingly . My grandmother ’ s story illustrates how easily circumstances outside a family ’ s control can disrupt its capacity to do these unremarkable , ordinary things .
Despite the limitations of her childhood , my grandmother became a wife , mother , and grandmother whom everyone cherished . The woman who described herself as a child raised in a home without love , herself raised a son who sang nightly to his own sons while rocking them to sleep . Families have an inherent capacity to become the stable , loving environments that children need .
When circumstances beyond their control undermine that capacity , families deserve our support .
Lloyd Den Boer is a retired educator who lives with his wife in Edmonton . They treasure ordinary family life with their four married children and their eight grandchildren .
news & views WINTER 2022 | 33