psychologist & author
If the world around us is chaotic and sometimes incomprehensible, then the family is an oasis, an anchor of reliability and loyalty, a place where we are important because we are there.
SUSAN LIEBERMAN
New Traditions
By building relations we create a source of love and personal pride and belonging that makes living in a chaotic world easier.
SUSAN LIEBERMAN
attributed, The Lost and Found Box
Whether mothers speak with words or with body language -- which girls usually understand as well as declarative sentences -- a mother's feelings become a reference point for a daughter in her growing-up years.
SUSAN LIEBERMAN
Venus in Blue Jeans
Family traditions counter alienation and confusion. They help us define who we are; they provide something steady, reliable and safe in a confusing world.
SUSAN LIEBERMAN
New Traditions
Sex is not a discrete body of knowledge that can be isolated from the rest of life. Talking about sex implies talking about relationships, self-esteem, feminism and femininity, gender differences, marriage and maternity, men and paternity.
SUSAN LIEBERMAN
Venus in Blue Jeans
"Sex" is a great, rich, complicated word. Metaphorically, it is a descriptive adjective that defines who we are; a noun that describes an endless array of people, places, and things; and a verb that conjures up activities that people all over the world find pleasurable. More than a word, it is a topic sentence for dissent and political posturing. It is a plot for complicated stories of interaction and intrigue, sometimes in our own families. It is a hypothesis for experimentation and curiosity. It is the grist of advertising copywriters, poets, and novelists. We desire sex, we deplore it, we regret it, or we do it, but whatever our stance, it remains on our minds.
SUSAN LIEBERMAN
Venus in Blue Jeans
America has a cultural split personality when it comes to discussing sex. On the one hand, we view sex as deeply private and consider it a subject of great intimacy. A teacher in a small town in New Mexico, for instance, once told me that her district forbade even using the word "sex" in sex education classes. On the other hand, we talk about sex everywhere all the time -- in newspapers, magazines, movies, on television and in cyberspace, on the faces of billboards and on the backsides of cabs. What can it mean to a teenager when a word can't be spoken in sex education class but is seen and heard everywhere else? Teenagers must see in this odd circumspection more hypocrisy than morality.
SUSAN LIEBERMAN
Venus in Blue Jeans
The busier we are, the more important it is that we make sure there is special family time. It is not enough to think family time is important; it must be important. What we do is the visible expression of our real values.
SUSAN LIEBERMAN
New Traditions