Our Surgeon General, Ourselves

Parenting in America Stinks       Twenty-six years ago, I published a parenting book titled Our Babies, Ourselves: How Biology and Culture Shape the Way We Parent. Good sales numbers this far out from publication, continued attention from media, fan email, and royalty checks that still appear over a quarter of a century later tell me that a book about parenting written by an anthropologist of all things (not a “parenting expert,” not a pediatrician, not a child development researcher) rings true for so many Americans. The recent opinion piece in The…

Continue Reading Our Surgeon General, Ourselves

Cultural Elite Elegy

What? I Am Part of the Cultural Elite? No Way!     The morning after the election results of November 2016 I was standing outside my apartment talking with a neighbor and knocking around our new world order. He was waxing lyrical about the phrase “Eastern Cultural Elite,” waving his arms inclusively and stating what was obvious to him—that we were both part of that newly criticized and chastised fraction of America. It stopped me. I had never thought of myself as belonging to any politically defined group beyond white and female…

Continue Reading Cultural Elite Elegy

The Loneliest Primate

We Weren’t Meant to Be Alone All the Time            Some days I go to a co-operative workspace for a few hours just to get out of my house. Yes, it costs money, which is calculated by the number of days a week one wants to occupy a temporary desk, but that seems a small price to pay for colleagues when your occupation is a solitary one, such as a writer.        The idea behind cooperative open works spaces is not to spend so much time…

Continue Reading The Loneliest Primate

All Hail the Atlatl

Woman the Able Hunter     As we have been culturally taught, women are considered the “weaker” sex and yet given the chance, women can easily rise to the challenge of unscrewing a jar, opening a stuck window, and moving furniture using a little ingenuity. And now, a recent study of an archaic tool called the atlatl, or spear thrower, proves that this kind of female ingenuity has been serving women for centuries and making them competent hunters alongside men. The atlatl is a simple J-shaped piece of carved wood with a…

Continue Reading All Hail the Atlatl