The app for independent voices
<3 This is what I want people to get from the book!
“I spent my postpartum weeks reading Leah Libresco Sargeant’s excellent book The Dignity of Dependence, which argues that a state of mutual reliance (mother and child, young and old, healthy and sick) is not an occasional, unfortunate circumstance but life’s normative standard. We’re born needing help, we die needing help, and we usually need help in between, she argues. Better get used to it.”
This time, after having my second baby, I chose my reading material carefully. Reading women like Leah Libresco Sargeant, Grace Hamman, Haley Stewart and Nell O’Leary while staying awake, changing diapers, or breastfeeding (ugh) has reminded me of the purpose of what I’m doing. Suffering is always an opportunity to transcend from the material to the spiritual—even in the small, daily work of feeding a baby.