Americans are known for having longer work hours than their Western European contemporaries. Numerous explanations have been offered and debated – from Europe’s “culture of leisure” and differing tax rates between the U.S. and Europe to European market regulations pushed by labor unions. Yet, the idea that America is a nation of “workaholics” seems to have been popularized in the early-to-mid 1960’s, when the word “workaholic” rose in usage dramatically even prior to the divergence between the U.S. workday and that of many European nations. By the mid-1960’s, with second wave feminism in full swing and over 2 million women on the pill, the professional workforce was expanding rapidly in size and competition. With more institutions open to women’s attendance, colleges increased their enrollment in anticipation of the next generation’s career pursuits.

Senator Mitt Romney’s recent proposal, the Family Security Act, aims to provide a dual benefit to families: a child allowance and a reformed Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC). With the goals of incentivizing marriage and family, it has received praise across the political spectrum for its promise to alleviate poverty while “swapping out some programs that benefited these families in the past, and also by discontinuing the federal subsidy for high taxes in New York and California.”

According to a staff writer for the Yale Daily News, it is now a “necessity” that students experience, at one point or another, “a quarter life crisis.” Recent college graduates, and even recent admits, would be familiar with the symptoms of what The Muse calls an “intense period of soul-searching and stress”: insecurity, loneliness, and aimlessness. While the phenomenon may sound overblown and dramatic, it does disclose some of the anxieties of a generation faced with an increasingly uncertain world, both socially and economically.

In his Inauguration Day speech, President Joe Biden preached the need for unity moving forward, saying without it, “there is no peace, only bitterness and fury; no progress, only exhausting outrage; no nation, only a state of chaos.” While most people desire and strive for unity, many of us continue to live along the lines of our national divisions. How did we get here? And how should we proceed in the years to come?

Mama. Mère. Ina. Mum.

Across every language, culture, and faith the world over, “mother” is a primal utterance. For many, it connotes a comforting presence, recalling the intimacy we experience in the loving in the arms of one who has given us life. We are connected with our mothers inside the womb and outside of it, so much so that most of us will call out for “mama” on our deathbed. This relationship between mother and child seems even miraculous; it transcends both time and generation – each child has a mother, and every mother was once a child herself. Thus, the word “mother” captures a beautiful truth about human beings – we are, by our very nature, always related to someone else. The transcendent relations of family are so important that we use words which not only connect us in intimacy, but recall us in fact. While the family we are born into does not ultimately define us, our relationships within it help orient us in the world beyond. Without words that ground us into the truth of our being, we can find ourselves unmoored, undefined, and unhappy.