Our country is in a profound crisis, of decency, of civility, of character. Our best instincts are undermined
at every turn. And our families, to which we turn in crisis, are feeling the strain with great intensity. Mary
Pipher understands this. She is a good listener, perhaps the best listener in America. And what she understands
she can express in a manner that goes directly to the heart. Writing from her immersion in her community, and from
her experience as a therapist, Pipher has found words to express our innermost feelings. Families today are experiencing
a new set of realities. Working parents are harried, tired, and overextended. They are unable to protect their
children from the enemy within, the inappropriate television they watch for hours, the computer games that keep
them from playing outside, the virtual reality they tune in to when they should be learning about the real world.
And so, Pipher says, we have houses without walls. Compounding this is the fact that our psychological theories
don't work anymore, because they were developed decades ago, when families were tightly knit, relatively monolithic
institutions. Pipher argues that Freud is of little help in our violent, sexually explicit MTV world. Diagnosing
the problem is the first step to curing it, but in addition Pipher offers ideas for simple actions we can all take
to help rebuild our families and strengthen our communities.