‘Money,’ Jack said. ‘And disbelief. When I think how many years it took us to get something as simple as a stop sign on our corner, how many of our petitions were ignored even after countless accidents. It took two deaths to get a stop sign.’

‘So you think it’s going to take local disasters,’ Diana said.

‘We can’t even get funding for properly educating people, and the media are very fickle help. But we do go on trying.’

‘Jack says you can’t afford to get discouraged about something that important,’ Laura said.

‘You can if you’re old,’ David said.

‘Well, you’ve done your share, Daddy.’

‘I can’t get anyone in this family to believe I did nothing but read the news,’ David protested.

‘I should think, some evenings, that took courage,’ Diana said.

‘You simply concentrate on the correct pronunciation of proper nouns,’ David said wryly.

‘In my field,’ Jack said, ‘it’s very difficult to avoid doing harm; so people tend to stop thinking about it in the name of “objectivity” or “pure science”.’

‘In mine,’ Diana said, ‘we do a great deal of harm in the name of morality.’

‘I’d be terrified of that kind of responsibility,’ Laura said. ‘Sometimes I think everything we’re supposed to teach the children, from sharing their toys to telling the truth, is no use to them once they’ve grown up. I already have a sense that the boys keep things from me because I’d be shocked or wouldn’t understand how it really is—what you really have to do to get along once you’re out in the real world.’

‘Being a parent is the most terrifying kind of responsibility,’ David said. ‘It’s the only one I’ve ever been able to take seriously. But I think it’s probably true, Laura, that we raise kids to live in a world that doesn’t exist any longer and maybe never did and maybe never should have.’

‘I think you’re too hard on yourselves,’ Diana said. ‘The world you’re talking about is childhood, and it’s a gift of very great value to any child lucky enough to have one.’

‘And a fairly recent invention, I guess,’ Jack said, ‘by no means universal.’