Vonnegut wrote the Afterword in Free to Be... a Family, part of Marlo Thomas' "Free to Be" series of children books, edited by Christopher Cerf. The book focuses of different ways of being a family. It is taken almost verbatim from a section of Vonnegut's Playboy interview in 1973.[1]
Summary[]
Until recently, people were part of permanent communities of relatives. Married couples who had a fight or children frustrated at their parents could always find nearby homes at which to shelter. Now each family is isolated, surrounded by strangers. When people in the United States ask where the old values have gone, it's obvious that we're lonely and no longer have real communities. Vonnegut's dream for happier a future—his utopia, which he uses to battle his own pessimism—is that human beings will learn to be happy by being comfortable together, building shared attitudes and experiences, and become like genuine relatives.[2]
See Also[]
- Slapstick, which involves a scheme for producing artificial extended families as a major part of the plot