Peg Kerr's Journal

No, actually, I'm simply disagreeing with the thrust of the analogy. I don't think that nurturing and providing structure and authority are conflicting; I think they're orthogonal, and that's, as I've suggested, why I find Lakoff -- and if you're talking about the same essay I've read, I've, well, read it -- so unconvincing, although I can see how his take would provide comfort both to people who think that maintaining structure and authority are necessarily authoritarian-bad, as well as to those who think that nurturing is just a code word for creating permanent unnecessary dependence.