I picked up The Dignity of Dependence last year because I’ve followed Leah Libresco Sargeant for about a decade. We’ve only had a few interactions but I knew her as a pro-life Catholic writer, a wife and mother, and someone who always seems to be thinking through what she believes and where it leads.
In the last few years, I’ve been giving a lot of thought to how we approach dependence. There is an undercurrent of cultural disdain for people who are dependent on others. People who genuinely need help hesitate to reach out because they would rather suffer than be seen as needing the help of another person. But we all need help from time to time. We were all babies who were utterly dependent on a mother or caregiver. We will all die and many of us will be dependent on other people in our final days. None of this makes us lesser.
I really enjoyed this conversation and I hope you do too. Leah is on twitter (X) and is worth a follow.
