Do You Really Need Your Kids?

I had an interesting experience over the weekend. One that I never saw coming. But we'll get to that in a minute.

"Buzz Lightyear to Star Command"

Now, I know that I need things, who doesn't? I know that I need people in general, I'm an extrovert. I know that I need my husband, even though on occasion, when I'm in a mood, I try to pretend that I don't. The emotional need is obvious, the cognitive one is more practical. Jake mentioned something the other day about shared memory; the Encyclopedia of Human Relationships, Vol. 1 (yup, there is one of those apparently) references it on pg. 336 (if you're inclined to look it up, you can read the book online at Google Books).

Close relationship partners even tend to encode, store, and retrieve information from each other as though they are drawing on a shared memory system.