Family

FTM here. My LO has been EBF since birth. Now she’s eight months. My MIL thinks she should be on purees, but I want to try BLW.”

How do parents influence their children's marriages?

Recently, I became a dad for the first time (that is, if you don’t count my miniature schnauzer, Banjo). Ever since my daughter was born, I’ve had a single thought going through my head: how do I ensure I don’t screw up my child?

I grew up on an unpaved, quaint side street in Ploiești, Romania. After school or during summer vacations my neighbours, M. and C., and I were an inseparable trio. We were almost always outdoors. If it wasn't too hot or raining, you could find us in one of our backyards.

Sometimes, parents end up not having any free time during the day. Why is relaxation not easy for parents?

For at least one party, sibling estrangement can be more painful than loss through death, writes Fern Schumer Chapman, who was excluded from her brother's life for four decades.

Children play, that’s obvious, but did you know it’s also “work”?

At the age of 27, for the first time in my life, I worried that time was passing too fast. For the next few years, the speed with which most of my friends were getting married was the next source of concern.

From the first positive pregnancy test, parents often build up expectations for their baby. And as the little one grows, so do the expectations—emotional, cognitive, moral and academic. While it's only natural that this should be the case, as children need to be set standards, parents' expectations can often turn out to be a double-edged sword.

I once heard on the radio a recommendation to help us understand the elderly: to attach some weights to our backs, hands and feet, put some blurred glasses on our noses, cotton wool in our ears, and then go to the market...

You wouldn’t think so, but whether or not children do chores is one predictor of their future happiness and success. 

The perspectives we acquire as children about ourselves as individuals, about the world, and even about God, become beliefs that filter and guide the choices we make as adults. Some of these beliefs are helpful. Others are not. In fact, many of the obstacles we encounter in adult life are caused by these filters.

Inexplicable joy, sleepless nights, fulfilled dreams, well-founded or irrational fears, wide smiles, bitter tears, unexpected rewards, and sacrifices—they all intertwine in the life of a responsible parent in such a way that it is not easy to grasp how difficult and beautiful they can be, all at the same time.

"But do you actually enjoy playing with the children like that?" a dear friend and experienced mother once asked me. Her question implied that there was a parallel universe in which a good mother might not enjoy playing with her children. It didn't take long before I became familiar with that universe myself.

Dependence tends to have negative connotations—we may be addicted to sugar, the internet or gambling. Other times we are dependent on people or relationships, in which case the line between positive and negative is no longer easy to draw.