Social

There was a time when the word parenting would cause me to either roll my eyes or shrug. It was a time when seven hours of sleep a night, instead of at least eight, had the destabilizing potential of a hurricane, a time when the clear voices of children in the park would compel me to grab a book and read under my...

Crouched in the trenches of the horror of old age, modern individuals no longer wish to recover anything from the natural ageing process that their ancestors practised with such serenity. On the contrary, the first signs of physical decline become the raw material for a wide range of efforts (from picturesque to sickly) to forge a youth that the mirror refuses to restore.

How can we encourage the elderly during this time? How can we help them understand that we don't want to lose them and that, although it's hard for them, we didn't abandon them. I have an elderly mother and, honestly, it would help me a lot. Can you write for me?

Sartre may have been right when he said Hell is other people. Yet, for some, their first step toward Heaven is meeting the God who shelters in someone else's soul.

In terms of short-term benefits to one's reputation, or monetary benefits, the illusion of deceit is intoxicating. But, in the long run, both from an individual and a social perspective, the negative effects of deceitful behaviours should be convincing enough in order to deter any and all from engaging in them.

"The way we talk to our children becomes their inner voice" (Peggy O'Mara).

Some houses allow you to read the owners' story on their walls and through their windows. Although it happens less and less often, the most beautiful houses are built by those who mean to live in them. Cara Brookins and her children know very well how every beam or window in their house was put up, because they built it together.

"If there is anything more heartbreaking than a body perishing for lack of bread, it is a soul which is dying from hunger for the light." (Victor Hugo)

"Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful"—Samuel Johnson.

A photograph of a father holding his sick little boy is simply an example of parental affection, right? But it can provoke a virulent reaction when it's posted on Facebook and the protagonists are naked under the refreshing spray of water in the shower.

We walk into a room full of people and from the first second, we draw a conclusion about how we will feel in their company. And often what we intuited happens. How is this possible?

Is it possible, as single parents, to instil in our children a love for God and for the church?

Advertising makes the teenage years seem like the best years of life. However, adolescence is a time of great emotional turmoil for both children and their parents. It's a time when many important decisions are made, with life-changing consequences.

Raising a child is not easy at all. Raising someone else’s child is even harder. But raising six children who are not your own, giving up your life, sounds crazy to most of us.

Problem gambling in Australia and New Zealand is an issue seldom talked about, but we ignore it at our peril.