What’s growing on your family tree?

From a distance, it looked like a simple picture of a tree: nothing very artistic—more of a sketch in subtle shades of brown and green. But as I looked closer I noticed something unusual. The tree had been constructed out of words and phrases. Someone had collected snippets of information about their family and their ancestors, and written it down to form the...

The mum load

The mental load is a concept that has gained attention in the last little while. What if mental load had a baby?

“The insecure adults of the future” | Parent-child dependency

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.

When silence is not love

We often associate divorce with the unhappiness of adults who reprehensibly decide to go their separate ways. For under-age brides Noora and Nujood, however, divorce was their escape from a nightmare of domestic violence and abuse, into which they were thrown at a young age by their own families.

Scars that heal

He had made the mistake of asking the doctors for a mirror. Terrified, he saw a monster reflected in it. Lying on the hospital bed, after the doctor left, he pulled on the tube he thought was keeping him alive. He had no reason to live.

“If the paper screen is closed, it means I’ve died”

When a closed window shade becomes an SOS sent by those used to living on their own but afraid of dying alone, something has fundamentally changed in a society that not long ago valued human relationships.

From fairy tale to reality | A journey toward the happiness that matters

Before I even learned to read, I had already fallen in love with timeless stories. I would have loved to hear them every day. During the summer holidays, I would insist that my older sister—the one lucky enough to have already unlocked the secrets of the alphabet—read me one more story, and then another.

From me to us | Friendship and reciprocity

The wisdom of friendship consists in finding those who do not require a price, or ask you to change.

Before ending a relationship

What do you do when a relationship no longer feels right or doesn’t meet your expectations? Do you try to fix it, or are you more inclined to walk away? Here are a few things worth considering before making the decision to end a relationship.

The quagmire of insecurity

Of all the evidence that younger generations are living in the shadow of insecurity, depression is the most compelling. Anxiety, which accompanies the daily lives of a record number of young people, paints a picture of a generation that experiences an almost constant lack of control.

My Friend’s Friend | Friendship and God

You really don't realize what your thoughts about God are until you have nothing left but the conviction expressed in the book of the prophet Jeremiah: My Father, my friend from my youth (Jeremiah 3:4).

When making friends is not easy | Friendship and shyness

Next to family and health, friends are among the top reasons that make us happy. But what if we are solitary, recluse or shy?

Life as a couple after the first child

The arrival of a child brings immense joy and fulfilment, but it also introduces a new dynamic within the family, a reality that places the couple in the position of taking on responsibilities and tasks they had not encountered before. Transitioning to life as a family of three is a stage that disrupts the daily routine, demanding the full attention and involvement of...

She loves me not | Friendship and the friend zone

When I was a child, I used to take a branch of locust tree and, plucking the leaves one by one, I would say: She loves me… she loves me not… she loves me… she loves me not. I cannot remember who I was thinking of when doing this; too many years have gone by since then. However, the refrain is still very...

Depression is becoming increasingly prevalent among younger age groups

Just two and a half decades ago, depression and other mental health disorders were virtually unknown among children and were often ignored.