Ask a Marriage Blogger: Why Don’t You Write More About Gay Marriage

Hey, I read your blogs all the time and I like them, but you don’t offer a lot of marriage advice for gay couples. I got the impression you supported gay marriage, so why don’t you write more about gay marriage and advice for gay couples? Martin Martin, thanks for writing and thanks for not minding if I answered you directly in the blog and I appreciate the conversation we’ve had on this topic. As it stands, this marriage blog is written for families.com and our material here is to be considered family appropriate. While I do support the right … Continue reading

The Marriage Blog Week in Review for Jan 13-19

Good morning, welcome to the weekend’s marriage blog week in review, our way of trying to catch you up on the blogs you may have missed this week. For starters, in case you may have missed it, a new blogger has joined Sherry and I here as a regular Marriage blogger and she brings with her expertise in marriage therapy as well as in her own unique perspective. So be sure to check out Elizabeth Kane’s blog as you review this week’s entries. Saturday, January 13 Marriage: Mountains and Molehills confronts an issue that while we’re all prone to exaggerating, … Continue reading

We’re All Aliens to One Another

John Gray’s series about Women Are From Venus and Men Are From Mars are intensely popular and has made the New York Times best sellers list plenty of time, but the truth is – whether men and women are from Mars, Venus, Jupiter or beyond the solar system as we know it – we’re all aliens to one another. We are all products of our individual cultures. Consider for a moment, that when someone is born in the Southern United States and they meet someone from the Northwestern Portion of the United States – there are many cultural differences between … Continue reading

Babies’ Sleep? Really?

Trying to understand the sleeping patterns of a baby is like doing fractal geometry without a lecture. You read a lot in baby books and get a lot of advice on what your baby should or shouldn’t do. You’ll hear lots of things that other people’s babies did. You’ll feel equal parts gratified and annoyed by the plethora of well meaning advice. Get ready for a little bit more. Babies are just like aliens in my opinion. They are not from our world. They don’t know our rules. They don’t know the difference between night and day. They also have … Continue reading

Why I No Longer Buy Books

I no longer buy books. There I said it. People who know me may think I have been taken over by aliens, but it is true. I haven’t bought a book in a ver long time, and in fact, I have gotten rid of boxes and boxes of them. Despite this fact, I read several books a week. The only difference, is that I don’t pay a dime for the privilege. In fact, I actually save money, since I can utilize living space that was once taken up by bookshelves. My biggest source of free books is the library. I … Continue reading

Men and Women Are from Earth

A study came out recently in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology: “Men and Women Are from Earth: Examining the Latent Structure of Gender.” The central hypothesis of the paper is that men and women actually aren’t all that different.  Many of the differences that we might demonstrate have more to do societal expectations than inherent biology. This isn’t the first study on the subject.  I recently read the book “Delusions of Gender: How Our Minds, Society, and Neurosexism Create Difference,” by neuroscience psychologist Cordelia Fine.  In it she exposes noticeable trends in male vs. female psychology, both in … Continue reading

The Harmful “Him” vs. “Her”

I know that men and women think differently. My first impulse is to examine how much of that is natural and how much is a result of cultural conditioning, but that’s a study for another time, and really another blog. What I want to focus on today is the sort of “us” vs. “them” mentality that arises sometimes, and how that might affect marriages. I had to read “Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus” for a high school health class. I found it abhorrent, and said as much in my paper on the book. I understand as much … Continue reading

Cartoon Review: The Garfield Show

Recently, my son has discovered “The Garfield Show” and wanted to watch it as his morning cartoon. It is one of the easily tolerated cartoons for adults to endure. I’ve caught myself paying attention to the show when it is on. I don’t find it to be annoying like some of the cartoons we’ve watched have been. There is enough of a plot for adults to be entertained and yet the animation makes it appealing to toddlers. It seems to be a good option for parents to watch with their toddlers. Since I do have a few concerns about the … Continue reading

Biking from Alaska to Argentina: A Homeschooling Road Trip

If it wasn’t for a comment Nancy Sathre-Vogel left on one of my Pets articles I never would have known about the extraordinary undertaking she and her husband plan to make with their two boys and dog: a bicycle trip from Alaska to Argentina. (I for sure had to interview her about that!) Along the way she and her husband will be homeschooling their boys. I thought it would make an intriguing interview to post here. Courtney Mroch: On your website, you have a box encouraging teachers and homeschoolers to contact you for a “unique, dynamic way to help [their] … Continue reading

Why Risk Yourself on A Relationship?

I was raised by my mother and my grandmother. My grandfather died the year before I was born and my mother was never in any long term relationships when I was growing up. I knew she dated one man heavily and they lived together for a brief period. She married briefly when I was ten, but I don’t think that lasted the entirety of my fifth grade year at school. It wasn’t until I was 19 that she met a man that she would then live with for the next decade and a half. They would still be together, but … Continue reading