Scientists the world over have spent countless words and oceans of ink debating the issue of nature versus nurture. But how your child develops might have as much to do with the order in which they... Read more >>

I was recently invited to China to consult with an adolescent social service agency. China’s one child policy was introduced more than a decade ago, and many of those only children are now... Read more >>

Sometimes the success or failure rates of relationships seem as prone to chance as the flip of a coin. Why is it, for example, that a vegan fitness freak can happily couple up with a couch potato and... Read more >>

It is the middle of the night and I am suddenly awake, my brain prodded to high alert by the words of the psychologist at a conference for Parents of Only Children. He had said parents such as us,... Read more >>

These days I find myself going back a few years—er—a lot of years. You see, I’ve got an Only Child—again. Only this time my Only Child is sixteen, not a baby. This time, the... Read more >>

I pondered about my first story should be about. The idea came to me, like most of my thoughts of substance, in the middle of the night. I am the result of a marriage of convenience. Both my parents... Read more >>

Rick was a smart, good looking, sixteen-year-old high school student when he attended my evening English class at the foreign language school where I taught in Lanzhou, China. His parents were both... Read more >>

Not long after my daughter was born, I met two ladies in my neighborhood for coffee. All three of us had just delivered baby girls, but I was the only first-time Mommy in the group. My husband had... Read more >>