Agnes Howard

That children should do chores might seem so obvious as to be unworthy of mention. I considered the question in a recent Boston Globe   article . No suspense: I do think children should do chores. But revisiting an important book about the Reformation, of all things, strengthened that . . . . Continue Reading »

A young woman in the house helps the once idealistic parent to see the error in assuming that people are basically good and rationally calculating, in crediting articulated motives and best-case plans, in expecting order out of social engineering and good fruit from good intentions. The . . . . Continue Reading »

Near the end of Reproduction and Responsibility, the 2004 report of the President’s Council on Bioethics, comes a call to safeguard women and pregnancy. “In an effort to express our society’s profound regard for human pregnancy and pregnant women,” the council urges Congress to . . . . Continue Reading »

Last Christmas our parish hall displayed a Nativity painting by a local artist, showing a dark-haired woman in a wheelchair holding an infant, with a man in hospital scrubs standing solicitously behind them. The scene was instantly recognizable to anyone who has had a baby in this country in the . . . . Continue Reading »