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Ungentle Parenting

What are children for? For my grandmother, this would have seemed a strange question. For her, having children was not a matter of choice but simply, as she once put it to me, “what one did.” Today, though, children have become decisions we make: an opt-in variation on our default state of . . . . Continue Reading »

The New Midlife Crisis

Check all the boxes, then chuck it all aside at forty to follow your muse. Play by the rules and win, only to decide that you don’t want the prize. Most of the rebellions were minor. The devoted housewife informed her husband that she would not be cooking dinner for the family on Tuesday and . . . . Continue Reading »

Hitler’s Second Coming

It was surreal. President Biden began his State of the Union speech by invoking the Nazi threat. More than eighty years ago, Biden reminded us, Franklin Roosevelt rallied the nation, as “Hitler was on the march,” and “freedom and democracy were under assault.” Today, the president warned, . . . . Continue Reading »

Free the Children

In the first Petrine epistle, Peter exhorts his readers, “Always be ready to give an explanation to anyone who asks you for a reason for your hope.” His instruction presumes that our hope is visible, even startling or foolish in the eyes of the world. Christian hope provokes questions and . . . . Continue Reading »

Normophobia

We’re all familiar with the policy debates that surround the family. How does the tax code interact with family stability and the needs of children? Who should care for children, and how is this care to be supported? What are the ethical implications of fertility technology? But behind all these . . . . Continue Reading »

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