“Success in marriage does not come merely through finding the right mate, but through being the right mate.” Ahhh love. When first dating, there’s hand-holding, endless conversation, and romantic gestures. That is until reality steps in (i.e. marriage) and she finds out her superhero has lost his cape and he realizes she’s a complicated puzzle…

Family vacation. Talk about two words that can strike fear in the hearts of many parents who have had their share of “Griswold-worthy” family holidays where they were plagued with continual disasters in their attempts to have THE best vacation ever. (Do you remember those hilarious National Lampoon movies?!) And then there are parents who…

Being a mom is the best thing I’ve ever done, but it’s a tough job day in and day out and certainly not a job for sissies. And if you’re a mom who works outside the home, it’s a superwoman feat to get lunches made and kids hustled out the door by 8 am so…

What is the best way to improve your relationship to money? The answer to that is the same as the answer to how you would go about improving ANY relationship—through love. You can’t enjoy a good relationship with money unless you’re willing to love it, through thick and thin. Love is a choice and an…

Good recipes for a long, happy marriage can be hard to come by. Some recipes whip up perfect wedded bliss, while other recipes call for too much salt ruining the whole batch. My parent’s recipe for their 55 years of marriage has always been easy to follow with no fancy ingredients. They took a large…

A new study from researchers at Pennsylvania State University and the Benjamin Rose Institute on Aging finds that caregivers and their relatives who suffer from dementia widely disagree on the amount and quality of care both given and received. However, where the caregiver saw the individual as able to direct his or her daily life, a basis of…

I’m sure that the vast majority of school-age children look forward to snow days, and perhaps the same can be said even of their teachers. I’m not too sure that parents welcome snow days with the same open arms, though, especially when they work outside of the home. When our son’s school closes due to…

Here is a quick anecdote of how to put family first by defining “do-not-miss events” in your life at home. The advice is from Bill Thomas, married father of three, who is also the CEO of the Canadian division of KPMG. He was interviewed recently by the Globe and Mail for a story about the…

This short article by a regular columnist of the Toronto Star just crossed my desk. The print edition had a much better title (Friday September 24 2010, page L1):  “Ten years later, life is even better than the dream.” Here are ten lessons that Vinay Menon has learned over the last ten years: 1. The…

Last month I interviewed the family you see on our banners for the Families That Work Conference. They are a charming bunch and clearly, parents Jim and Kathleen Pope are full of wisdom. Here is the part of our conversation where they talked about their approach to allowance and chores. Basically, they’re teaching their kids…