How well did we know our parents? Do you ever wonder? It takes so long to move from infancy to true adulthood when reason and reflection more readily occur. Even the most empathic of teenage and young adult children are enmeshed in a world of beckoning technology where drama and...

I've ordered my copy of Lean In by Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg. If it will help improve the statistics on women in leadership -- in 2013 women represent 17 heads of state out of 195, hold about 20 percent of all seats in parliament globally, are seated on...

If you haven't read Michael Keith's latest anthology of short stories, Sad Boy, you are missing the opportunity to be mesmerized by characters that live with you long after you've closed the book -- ones that leave you wondering if by some small chance, by some minor change of events,...

Mitt Romney likely thinks he complimented working women during last night's debate.

As Governor of Massachusetts he sought women "that could be qualified" to be in his Cabinet. And he found "binders full of them." He was giving women a break, right?

How do you explain the term "patronizing" to...

President Obama's people kept expectations low for the first debate of his reelection campaign. With two more debates forthcoming, Obama understood it's not a good idea to put all your ammunition into the first debate, possibly win big, and then head downhill from there.

It's the old...

Rare are candidates who run for top spots in government so they can shrink their dominion. So when I hear we need smaller government from conservative candidates, I'm skeptical. It's a rare politician who goes about diminishing his or her hard-won territory so that others might share handily in the...

This week Mitt Romney had a good day - at least in terms of conviction. He came out swinging with promises about handling illegal immigration. He said, "Some people have asked if I will let stand the president's executive action. The answer is that I will put in...

We've had the "mommy wars" before and they were a waste of time. Work is what almost all of us do one way or another.

And this stay-at-home mom business is just another false political category like "soccer moms" -- an easy label that doesn't...

How is it that so many of us understand the level of financial support most grown children require to gain a foothold on the economic ladder these days -- yet states like Florida find new ways to deprive those who don't even have parents to provide such support?

What lessons in moral behavior for aspiring presidents may we take away from the events of recent campaigns? With Herman Cain's campaign suspension over accusations of extramarital affairs, the candidate who has risen to first place among Republicans is none other than former Speaker of the House

On televised news this evening, expect to hear sentences beginning with "some people say" or "many people think" as a means of positioning a question for an interview or providing support for an opinion being advanced. Look for such deceptive phrases on your choice of early evening televised news, CNN...

"Shame is dead, officially dead in American public life," Mark Shields has observed. He's not alone in this view. Even Tom Hanks, ever optimistic, believes that while 80 percent of people are good -- the rest are crooks and liars.

How mean-spirited...

Congressman Patrick Kennedy said yesterday on opening day of the One Mind Research Conference he convened in Boston: "The most personal thing any family can ask for is to help them take care of the people they love." In this sense, Kennedy added, "Politics is personal." It's a...

President Obama tends not to get out in front of image problems. In fact, his analytical leadership style inclines him toward quite the opposite. His response to the birthers and their latest ringleader Donald Trump is a case in point. It took the president a long time to...

The term "mean girls" grabs. It's a function of word association -- close to an oxymoron if we think of girls as "sugar and spice and everything nice." Of course, they aren't. Who is? But neither are they meaner than their male counterparts. In fact, the last time I looked,...

No doubt you've been put on the spot, cornered in conversation or didn't quite feel you could say what you wanted to say. Maybe this happened with your spouse, friend, doctor, colleague, son or daughter. There just didn't seem to be a good way to tell him or her what...

The next time you hear the word "bipartisan," think coward. If no one notices, word substitution can be a very effective persuasion device. Someone says to you, "You're stubborn," and you reply, "I am persistent." It's a useful technique and can be a respectable one -- but not when used...

If you haven't yet seen The King's Speech -- you should.

Having heard so many good things about the movie, I was sure that my expectations would be too high and I'd be disappointed. That didn't happen. I'd see The King's Speech again in a...

Tomorrow is the day -- the one when you surprise people. Why not? After all, being predictable does two things none of us should want: (1) Makes us easily managed by others who know how we'll react, and (2) Makes us boring. Neither is good for relationships -- whether personal...

I've been thinking about the calls for greater civility delivered eloquently by President Obama and many in the media. David Brooks, for example, with whom on occasion I've disagreed, wrote of civility as "the natural state for people who know how limited their own individual powers...