Don't forget the marriage! A recent New York Times op-ed piece discussed the impact of having children on marriage quality. Not surprising - to some - is the fact that having children may hurt happy marriages. In many ways, having children may bring people closer together. Having a child with a partner can create a lifelong bond with another person. One of the greatest pleasures of marriage and child rearing is sharing the pleasure of watching a child grow. But it often comes at a cost. According to Stephanie Coontz's analysis in The New York Times, more than 25 studies over the last 20 years have concluded that marital quality suffers after children come into the relationship. Further, couples whose children have left home for college, military service, or jobs, report an increase in marital happiness. There's no question that children can be a source of joy in a marriage. But the cost of parenting on today's marriages may be too high. Coontz points out that today's parents spend much more time with their children than they did 40 years ago. Citing the work of sociologists Suzanne Bianchi, John Robinson and Melissa Milkie, Coontz details that married mothers in 2000 spent 20% more time with their children than in 1965. Married fathers spent more than twice as much time. The increased time with children is coming from the "couples time" bucket, apparently. Married parents are spending less time with friends, with each other, or alone for the purpose of spending more "quality time" with their children. However, Coontz observes "in the long run, shortchanging such adult-oriented activities for the sake of the children is not good for a marriage." Coontz goes further, pointing to the work of researcher Ellen Galinsky that shows that most children don’t want to spend as much time with their parents as parents assume; they just want their parents to be more relaxed when they are together. Ask yourself - should I be spending more time with my spouse? Do my children really need me to spend as much time with them as I do? Coontz closes her article by noting that "couples need time alone to renew their relationship. They also need to sustain supportive networks of friends and family. Couples who don’t, investing too much in their children and not enough in their marriage, may find that when the demands of child-rearing cease to organize their lives, they cannot recover the relationship that made them want to have children together in the first place."

The web has become a necessary resource in dealing with most health related issues today. By going online, you can discover a wealth of information to help you make better decisions about medical decisions that affect you and your family.

Did you know that over 95,000 men, women, and children are waiting for a life-saving transplant and 35 percent of all patients waiting for a kidney transplant are African-American?

Drop into most Montessori schools across the country and you'll find a trend: not a whole lot of Black kids. Why is this? The Montessori educational philosophy is known for being open and tolerant. In many cases, however, Black parents - who may not have grown up going to Montessori schools - may not know about the Montessori method and the benefits it offers to children. The Montessori educational philosophy was developed by Maria Montessori (1870 - 1952), an Italian physician, educator, philosopher, humanitarian and devout Catholic. While working in the University of Rome's Psychiatric Clinic, she became interested in helping mentally retarded children learn. The Italian Minister of Education was in attendance, and was impressed by her arguments sufficiently to appoint her the same year as director of the Scuola Ortofrenica, an institution devoted to the care and education of the mentally retarded. She accepted, in order to put her theories to proof. Her first notable success was to have several of her 8 year old students apply to take the State examinations for reading and writing. The "defective" children not only passed, but had above-average scores, an achievement described as "the first Montessori miracle." The Montessori method is known for its ability to help children grow and learn through various developmental stages. According to Wikipedia, the main tenets of the Montessori philosophy are: instruction of children in 3-year age groups instead of grades, corresponding to sensitive periods of development (example: Birth-3, 3-6, 6-9, 9-12, 12-15 year olds; children are treated like competent beings, encouraged to make their own decisions; small, child-sized furniture and creation of a small, child-sized environment in which each child can be competent and productive in a self-running small children's world; creation of a scale of sensitive periods of development, which provides a focus for class work that is appropriate and uniquely stimulating and motivating to the child (including sensitive periods for language development, sensorial experimentation and refinement, and various levels of social interaction); and an emphasis on the importance of the "absorbent mind," the limitless motivation of a young child to achieve competence over his or her environment and to perfect his or her skills and understandings as they occur within each sensitive period. Why are people fans of the Montessori method? Many parents believe that the Montessori focus on personal development rather than exams produces more mature, creative and socially adept children. In addition, psychologists have found that across a range of abilities, children at Montessori schools out-performed those given a traditional education. Five-year-old Montessori pupils were better prepared for reading and math, and 12-year-olds wrote "significantly more creative" essays using more sophisticated sentence structures. The 1stFriday.com contains a list of Bay Area schools that follow the Montessori method. Find one near you and pay them a visit!