family

Since 1938, the Harvard Study of Adult Development has followed two groups of men. One is a group of 456 boys from Boston’s most troubled families and roughest neighborhoods. The other consisted of 268 Harvard College students, chosen by a professor of hygiene specifically for their potential to become healthy, well-adjusted adults. The focus of the longitudinal study has been to discern the factors that best predict a long, healthy life.

The researchers who have followed these young men have maintained a stunning 84 percent participation rate over eight decades. They have visited homes, spoken to parents and siblings, tracked medical exams, and followed marriages and careers. The study, which is currently tracking a second generation of participants, has produced a wealth of significant data. However, in a recent article published in The Wall Street Journal, director Dr. Robert Waldinger and associate director Dr. Marc Schulz pointed to the most significant contributing factor for physical health, mental health, and longevity.

A new research poll from the Barna Group shows that Christians are most influenced by family members when it comes to resolving conflicts.

In internet lingo, to “say the quiet part out loud” means to reveal one’s true intentions or motives that were supposed to remain publicly unsaid. Recently, a couple of prominent organizations that deal with children have “said the quiet part out loud” when talking about parental rights.

I hope we will always be amazed and humbled that God chooses to use the Colson Center to equip His people.

Family is not merely a “name.” G.K. Chesterton called the family a “triangle of truisms,” with the three sides of father, mother, and child. “The love of man and woman is not an institution that can be abolished, or a contract that can be terminated,” he wrote. “It is something older than all institutions or contracts, and something that is certain to outlast them all.”

Grocery store remarks can reveal a lot about a culture. Just ask any mother or father of more than 1.7 children about the comments that strangers somehow feel free to make about their unfashionably large broods. These comments reveal what more and more data is also showing. A lower percentage of Westerners, including Americans, are embarking on parenthood than ever before. However, these comments also betray how we think about children: as burdens, impositions on freedom, or so very, very expensive that only the wealthy can afford them.

A California woman who has spent 16 years of the past two decades pregnant with 12 children said she believes children are “a blessing.”

In late June 17-year-old Addison Bethea was bitten in the leg by a shark while searching for scallops near Keaton Beach, Florida. Her brother, and firefighter and EMT, jumped in to save her life.

Part of the beauty of biological families is that they are not chosen. In essence, they are built around obligation, a duty to the other, not merely as a means of self-fulfillment. By contrast, if we can opt into a group of friends, we can just as easily opt-out.

Pro Football Hall of Fame Coach Tony Dungy and his wife Lauren told NBC's Today Show this week that they have fostered more than 100 children thanks to a decision they made to never turn away a child in need.