Family Sociology

David Giffels grew up fascinated by his father's dusty, tool-strewn workshop and the countless creations - both practical and fantastical - it inspired. So when he enlisted his 81-year-old dad for the unusual project of building a casket, he thought of it mostly as a way to learn and to spend time together. Life had other plans. The unexpected death of his mother and, a year later, of his best friend, coupled with turning 50 and the growing realization that his father won't always be around for such offbeat adventures, leads to a harsh confrontation with mortality and loss.

Parenting teenagers is one of the biggest challenges parents face. New realities make becoming independent more difficult. Teens are traveling a different road and are moving at a different pace than those of previous generations. Today's cultural environment is more complicated and confusing than ever. But fear not! Family expert Jim Burns provides a handy guide for parenting teens.

Weddings are bound to be fun for the couple and close relatives, but to make it really memorable and equally fun for other guests you have to put in a little extra effort. To make your wedding the best ever not only for the couple but for the guests, too, you need to think differently and step out of the "it's my day" mentality. One of the basics of planning a wedding is to keep the guests in mind while keeping in check how much you spend on the preparations.

Acclaimed essayist Mark Edmundson reflects on his own rite of passage as a high school football player to get to larger truths about the ways America's Game shapes its men. Football teaches young men self-discipline and teamwork. But football celebrates violence. Football is a showcase for athletic beauty and physical excellence. But football damages young bodies and minds, sometimes permanently. Football inspires confidence and direction. But football instills cockiness, a false sense of superiority.

This book discusses the traits of the firstborn, middle born, last born, and only child.

If you are open to advice, a marital advice audiobook can help you to save your marriage if you listen and learn everything that is being taught.

Lasting Marriage is an encouraging and insightful book that will help your marriage grow and strengthen in love and service to each other. You will learn how your marriage can become one of those success stories you hear about. You will be more in love with your spouse at your 50th wedding anniversary than on your wedding day. By knowing and applying God's meaning and purpose of marriage into your relationship, you will have a lasting marriage.

For a mother who’s accustomed to having been number one in her son’s life, the arrival of a girlfriend, fiancé, or wife can be a complicated, confusing, and emotionally challenging event. Likewise, coexisting harmoniously with the mother of her partner can be an overwhelming challenge for any woman. Sons, often caught in the middle, are sometimes understandably reluctant to take sides.

Crazy Little Thing is a look at why we want to be in love and the burbling, boiling soup of endorphins, hormones, and neurotransmitters that spill from our brain to make us do things that would otherwise be viewed as insane. Investigative journalist Liz Langley traveled the country to research and interview singularly love-mad folks who maimed, murdered, and married.

All too often we rely on our own thoughts to provide us with the answers to the very tough questions in life. Why not start asking some of the experts for their own takes on what is right and what is wrong when it comes to the big questions like marriage? Marital advice is critical to better understanding how to repair a marriage that appears to be on the skids. Consider consulting some marital-advice literature if you are interested in sparing your marriage.

At age 28, Mira Ptacin discovered she was pregnant. Though it was unplanned, she soon embraced the pregnancy and became engaged to Andrew, the father. But five months later, an ultrasound revealed birth defects that would give the child no chance of survival outside the womb. Mira was given three options: terminate her pregnancy, induce early delivery, or wait and inevitably miscarry. Her story is woven together with the story of Mira's mother, who immigrated from Poland (also at the age of 28) and adopted a son, Julian.

The legality of same-sex marriage in the United States is a contentious subject. In the past few years the pro-marriage side has made a lot of progress, with the same-sex marriage states now numbering 35. The same-sex marriage debate polarizes opinion, and both sides have many supporters in the U.S.

Moving in with your man is a brave step: girls, arm yourselves with an air freshener and the number of a good electrician. This cohabitation handbook will prepare you for - and help you tackle - every irksome habit, such as chore-induced narcolepsy, things under the bed that a girl should never see, and a far from professional command with a drill.

Entre padre e hijos ha permitido que millones de padres alrededor del mundo fortalezcan las relaciones con sus hijos. Escrito por el célebre psicólogo Dr. Haim Ginott, este libro revolucionario brinda consejos y enseñanzas para educar a los hijos de forma cariñosa y disciplinada a la vez.

After her traditional engagement to her high school sweetheart falls apart, Liza Monroy faced the prospect of another devastating loss: the deportation of her best friend Emir. Desperate to stay in America, Emir tried every legal recourse to obtain a green card knowing that his return to the Middle East where gay men are often beaten and sometimes killed was too dangerous. So Liza proposes to Emir in efforts to keep him safe and by her side. After a fast wedding in Las Vegas, the couple faces new adventures and obstacles in both L.A. and New York City as they dodge the INS.

In 2010 former gang leader turned community activist Big Mike Cummings asked UCLA gang expert Jorja Leap to co-lead a group of men struggling to be better fathers in Watts, South Los Angeles. These men, black and brown, from late adolescence to middle age, come together each week to help one another answer the question "how can I be a good father when I've never had one?"

Many couples prefer to go through relationship books or gather information and love tips so that their marriage can be smooth sailing, if not a bed of roses. But not all romance books will give tips that are realistic and ones that can be followed in daily lives. This book has not kept any stones unturned, as it is an invaluable piece of writing that has served as an ideal marriage help guide for many couples.

Striking the right balance between career and motherhood is one of the most stressful, heart-wrenching tasks facing women today. In Torn, 46 women examine the conflict between the need to nurture and the need to work, and reveal creative solutions for having the best of both worlds. The stories in the collection offer hope and inspiration, but they also reveal the messy realities of modern motherhood and life's inevitable crises, both small and large.

Developmental biologist Lewis Wolpert has devoted years of research on sex and gender and aims to dispel the myths and further scientific understanding of the Xs and Ys that make us all who we are. Why Can't a Man Be More Like a Woman? is an exercise in critical and unbiased thinking. From fertilization and evolution to aggressive men and emotional women, Wolpert explores the whole gamut of sexual development and gender differentiation.

A leading science writer examines how the brain's capacity reaches its peak in middle ageFor many years, scientists thought that the human brain simply decayed over time and its dying cells led to memory slips, fuzzy logic, negative thinking, and even depression.