Raising children has never been easy, but some parents think it's even harder today They have always had to deal with providing - food, clothing and shelter as well as a supportive and loving environment where their offspring can grow to their full potential

Robert Frost, in his poem, Death of the Hired Man, wasn't thinking about boomerang kids when he wrote, "Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in" But he sure might have been

As Leo Tolstoy put it in Anna Karenina, "Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way" What about other family traits

Lost in the headlines about the presidential election and the stock market meltdown is the fact that October is the month dedicated to controlling domestic violence The irony is that the financial shock waves are likely to increase the prevalence of abuse

Across the United States and around the world, the effects of the financial crisis continue to spread – foreclosures are widespread, banks are being taken over, stock markets are erratic, credit is frozen and bankruptcies are increasing No one can predict with certainty the long-term effects on the economy, but most pundits agree that this collapse will not right itself in the near future

Sending flowers, candy and greeting cards are de rigueur for mom on Mother's Day but, as members of the Sandwich Generation, you recognize that what your aging mother really wants on her special day is to feel nurtured Ellie's mother, who had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease, no longer recognized her