You may be frustrated with religion, but don’t take that out on God.
Decades of research have shown that most happy families communicate effectively. But talking doesn’t mean simply ‘talking through problems,’ as important as that is. Talking also means telling a positive story about yourselves.
After college, I wanted to learned about myself as an American, so I left the United States and went to Japan.
Americans know more about religion than almost any other topic.
I think that most of the action in religion is around the home, is in families, and is in individual lives, and they can go on their own searches, watch their own TV shows, read their own books, form their own groups and discuss it, but that’s where the action is – on the home front.
Don’t forget, God uses words to create the world. Words! Words are only hope.
Every writer dreams of writing a book that will touch people.
Fathers can find great inspiration in faith.
One of the things I’ve learned is to be much more open about my frailties and about our failures, because when you show your kids how you can resolve conflict in your life in real time, you’re giving them confidence that when they have conflicts, they can push through them.
My name is Bruce Feiler, and I’m an explainaholic. I first heard this word used to describe Isaac Asimov, and I knew instantly that I suffered from the same condition. It’s the incurable desire to tell, shape, share, occasionally exaggerate, often elongate, and inevitably bungle a good story.
Moses is our true founding father.
Religion is increasingly a woman’s domain in America.
You don’t need a grand plan, you don’t need to go back to the ancestors and rewrite the rules. You just need to take small steps and accumulate small wins.
If you tell your own story to your children – that includes your positive moments and your negative moments, and how you overcame them – you give your children the skills and the confidence they need to feel like they can overcome some hardship that they’ve felt.
I set out to write an anti-parenting parenting book.
When I was growing up, I, like many Jews, cheered what appeared to be the receding of faith from everyday life. The further religion got from our lives the better our lives would get, I thought, because persecution had been such a burden to Jewish families for generations.
Knowing more about family history is the single biggest predictor of a child’s emotional well-being. Grandparents can play a special role in this process, too.
Take a walk with a turtle. And behold the world in pause.
Superman’s original name was Kal-El, or Swift God. His father’s name was Jor-El. Superman was clearly drawn as a modern-day god.
The bottom line: if you want a happier family, create, refine and retell the story of your family’s positive moments and your ability to bounce back from the difficult ones. That act alone may increase the odds that your family will thrive for many generations to come.