A while back my husband and I were at a dinner party where most of the other people in attendance were not religious. When the food was served, we faced an awkward moment: Do we say our usual prayer?

I don’t know whether it’s because both of us spent so much time living secular lifestyles or because of all our taciturn English and German genes, but public displays of faith don’t come naturally to us. At all. (The other day I crossed myself after saying a silent prayer when I was out for a walk. When I noticed that one of my neighbors had seen me do it, I briefly felt the urge to rush up and apologize to him for my overbearing holy rolling antics.) And so at the dinner party, my husband...READ MORE

Well, the baby is here! Our fifth child in six years, our fourth girl in a row, arrived on June 22 sometime in the afternoon, weighing seven pounds and something-something ounces (I missed some of the details, as I was focused on tracking down the anesthesiologist to give him a little constructive criticism about epidurals and misset expectations). She’s as cute as she can be, with a full head of dark brown hair, and you know she’s going to be awesome because her middle name is Scholastica.

I have to admit, I’ve been surprised by how great everything has been these past few weeks. I have this tendency, which I think is pretty common in our culture, to think about the potential difficulties...READ MORE

I’m having a baby next week! This will be our fifth child (our oldest is six) and our fourth girl in a row. I’ll be taking a few weeks off from writing here, though you can count on some gratuitous baby pictures over at my personal blog. What will I do with my extra time when I’m not writing for the Register? Glad you asked.

10. Have a t-shirt made that says YES, THEY’RE ALL MINE. While I’m at it, I’ll print up handy business-card-sized answers to frequently asked questions, so that I can make it through the grocery store without having to stop to tell each person whether we’re done having kids, if we wanted this many kids, and if we know how that happens. (Hopefully Simcha will give me...READ MORE

I came across an online discussion the other day in which moms were agonizing about how to make sure their teens had fun during the summer. In reading the back-and-forths with suggestions of all the things kids could do to maximize their amusement while out of school, it occurred to me: I don’t think I’m going to be very concerned about this when my kids are teens.

Don’t get me wrong: I want them to enjoy life and be peaceful, joyful people—it’s just that I don’t think that specifically aiming to “have fun” is the way to do it.

The dominant worldview in the culture where I grew up was that kids should have as much fun as possible. Moms and dads encouraged their kids to strive academically...READ MORE

When I got to the part in Catholicism for Dummies about the male priesthood, you’d think I would have recoiled. I had heard something about gender and the Catholic clergy in popular culture, but I didn’t know until I started researching it that the Catholic Church really doesn’t allow women to be priests. As a lifelong atheist and self-proclaimed feminist, it seems like I would have been outraged. Yet when I tried to work up some good righteous indignation, it wouldn’t come. In fact, something about this policy felt really right. Surprised at my own stance, I spent a long time pondering why I felt no urge to denounce this controversial stance as oppressive and unfair. Here’s what I came up...READ MORE