S. Wray Gregoire
Are We the World?
Ever since the earthquake struck Haiti my family has been busy raising money. My daughters have baby-sat and helped at bake sales; we’ve mailed off cheques. So please understand, what follows is not mean...
FAMILY VALUES: Breaking the Cycle
When my children were babies, my husband was finishing up his residency program at the Hospital for Sick Children. His barbaric schedule frequently placed him on call for thirty-six hours straight, returning home for...
Some things, mercifully, don’t change: “Can I Have This Dance?”
A few years ago I had a brilliant idea to increase the romance quotient in our marriage.
“Darling,” I said, “let’s take ballroom dancing lessons!”
Keith must have felt like he owed me something that week,...
Are We Too Comfortable?
I love a man in a suit. He looks like he takes himself seriously. He looks powerful. He respects himself, and he respects those he’s with. And if he lets his wife choose his...
Exception to the Rule
We conservatives tend to like statistics. We love studies that show how the world really works, because in general conservatives like to focus on ideas that have results. We’re not invested as much in...
Mourning Common Sense
If I were to pick one hundred random passers-by and asked them what they thought about spanking a 4-year-old who was swearing at his mother and refusing to obey, I’m pretty sure a healthy...
Things That Confuse Me About the Last Decade
I started this year confused about a lot of things. First, I don’t even know what decade we’re in. Did we just start a new one? Or are we in the last year of...
When Life is Good
When most people picture late December days they envision lights, and parties and presents. Those things dance through my mind, too, but they’re intermingled with wedding dresses, for I was married just four days...
Just Imagine
Are visions of sugarplums dancing in your head yet? We are in the midst of that season of imagination, of wonderment, of desperately hoping a good gift idea for your mother-in-law magically pops into...
My Three Gifts of Christmas
Apparently I buy really lousy Christmas presents. I had always mildly suspected my shortcomings, but recently economist Joel Waldfogel confirmed them. In his book Scroogenomics, he showed rather indisputably that if you ask Christmas...
Secrets of Saying “I Do”
I find it hilarious when magazines feature Julia Roberts on “What I’ve Learned About Love”, or Angelina Jolie with her tips on making love last. Stars who have been married multiple times and cheated...
Owning Our Problems
The British press was all agog a while back with the story of the Chawner family, whom the Daily Mail deemed “The Real Teletubbies”. The parents, together with their two daughters, 19 and 21,...
A Little Higher Than the Squirrels
Squirrels are nature’s little speedbumps, my daughter likes to say. This time of year it’s a pretty apt description, with all the plump squirrels scampering to and fro fervently collecting food for the winter....
Mind If I Interrupt?
Knock Knock.
Who’s there?
The Interrupting Sheep.
The Interrupting Sh——
BAAAA!
That joke is guaranteed to cause all five-year-olds to collapse into fits of laughter—once you explain it to them, of course. And the...
When Discrimination Can Be a Good Thing
Discrimination is bad. Right?
Well, certainly to discriminate solely on the basis of race is. It’s bad to discriminate solely on the basis of religion, or gender, or age, etc. etc.
But is discrimination always bad?
To...
