Nurture

Photo: iStockphoto I spent more than half of my life with the man I married, and because of our lengthy history, I never imagined that one day I would find myself a single mom to three young kids. But then two years ago, suddenly, I was. I left my husband and within a year I

Photo: iStockPhoto Early in parenthood, I felt pressured to pull off gold-standard nightly family dinners. I’d heard what the experts were saying about its importance and always imagined a movie-worthy scene around the table, with our four happy kids. But the demands of commuting, raising a big family, and having a partner who travelled for work

PHOTO: COURTESY SUZANNE HAYES I walk through the front door and excitedly confront the mess before me. I’ve spent the past few days awaiting this moment: the moment I can finally catch up on life. The laundry piles are high, the dishwasher is full of clean dishes to put away, and the sink is overflowing

Photo: Sheri Segal Glick I hate making dinner, I hate planning dinner and I hate foraging for ingredients. I hate all of it. Because hiring a personal chef wasn’t a practical solution for my family, I subscribed to a website that designs healthy, family-friendly meal plans for the week, thinking that it would solve some

Helen with her son and husband at Dairy Freeze. Photo, courtesy Helen Racanelli. My entire adult life, I forced my body to stay the exact same size. My ideal was 120 pounds, and I clung to this magic number as if I had been flung into the sea and it were my life preserver. Since

Amassing napkins, tea lights and random pieces of glassware (don’t make me explain, just enjoy the options when I’m making you a cocktail) is my standard strategy for trips to Ikea. (That and the staple soft ice cream cone I ravage while raging around the parking lot looking for my car.) 25 best things to

Photo: iStockphoto The Government of British Columbia has put an end to “birth alerts”—a practice that allows hospital staff to alert child welfare workers that a newborn may be at risk for harm, without informing expectant parents. This practice, which can lead to traumatic child apprehensions soon after delivery, disproportionately impacts Indigenous women. By ending

Federal elections are usually about families, and how to woo them. But getting parents’ attention? Not so easy. How are you supposed to get a full understanding of each party’s promises if you can barely manage to get the dog fed and the laundry done between shuttling kids to and from daycare and school and

Photo: iStockphoto 1. Have a plan Write down all your holiday expenses, including presents, gift wrap, groceries and entertainment. From there you can develop a budget, divide your funds and track your spending along the way. 2. Use tech to shop the sales From toys to food to gifting supplies, everything goes on sale—the key

Home renovations are a high stakes undertaking at the best of times, but the process can be extra daunting if you’re living in your construction zone of a home with kids. The good news: It’s totally doable, and we’ve tapped the moms and interior design experts who’ve been there, done that, and lived to tell

Photo: iStockphoto Reprinted with permission from Silence is a Scary Sound by Clint Edwards, Page Street Publishing Co. 2019. When I got married, my mother said she planned to come to my home, turn my ceiling fan on high, and throw toys into it. Or pull all the toilet paper off the roll and drag

Photo: Courtesy of Kinjal Dagli-Shah Every October, as the leaves turn and pumpkins begin to appear on neighbourhood porches, my kids, 8 and 5, begin to talk excitedly about Halloween. It’s a signal for me to dig out the box in my basement marked “Diwali stuff” and gently remind them that there’s another reason to

Recently, I’ve been thinking about how we are only a few weeks away from driving on roads packed with snow and ice. Pretty soon I’ll be feeling like I’m inside a magical snow globe, while planning getaways with my two kids, Nico (almost 7 years old) and Oli (3 years old). This can definitely be

Photo: iStock “I’m just, so, tired,” I said to my husband, staggering toward the kitchen table and tenderly sitting down. The pain from the emergency C-section a week ago still felt fresh, and the demands of an extremely hungry newborn left me feeling perpetually hungover. “I’m tired too,” he said. Those words sent me into