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Growing up, my Aunt Louise was at our house for every major holiday. My sister and I slept over at her house when my parents were moving. To this day I get nostalgic about Dr. Pepper for the simple reason that she let me drink it.

On International Women������Ƶapp Day, The Globe and Mail published a lengthy article about the difficulties millennial mothers face. An article released later in March also discusses “the motherhood penalty and its impact on Canadian women in the workplace.” Both are effectively summarized by this quote: “The world isn’t set up to support young mothers at work.”

“Is Toronto finally shaking off the sexual stigma of polyamory?” reads the recent headline in the Toronto Star. News outlets have been peddling polyamory apologetics after a middle-aged woman released a book about her life-changing adventures pursuing polyamory in January 2024.

Saying the family is the basic building block of society was once a “motherhood and apple pie” sentiment. Motherhood and apple pie, being, of course, a cliché alluding to all that is both normal and good. We need a new cliché. Today motherhood itself is no longer “motherhood and apple pie.” 

Like the first baby born after midnight in the new year, the second day in 2024 marked the arrival of the first Globe and Mail editorial about child care.

It������Ƶapp Advent — that special time of year when sleighbells ring, chestnuts roast and Christians of different persuasions argue about when to begin celebrating Christmas. Many Catholics adhere to the idea that one ought not decorate or sing Christmas carols before the Christmas liturgical season begins on Dec. 24. There������Ƶapp only one problem with this: it presumes we ever stopped.

Does liberalism get the big questions right? The question was the subject of a Munk Debate on the evening of Nov. 3 in Toronto.

My short answer is yes. Better put, it gets more things right than competing philosophies. Capitalism, it has been said, is the worst economic system except for all the others. Liberalism is a better solution for our common lives than socialism or communism. Yet at the end of the night, the winning side of the debate were those who were opposed. How have we arrived at a point where so many appear to be questioning liberalism?

Some years ago Brad Wilcox, the University of Virginia sociologist, gave a conference presentation  about how mothers differ from fathers. The feedback forms revealed a portion of the audience thought the presentation was so self-evident as to be unnecessary. On the other side, a significant number were offended by the concept of sex differences in parenting. 

There are several themes that emerge from watching the 1 Million Person March 4 Children in Ottawa on Sept. 20. Organized by Kamel El-Cheikh, an Ottawa-based Muslim father, this community was galvanized into action when a teacher in Edmonton criticized a Muslim student who had been absent for Pride activities in June. The audio recording went viral, largely because the teacher������Ƶapp conclusion was that without agreement on issues of gender and sexuality, the student doesn’t belong in Canada. If that doesn’t galvanize protest, I don’t know what will. And it did.

When Lanark, a county on the outskirts of Ottawa, terminated its contract with one child care licensing agency at the end of August, it was a surprise to the agency and families. Parent fees doubled and 12 child care spaces were lost as two daycares closed.