Parenting

Best-selling author Emerson Eggerichs has cracked the marriage communication code. He says the answer has been hidden in plain sight for 2,000 years.

Imagine Robin Williams in a manic appearance on Late Show with David Letterman. Now imagine his crazy energy focused on a singular topic, instead of the sampler platter of conversation that Williams usually totes with him. Now imagine that energy tempered by the cool intellectualism-but none of the fustiness-of David Hyde-Pierce (a.k.a. Niles Crane from Frasier). Now imagine that he speaks with the spiritual directness of the Apostle Paul.

Got it? Now, one more thing: Add some fashionable glasses.

This is a pretty good picture of Dr. Emerson Eggerichs as he stalks the sanctuary stage of a Southern Baptist church in Oklahoma City, energetically delivering a lecture he's given many times before … and getting a reaction he's also gotten many times before.

Men were designed to take care of the people they love, even if it involves personal sacrifice.

Boys are in trouble today primarily because their dads are emotionally or physically absent.

Like the father whose name he bears, Duane Lee Chapman is a bounty hunter. When he puts on his badge, the does it with the blessing of law enforcement...and the blessing of Jesus.
Although he may lurk in the darkness outside your back door, and although he may pounce on you as you exit, hurl you to the ground and scream in your face as you pee your pants in raw fear, he tries to do it in a compassionate, Christian sort of way.

He is Duane Lee Chapman II, and like the father whose name he bears, he is a bounty hunter. When he puts on his badge, he does it with the blessing of law enforcement. He is confident that he also does it with the blessing of Jesus.

He sees his job as a ministry, albeit a ministry that involves considerably more pepper spray, yelling and threats than your average ministry (unless you include a particularly rambunctious Sunday school class of sixth-grade boys).

The characters on this popular TV show are no models for us. These dysfunctional women need a dose of spiritual reality!

IT'S A BEAUTIFUL DAY in the neighborhood, but this isn't Mr. Roger's neighborhood. As the streetlights darken, the neighbors on Wisteria Lane settle into their perfect-looking houses with well-manicured lawns, but behind closed doors, life is not what it appears to be.

Ever since the suicide of neighbor Mary Alice, the residents of Wisteria Lane have come out of their dysfunctional closets. And an estimated 25 million viewers tune in weekly to watch their dramas unfold and their not-so-perfect lives unravel. It is a neighborhood of quiet desperation where delicious secrets are revealed, gossip reigns supreme, jealousy and envy chip away at relationships, and even murder takes place.

The complaint child is more at peace with himself or herself, as well as with others.

There is nothing more important to most parents than the salvation of their children.

With enough promise of reward or threat of punishment, most children can exercise self-control for a time. But a deeper problem exists. We're controlling our children's behavior, but neglecting the beliefs of their hearts.

My son is getting straight As," boasted John's dad. "He's a starter on the football team, and, best of all, he isn't into earrings, tattoos and all that weirdness. He's not like so many kids today."

What's wrong with this picture? Maybe nothing, but maybe a lot.

The prevalence of gambling has desensitized our kids to its consequences.

New Man's resident comedy writer explains chick flicks, shopping, menopause and childbirth. Be afraid ... be very afraid.

After years of exhaustive research, scientists have recently concluded that, due to a bunch of comp-licated factors involving X and Y chromosomes, men and women have completely different genders.

The full story was published in the October edition of a medical journal called Duh!

What can the shtick-slinging comedic candor of married TV characters teach us about women?

In all the push to become the knight in shining armor rescuing his beauty, it might be good to let our reality catch up with our fantasy. The bad news is none of us are Brad Pitt, but, apparently, the good news is that we don't have to be.

A female friend and I had an interesting conversation recently about what women really want from men. Much of what she told me was in reaction to the popular paradigm that a man should approach a woman as a rescuer. This was all good and fine, she said, but the knight-in-shining-armor caricature is more of a male fantasy than a female fantasy.

Before you judge your wife for letting herself go, take a good look at the man in your mirror.

Sometimes it's physical--wrinkles and sagging body parts. Other times a raging boredom sets in. Sometimes it's a career that goes awry. Sometimes it's just a simple unhappiness with the way your life is turning out. A man looks at his wife one morning and thinks, Maybe I should trade in my 40 for two 20s.

Forty percent of first marriages eventually end in divorce. Will yours? Many of these dissolutions take place during midlife.