Friendships aren't perfect and yet they are very precious. For me, not expecting perfection all in one place was a great release.

We mothers are learning to mark our mothering success by our daughters' lengthening flight.

Friends can be said to "fall in like" with as profound a thud as romantic partners fall in love.

The ultra-right would have us believe that families are in trouble because of humanism, feminism, secular education, or sexual liberation, but the consensus of Americans is that what tears families apart is unemployment, inflation, and financial worries.

It's smart to be friends with one's sex partner but dumb to have sex with one's friends.

To me, a person's identity is composed of both an 'I' and a 'we.' The 'I' finds itself in love, work, and pleasure, but it also locates itself within some meaningful group identity - a tribe, a community, a 'we.' America is too big and bland a tribe for most of us.

Work-family conflicts - the trade-offs of your money or your life, your job or your child - would not be forced upon women with such sanguine disregard if men experienced the same career stalls caused by the-buck-stops-here responsibility for children.