Laura's Strengthening Marriage Blog

I’m torn. I’m certainly excited about a vice-presidential candidate that is a strong, conservative, tax cutting, corruption-busting, pro-life mother and wife. Sarah Palin looks like a wonderful person with a great family. She appears to be a true patriot. I’m excited about her potential as a political leader. I’m sure all the intense media attention has been a huge burden on their family. I feel for them.

But my work as a marriage educator and advocate gives me a different focus and concern than those who are trying to destroy Sarah Palin’s political candidacy with unfounded hack jobs. My concern is for the young people, and even those not so young, who are receiving yet another media message that teen sex and pregnancy don’t appear to be that big of a problem.
Read the rest of this entry »

Anti-Mormon Bias

I was disappointed to see the end of Mitt Romney’s campaign for the Republican nomination as president of the United States of America. I personally believed that he would have made a most excellent president, especially at this time of economic insecurity, continual threats of terrorism and anti-American hatred, declining moral and family values, and out-of-control illegal immigration.

I was even more dismayed trying to understand how a man of his caliber, character, values and integrity could not handily overcome the competition for the nomination. I should have clued in when hoards of conservative voters overlooked Romney and cast their vote for Mike Huckabee in state after southern state, especially when Huckabee has been liberal on raising taxes and illegal immigration.

The pieces started to come together for me as I began to see and hear of those who would finally admit to and write about the anti-Mormon bias that had quietly been there all along. I could have never imagined. Read the rest of this entry »

 “Popular thinking dictates that most children want to be astronauts or rock stars when they grow up. But it seems in reality their aspirations are far more down to earth. The most common childhood dream was to be happily married with a family . . . “ 

What can we as parents do to help our children fulfill their dreams of having a happy marriage and family? One thing would be to do our best to show them what a happy marriage looks like, as we go about creating a happy family. Kids who are raised in happy families have an easier time creating a happy family of their own. If your marriage isn’t happy, get some help to learn how to turn it around. Read the rest of this entry »