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So many of us feel we must get all mushy-gushy on Valentine’s Day as we face stores crammed with everything red and heart shaped. For some of us boomers, Valentine’s Day and the romantic love it purports, all seems forced and saved up for one day that’s manufactured and capitalized on by the many candy firms, florists and card companies. Yet, we follow the same ritual year after year for fear that if we don’t, we may hurt the feelings of our nearest and dearest. So, we gift them something sweet and romantic, take them out for a special meal...

 Oh, it’s so tempting to veer into another lane and take up the entire highway as long as nobody’s in your way. Or, it’s so nice to inch over into your partner’s side of the bed, spread out more and even hog his/her pillow and blanket. Or, how tempting and delicious it seems to be to give your grown kids some of what’s really on your mind since they should know what we think. After all, we’ve lived longer and have such brilliance stored up just for this very moment. Ha! We all have the urge at times to cross...

Grown adult children who help to care for an elderly parent often face burnout. Listening to them repeat themselves, sometimes feel no gratitude for the time and money expended, often be berated or yelled at— “Where is my food? What’s taking so long?” Hearing such tirades can wear on the psyche and be disheartening. We think our parent was never like this before. What’s going on? How can I continue to handle this? That’s when the resentment and guilt start to build and spill over into disagreements that might never be resolved. It’s a huge problem. Approximately 41 million unpaid...

Everybody now refers to the royal family as The Firm, implying it’s a family business. And as journalists who’ve written about hundreds of family businesses in articles, posts and two books, including Corporate Bloodlines: The Future of the Family Firm, we concur.  Yes, it’s privately-held but publicly-funded in large part by its citizens and government for the services it renders—good will, celebrity cachet, style and its fabled fairy-tale lifestyle with members wearing fancy ribbons, medals, uniforms, hats, jewels and tiaras and living in castles and palaces that somehow signal that all those within its kingdom are very special.  But behind...

We think we’re open-minded and up on what’s new, but we find ourselves increasingly in the dark as we meet and read more about people who describe themselves as trans, gender non-conforming, non-binary, gender fluid, and so on. We recognized we needed a crash course in gender identity and its parlance and the difference between it and sexual orientation. So, we went to Nick Teich, 36, PhD, LCSW, who transitioned to male more than 10 years ago. He is CEO and Director of Camp Aranu’tiq, which he founded in 2009, and its overarching organization, Harbor Camps (harborcamps.org) in New Hampshire,...