It may come as no surprise to dog owners in lockdown, writes Jessica Oliva, but walking the dog can be the highlight of the day. With exercise being one of the few reasons for leaving the house for millions of Australians, walking the dog clearly benefits...
Mother’s Day and Father’s Day cards can push the envelope a little too far, as Kylie Ladd discovered. At the preschool my children attend, there is a rather touching Mother’s Day and Father’s Day tradition: personalised cards. No, not the standard gloopy-handprints-and-generic-poem version, but one based...
Today’s Australian fathers are believed to be more “hands on” and engaged with their children than the stereotypical absent breadwinner of generations past. Kate Murphy and Alistair Thomson studied 100 years of Australian fatherhood. However, their research exploring Australian fatherhood between 1919 and 2019 has found...
Men’s feelings about fatherhood found new expression in a study into contemporary Australian parenting, write Marie Ann Nelson, Claire Halle and Kathy Hennessy. “Don’t think you can cope … you can’t. Don’t think you can keep your old life … you won’t. Hope that when he...
While children have been largely spared the most severe symptoms of the COVID-19 infection, the Delta variant is spreading quickly among young people. A new study by a Canadian public health agency reports that babies and toddlers are more likely to transmit COVID-19 within households, which...
It’s more infectious, probably causes more severe disease, and challenges our vaccines, writes Michael Toole While Australians may be focused on the havoc the Delta variant is wreaking on our shores, Delta is in fact driving waves of COVID infections all around the world. With the World...
The extensive social distancing policies put in place to limit the spread of COVID-19 mean most people will have to spend much, if not all, their time at home. Self-isolation means far fewer opportunities to be physically active if you are used to walking or...
Pandemic-induced lockdowns have provided stories of both hardship and resilience. This extends to families in the community caring for children in out-of-home care, a group which has weathered unique challenges as children are physically and sometimes virtually cut off from contact with their biological families. A...
Leah Ruppanner and Andrea Carson say Politicians criticising women for ‘outsourcing’ parenting need a reality check. Here it is. During a heated exchange in a Coalition party room meeting about childcare subsidies, a male MP stated working women are “outsourcing parenting”. The notion that working mothers are...
Relationships can be hard work – psychologist Rachel Voysey looks at ways to fall towards each other, not apart. “Over 70 percent of Australian couples report a significant decrease in relationship satisfaction upon the arrival of baby number one.” 1.COMMUNICATION Communication is one of the biggest things that...
