In-Law Conflicts Before and After the Wedding Dear WholeFamily Counselor, I am a 20 years old newlywed and mother. My marriage did not start on the best note. It started out with a pregnancy. His parents were understandably not very happy with the situation. They seemed to come around after our decision to marry, but soon things stared to go downhill.

Q: Dear WholeFamily Counselor, I just read your article Toilet Training Step by Step and found it very helpful. It was easy to read and very informative. I do have some questions, though, specifically related to toilet training my daughter. She is now 30 months and we have been "potty training" for around 10 months. Sounds crazy, I know.

At the age of 75 the Japanese painter Hokusai (1760-1849) said, "All that I have produced before the age of 70 is not worth taking into account. At 73, I learned a little about the real structure of nature, of animals, plants, trees, birds, fishes and insects. In consequence, when I am 80, I shall have made still more progress.

When our children were young, the family bed conundrum was a big issue for my friends and me. But like all new parents, when my oldest was an infant, I filled my shelves with books on “Parenting by Experts”. The leg up I had on the other moms in the neighborhood was that while many of my friends were getting married and having babies in their early twenties, I was 27 when Sara was born.

Dear WholeFamily Counselor,

Hi! General info on us -- We are quite young, married for two years, have one child, are both reasonably thin and fit. Our marriage is good with the exception of our sexual relationship.

Here are our two sexual problems:

1. My wife can only achieve orgasm by her being on top (with penetration) vigorously rubbing her clitoris against my pelvis.

(Part I, written in 2000. See the introduction and the whole series.) My son is 15 years old. He was born with Down Syndrome. In the last 15 years I have amassed enough stories to fill volumes. However, right now I want to just stick to the topic of: Expectations. When Joshua was born the doctors advised us to not "waste our time, energy or money." They claimed that our son would never amount to anything.