Mothers today juggle more tasks, work longer hours, and sleep less than their own mothers did. Yet the self-healing revolution has overlooked the most significant issue in the lives of some twenty million women: how to cope with the relentless, sometimes overwhelming, stresses of raising young children in the twenty-first century.

Rick Hanson, Ph.D and Jan Hanson, L.Ac. , have written many colums to help a mom take care of herself while she takes care of her family. Be sure to visit often as this area will be expanding to offer more than 100 colums that will be searchable by keyword for easy navigation.

Staying Intimate Friends after Children:

• In this series of columns, I am discussing how to nurture the framework of a family, our child's second womb. That framework has four essential parts: the individual Self of each mother and father, the Team of the two parents working in a functional partnership, the Couple of a husband and wife trying to preserve friendship and intimacy after children, and the Community of relatives, other families, and institutions in which a family is nested.

• When John and I got married, we were so happy. Ten years later, we have kids, jobs, and tension. Our love is a faraway feeling. We argue and it doesn't settle much. Sometimes things feel good, but mainly we are polite and sort of distant. We just function and get through the week. There is a lot going on inside my head that I am not saying. Where did the love go? What can we do?

• I just don't feel that spark with my husband any more. Who knows what he is feeling because we never talk much beyond "what's for dinner," "what happened at preschool," or "how did it go at work." At night when we could be together, we are so fried that we just go to bed. I read, he goes to sleep, and after awhile I turn out the light. We used to feel so good about each other. Does that feeling come back? Can you lose a spark forever?