It's long been accepted as fact that the availability of family planning services saves lives. Where women have access to these services children and families are healthier and society at large benefits.

We all wish we could be in more than one place at the same time. People with families feel guilty all the time-if we spend too much time with our family we feel we're not working hard enough.

Like all best families we have our share of eccentricities of impetuous and wayward youngsters and of family disagreements.

I am hoping that in this year of the family we will go into our families and reconcile differences.

I don't see how the party that says it's the party of the family is going to adopt an immigration policy which destroys families that have been here a quarter century.

My mom is the backbone not just of my family but of many families.

Because I didn't have brothers I was always interested in the kids down the street that had four brothers in their family so I became one of them - but it was not my family. I've always been attracted to temporary families. They tend to be lost characters.

When families are strong and stable so are children - showing higher levels of wellbeing and more positive outcomes. But when things go wrong - either through family breakdown or a damaged parental relationship - the impact on a child's later life can be devastating.

My wife and I both come from Irish families. There are two kinds of Irish families: the hitting kind and the kidding kind. If you're fortunate - and both of us are - you come from the kidding kind of Irish family.

Happy or unhappy families are all mysterious. We have only to imagine how differently we would be described - and will be after our deaths - by each of the family members who believe they know us.