extended family
All about how to stay connected, strengthen ties and talk politics with your big, happy extended family.
The Call That Came at 2:17 AM
At exactly 2:17 AM, my phone rang. No one calls at 2:17 AM with good news. Half-asleep, I reached for my phone. The number was unknown. My heart started pounding. For a second, I thought of ignoring it… but something inside me whispered, Answer it.
By Imran Ali Shahabout 8 hours ago in Families
St. Patrick's Day
When I was a child, I really thought our family was Irish. We always celebrated St. Patrick's Day with a chocolate cake with green frosting, and it was pretty common to wear green and to have corned beef, cabbage, and boiled potatoes for dinner that day.
By Denise E Lindquistabout 23 hours ago in Families
The reason we move more quickly when we're excited could be explained by dopamine.
People frequently walk a little faster without realising it when they are enthusiastic or eager. According to a recent study, the brain's reward system could be the source of this extra "pep." It seems that this mechanism modifies our level of activity based on whether positive events occur as anticipated or come as a pleasant surprise.
By Francis Damia day ago in Families
My Mother Learned to Text at 63
My mother got her first smartphone at sixty-three because the flip phone finally betrayed her. “It swallowed my message,” she said, holding it up like evidence in a courtroom drama. “I wrote to your aunt Shazia that the biryani needed more salt and now it says ‘Message Failed.’ How can a message fail? It had all the ingredients.”
By Fawad Ahmad3 days ago in Families
My Cousin, Who We Adopted Into Our Family As A Brother
What happens to get into recovery? Some people are in recovery from drinking alcohol and taking drugs, while others consider recovery as they are no longer spinning around an alcoholic or drug addict, a loved one.
By Denise E Lindquist5 days ago in Families
The Echoes of Bitter Harvest
The sun hung low over the rolling hills of the Blackwood Estate, casting long, distorted shadows that looked like grasping fingers reaching for the manor house. Julian Blackwood stood on the obsidian-tiled balcony, his fingers wrapped tightly around a glass of amber liquid that had long since grown warm. At thirty-two, Julian was the sole heir to a fortune built on coal, sweat, and a century of secrets. But as he looked out over the dormant vineyards that his father had insisted on planting in his final years, all Julian felt was the crushing gravity of a legacy he never asked for.
By Alpha Cortex6 days ago in Families
The Power of Presence
When “Good Parenting” Became a Feeling In modern parenting conversations, “good” has increasingly come to mean emotionally warm, verbally affirming, and immediately comforting. A good parent is expected to soothe distress quickly, validate feelings consistently, and minimize discomfort whenever possible. These traits are treated as obvious indicators of healthy parenting, reinforced by cultural messaging, therapeutic language, and social reward structures. When a child feels better in the moment, the parenting decision is assumed to have been correct, and when discomfort persists, the decision is often framed as a failure of care rather than a necessary part of development.
By Peter Thwing - Host of the FST Podcast11 days ago in Families
