Family Ties
The role you were given at nine and still play at forty
Families assign jobs early: the responsible one, the difficult one, the funny one. Why those labels persist decades after they…
Family Ties
Parents, siblings and the relationships you did not choose.
21 articles · updated August 11, 2026 · page 1 of 2
Family Ties
Siblings remember the same childhood differently, and both are right
Two people raised in the same house often describe it as two houses. The reasons are structural rather than a sign that one of them is lying.
More in Family Ties
Family Ties
Going home puts you back in an older version of yourself
Competent adults become teenagers within an hour of arriving at their parents' house. The mechanism is environmental, and knowing…
Family Ties
Adult children and parents renegotiate without ever announcing it
The terms of the relationship change several times after childhood ends, and nobody schedules the conversation. What the…
Family Ties
Difficult describes behaviour, and a diagnosis is not yours to make
Online writing encourages people to relabel a hard relative as a personality disorder. What that costs, and what describing the…
Family Ties
Care for a parent lands on whoever lives nearest
Families rarely decide who will do the caring. Geography decides it, and the sibling twenty minutes away ends up with a job nobody…
Family Ties
Family money arguments are usually two conversations wearing one coat
A row about a will, a loan or a shared bill is rarely about the amount. Identifying the second conversation is what makes the first…
Family Ties
Family gatherings run on rules nobody has ever said out loud
Who sits where, who carves, who is asked about their job and who is not. Understanding the unwritten protocol explains most of what…
Family Ties
Telling your parents something they do not want to hear
A career change, a relationship, a religion, a diagnosis, a decision not to have children. How to deliver news that will land badly…
Family Ties
Being the family's unpaid administrator
One person books the flights, remembers the birthdays, chases the paperwork and keeps everybody informed. The job is real…
Family Ties
Grandparents and the relationship that skips a generation of grievance
Children often get on with grandparents better than their parents ever did. The reasons are structural, and they explain the…
Family Ties
Estrangement is a slow decision, not a dramatic one
Cutting off a relative is usually pictured as a single explosive moment. In practice it is an accumulation, and understanding that…