Family Ties
Chosen family is not a metaphor, it is a set of obligations
The phrase gets used loosely for close friends. What distinguishes a genuine chosen family is the presence of duties nobody can…
Family Ties
Parents, siblings and the relationships you did not choose.
21 articles · updated August 11, 2026 · page 2 of 2
Family Ties
The first time a parent asks you for help
It usually arrives disguised as something small and mentioned in passing. What is actually changing is the direction the…
Family Ties
Adult siblings drift unless one of them keeps arranging things
Childhood put you in the same building every day and a parent kept the calendar. Remove both and most sibling relationships fall…
Family Ties
Parents are different people to each of their children
Two siblings can describe the same mother and produce two incompatible portraits. Usually both are accurate, because the parent…
Family Ties
A family secret usually protects the teller more than the subject
Families keep things quiet for reasons that sound protective and are often about embarrassment. The cost lands on whoever is being…
Family Ties
Cousins are the family relationship with the least obligation attached
Nobody expects anything specific from a cousin, which is exactly why the relationship can be warm. It also means it disappears the…
Family Ties
Being the child who moved abroad
The one who left carries a specific set of duties nobody wrote down: money, guilt, the annual visit and the phone call that has to…
Family Ties
Step-relatives acquired in adulthood start with no shared history
A parent's new household arrives complete with people you are supposed to be related to. Nobody involved has any childhood in…
Family Ties
When a relative's drinking becomes the family's organising problem
Long before anybody says the word, a household starts arranging itself around one person's behaviour. That rearrangement is often…