Latest Stories
Most recently published stories in Families.
Adopted Struggle: Clarity
In my last story, I talked a little bit about myself, and I want to be clear about something: I am glad I grew up where I did and was afforded the opportunities that I had. I grew up in a great school, although I never took advantage of it, a great middle-class town. Being Adopted has never really affected me until I received that letter. And that was twenty-eight years. So, what has changed? The answer, clarity.
Nathan StottsPublished 7 years ago in FamiliesTo Smack or Not to Smack?
The debate on smacking is an interesting one in as much as there are not many fence-sitters on this subject: people either have no problem with it at all, saying “I was smacked as a child and it didn’t do me any harm” while others are vehemently against violence of any sort against children. Just using the word “violence” evokes very strong feelings in many who hit their children because they don’t consider smacking a child to be violence. The “no hitting” camp generally believe that we hit our children out of instantaneous anger, frustration, and basically because we don’t know what else to do.
Mari-Louise SpeirsPublished 7 years ago in FamiliesIs This As Far As We Come?
Even though an estimated 75% of adults agree that women have the right to breast feed in public spaces, health officials in Timmins, Ontario felt it is necessary to keep the discussion open. Life size cut outs of breast feeding mothers dot the city in an attempt to ease the discrimination faced by mothers in Ontario and across Canada. Women are illegally asked to cover up, leave an establishment or are verbally attacked by strangers.
Sorcha DeHeerPublished 7 years ago in FamiliesMexican-American
It's hard to ignore everything going on around me. My parents migrated here for the American dream, I was born and raised here but let's start from the beginning? My mother was born in Jalisco, Mexico with very little to call her own. She lived up in the mountains in a cement home. There was two different parts to the house, the rooms and then a water trench next to the so-called kitchen, no bathroom, no running water, no electricity and not much money. When the water trench was low, my grandmother would go down the hill to the stream down below, fill up the bucket with water, and then back up the hill to put the water in the trench. My mother always told me there wasn't much to live for where she was born. As she grew up she longed for a better life.
One Eyebrow Doesn't Make You Friends
Yesterday, my father bemoaned his feminization over the last decade due to his constant exposure to me and my sister - his two loving daughters. His role as a single father meant the cannibalization of the maternal role, which resulted in a sort-of heightening of feminine characteristics. (I'm sure Stan Lee has written a comic about this, right?)
Adeline E. AndersonPublished 7 years ago in FamiliesComing Face to Face With Me
I still remember the day I met you. I was the bratty little sister of one of your friends. You were playing basketball at the fair grounds.My brother was so mad that mom made him bring me along. As I sit there watching you guys play while pretending to read my book, one of the two I brought with me. I finally started to get into one of them when you came up to me. Taking a seat next to me.“What are you reading?” taking a drink from your water bottle.I had no idea what to say, it was the first time you never talked to me. I just kept my head down. I didn’t even look up when you placed your thumb on the page I was reading to mark my place as you turned to read the title.“Out Stealing Horses,” you flipped the book back to the page I was on. “Sounds interesting.”We sat there for what seemed like forever. I wished that you would just leave, being around you made my head spin. The way you smelled made it so hard to catch my breath. I was so happy when my brother called you to come finish the game. You stood and winked as you ran off to rejoin the game. I knew that whatever just happened, was well I don’t know if you started hanging out with my brother more or I started noticing you more, but it was like every where I went you were there.My mind kept going to you sitting there in class, I would day dream about you. Thinking if you were thinking about me too. The age difference didn’t bother me at all. But back then I didn’t know you lied about that too.There were a lot of lies told. I still don’t know what I was to you. I think that is what bothers me the most. Was I just another mark? A score to settle with my foster family for not keeping you? There are so many questions I have and no one will give me the answers. That's another thing that bothers me, they say that they want to protect me from what is going to happen now. That I should not have to relive the nightmare. That’s not the case, every time I close my eyes I see you. I see all the good things that has happened between us. Even though there were more bad times than good, it's the good times that stay with me. It’s at night that the bad memories come.It has been six years since it has ended, and now I sit here wondering what is going on. From the next room, the only good thing that has happened between us is playing tea party with her stuffed animals. I know she hears me cry at night. She asks me why I am sad. I can’t tell her its because of you. She doesn’t know about you. I couldn’t even if I wanted to. It’s still to fresh in my mind to relive.But maybe it is time. To reach out to you at least. Maybe it will help me get over you and move on so I can start living again.
Lizz DeBowPublished 7 years ago in FamiliesWhat I Learnt About Death
My Grandfather was a good man. As a young man, he served his country in battle, fighting for the freedom of those unable to defend themselves against the tyrants who imposed their will on the world. As a working man he served his community, fighting for fairness and equality of those who worked alongside him, trading blows with the heavyweights of industry whose tanks and shells had long-since been replaced with cuts in wages and inequitable conditions, and where men who worked themselves into early graves for paltry sums underpinned the few who grew continuously richer from their efforts. As a family man, he fought to preserve the innocence of his children in a changing world which saw men walk on distant rocks and peer into the far-flung reaches of the galaxy; and as an Old Man, he served his peers, his church, and his community, offering shelter and sustenance to those in need of his Christian charity. A man whose honour and decency was well-represented by the hundreds who mourned his passing, and passed glorious platitudes to those who knew and loved him most, lining the wood-adorned walls, smiling solemnly and shaking hands with the well-wishers who wished him well in his passing. Those who knew him well, loved him well, and remarked to his widow as such. And through tear-stained dignity, she accepted each gracious apology for his loss, followed by his children—my father and uncle—then by the grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and countless nieces and nephews.
Mark WilliamsPublished 7 years ago in FamiliesPostpartum Depression Made Me a Better Mother
I dreamed of being the girl in the movie scene, crying in the bathroom, holding a pregnancy test, and hugging her husband that could not wait to see how beautiful she would be carrying their first child. Never once did I think that pregnancy could be traumatic and brutal and not so hard to accept as "beautiful" and "a miracle." Pregnancy reared its ugly head, and snapped me into reality when I was 23. Postpartum depression was inevitable for someone like me, who suffered from mental illness, someone who had just spent a summer partying with the worst of them and doing things any parent would tremble at. Out of everything that was difficult, being a mother would not be. I may not have realized it when I wanted nothing but to be cool and get high and go to the bar, but being a mom was always my very first dream. But still, I was completely and utterly devastated when the doctor came into the room and said, “The rabbit died,” an old phrase used to describe something very new. I understood neither. I accepted neither. I was incapable of loving myself, I was still looking for someone to save me, I was still completely dependent on everyone else. How was I supposed to validate the existence of another being when I was still using other people to validate my own? Within ten minutes, I was expected to plan for a life and a future of someone else; I hadn’t even cared about my own for the last ten years. The fairytale scene I wanted was robbed by a man in a white coat that wrote me a prescription for prenatal vitamins instead of the painkillers I was there for originally. That doctor said, “Good luck to you,” as I left his office, and the only thing that remotely resembled a movie scene was the white-knuckle grip I had on my paperwork and the words I screamed to God as I flew down the interstate to inform a soul as lost as my own that he was (regrettably) the father of my child.
Jessica wilsonPublished 7 years ago in FamiliesWhy I Joined a Grief Counseling Group, and Why You Should Too
About a year after my mother's passing, I started reading a book by Cheryl Strayed, an author whose mother also died when she was younger. Her two-page account of that event made me cry six times that night. I cried more times in one evening than I had over the entire first year of my mother being gone.
Aspen DrakePublished 7 years ago in Families12 Fun Art Projects for Kids
Coloring is the perfect rainy day activity. It’s kid-tested and parent-approved, and it’s undeniably better for brain development than sitting in front of the television for hours. However, even the most creative children run out of artistic ideas eventually. What follows is a list of fun coloring projects to try out when a little inspiration is needed.
Alice MinguezPublished 7 years ago in FamiliesThe Sandy Boys
Hi! I am The Sandy Boys' mummy! It all started a few months ago whilst The Sandy Boys, Leighton Sandy, five years old, Louis Sandy, three years old, and Chad Sandy, eighteen months old, were watching YouTube. The Sandy Boys love watching YouTube so much! But my eldest asked me if we could make a video of our own. I told him we could but didn't really have any idea of what they could do. Our first video was in the back garden of my husband's (Daddy Sandy) nan and granddad. They have a big garden and this is just a small section of it. It is where they grow all of their fruits and vegetables. In this video The Sandy Boys climb up and across a ladder, which their great grandad built, it's for their runner beans to grow up, but as their runner beans hadn't started growing yet, there was no risk of The Sandy Boys ruining the plants. You can see the panic on Daddy Sandy's face when the boys climb so high! Chad Sandy doesn't appear in this video as he was fast asleep! He does love his sleep, which he shows in some more of the Sandy Boys YouTube channel! The Sandy Boys great grandad encourage them all the time, just like he did to Daddy Sandy when he was a boy!
Cara SandyPublished 7 years ago in FamiliesHow to Raise Your Kids: From a 16 Year Old's Perspective
Basically, the reason I'm writing this today is because I'm camping with my family and there's plenty of kids here, most little tiny brats. My mom and I were having a conversation about raising kids, and here's what I took from it (and from every other parent I've seen raising tiny brats.)
Kyra WiersmaPublished 7 years ago in Families