lgbtq
Non-nuclear is the new normal; millions of children belong to happy families with lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender parents.
Getting Through Life Alone and Loving It
Happy Father's Day to all the dads out there. The ones who are involved in their children's lives and loves them unconditionally, I appreciate you to the highest. To a son, a father should be their hero, rather than a disappointment to them. I no longer celebrate Father's Day, because I've been estranged from my father for nearly 15 years. I'm the oldest of three children and unfortunately, I've suffered physical and verbal abuse on a regular basis from him. Every day, I was fearful of him. Whether or not I did something wrong, he would yell, belittle, and abuse me. Even over the smallest things, such as me refusing to greet someone, this toxic cycle continued. While parts of my childhood were great, the majority of it was filled with abuse. It was difficult for me to open up to him about certain things, because he would bombard me with a million questions. Him constant critiquing me on a regular basis was his favorite toxic trait. He would take issue with me on things I liked and how I presented myself. A few things about Liberian parents that everyone needs to be aware of are the following: They'll never admit any wrongdoing, apologizing to their children is beneath them, always portraying themselves as victims instead of doing any self-reflection, and finally, they gaslight you anytime you try to express that they've hurt your feelings. I've experienced these red flags firsthand when I was 14. I remember one day my father was constantly criticizing me for no reason. It was at the moment that I had to stand up to him once and for all. Spoiler alert: it didn't go well. He responded by yelling in my face, resulting with me being reduced to tears. It hurt my feelings deeply and I'm a very sensitive person. These are the reasons why I no longer commemorate Father's Day or share a picture of him on social media. Also, near the end of 2022 was the year that I told people that I preferred to be addressed by my middle name. I'm still toying with the idea of changing my last name, because having it reminds me of being born to toxic parents.
By Mark Wesley Pritchard 3 months ago in Families
Andreas Szakacs on the Power of Community Support and Social Impact
In a world where many families continue to face challenges related to food security, healthcare access, and education, Andreas Szakacs believes that meaningful change begins at the community level. Through his commitment to philanthropy and social responsibility, Andreas Szakacs has become an advocate for initiatives that support children and families in underserved communities.
By Andreas szakacs3 months ago in Families
Why Comfort Fails and Discipline Endures
Modern culture increasingly treats comfort as a moral guide. Ease is framed as wisdom. Emotional smoothness is treated as maturity. Difficulty is often interpreted as a sign that something is wrong, unfair, or unnecessary. When a task feels heavy, when a conversation feels uncomfortable, or when effort feels draining, the instinct is often to stop and reconsider rather than persist.
By Peter Thwing - Host of the FST Podcast4 months ago in Families
When Custody Should Be Removed
Any argument that emphasizes the importance of parental presence, structure, and authority becomes dangerous if it does not also specify its limits. Advocating strongly for fathers, shared custody, parental authority, or outcome-based custody standards without defining when custody should be revoked invites a fatal misunderstanding: that parental involvement is always good, regardless of behavior. No serious child-centered framework can allow that ambiguity to stand.
By Peter Thwing - Host of the FST Podcast4 months ago in Families
Poverty Is Expensive Because Stability Is Missing
Poverty Is Not Only the Absence of Money Poverty is often described as a shortage of income, but that description is too small. Low income matters, obviously. A family cannot pay bills with explanations. But poverty is not only the absence of money. It is also the absence of the conditions that allow money to stretch. Stable housing, storage space, reliable transportation, clean water, working appliances, sleep, time, tools, privacy, credit, and emergency margin all affect what a dollar can actually do. Without those things, the same dollar buys less, solves less, and disappears faster.
By Peter Thwing - Host of the FST Podcast4 months ago in Families
When Sacrifice Becomes a Claim
The Real Burden and the False Permission The deepest problem with this framing is not that it names real burdens. Many of those burdens are real. Mothers can be exhausted, under-supported, lonely, and structurally overextended. Those things should be named honestly. But the danger begins when those truths are used to justify a posture that should not be justified. The shift is subtle, which is why it is easy to miss. The message does not merely say that motherhood can be hard. It quietly suggests that anger born from that hardship is therefore morally trustworthy, that resentment born from sacrifice is therefore righteous, and that the absence of gratitude, relief, or appreciation is proof of a deeper wrong. That does not follow.
By Peter Thwing - Host of the FST Podcast4 months ago in Families
A Sentence-by-Sentence Response to the “Mom Rage” Frame
The Need to Distinguish Truth from Framing Parts of this are fantastic and true, while other parts are quite misleading and dangerous. This response is a breakdown of each sentence and claim in the clip to correct the mindset that takes evidence in part and then arrives at a conclusion that may actually be more harmful, more stressful, and more chaotic than the original burden itself.
By Peter Thwing - Host of the FST Podcast4 months ago in Families
Children Are Not Capable of Repayment
The Mistake of Expecting Return Too Early One of the deepest pressures inside family life is that parenting demands a constant outpouring long before it gives anything back in recognizable form. A parent gives time, energy, patience, attention, structure, correction, provision, comfort, and repeated self-denial into lives that are not yet capable of understanding what any of that costs. That is not a defect in parenting. It is one of its defining conditions. Children arrive in the world dependent, limited, and unable to carry the weight of adult perspective. They receive before they understand. They consume before they can measure. They benefit from labor they cannot yet name, from sacrifices they cannot yet track, and from forms of love whose full meaning may not become visible to them for many years. That reality is difficult, but it is not unjust. It is simply the nature of childhood.
By Peter Thwing - Host of the FST Podcast4 months ago in Families
The House Becomes a Courtroom
When the Atmosphere Changes Before the Words Do Not every change in a home begins with a fight. Some begin much more quietly than that. The routines remain in place. The meals are still made. The laundry still gets done. The kids still need what they need, and the house still moves through its ordinary sequence of demands. From the outside, very little may appear different at first. But something in the atmosphere begins to shift. The emotional air gets thinner. Patience gets shorter. Ordinary interruptions begin landing with more weight than they used to. A simple request feels less like a request and more like one more demand placed on someone who is already carrying too much. The outward life of the home continues, but the inward posture beneath it is no longer the same.
By Peter Thwing - Host of the FST Podcast4 months ago in Families
When Sacrifice Starts Keeping Score
When Giving Stops Feeling Free There are forms of sacrifice that still feel like love even while they are costly. They are tiring, inconvenient, and often invisible, but they are still being given in the spirit of service rather than in the spirit of accounting. A mother gets up early, stays up late, repeats herself fifty times, cleans what was just cleaned, cooks what disappears in minutes, organizes what falls apart again by evening, and does much of it without applause. None of that is easy, but difficulty alone does not make love bitter. Hard things can still be carried freely. They can still be offered as part of duty, care, covenant, and the long work of building a family life that does not pay back immediately. That kind of sacrifice is real, and its cost should not be minimized. But not every sacrifice remains in that form forever.
By Peter Thwing - Host of the FST Podcast4 months ago in Families
When Validation Replaces Discernment
The Comfort of Being Confirmed There is a reason validation has become such a powerful moral instinct in modern conversations about pain. To be validated feels like being seen without resistance. It feels like finally reaching a place where the burden does not have to be defended, translated, softened, or made legible to someone who does not carry it. For a mother who feels exhausted, under-supported, or worn thin by the invisible repetitions of family life, validation can feel like water after drought. It says, in effect, yes, this is hard; yes, this hurts; yes, what you are carrying is real. That kind of recognition matters because people often do live for too long under forms of strain that are minimized by those around them. A woman who has been spoken over, brushed aside, or treated as though her fatigue is merely emotional excess will naturally find relief in language that names her experience plainly.
By Peter Thwing - Host of the FST Podcast4 months ago in Families
The Burden Is Real, But That Is Not the End of the Story
There is a reason content like Diary of an Honest Mom resonates with so many people. A lot of what gets said in spaces like that feels recognizable because it is recognizable. Many mothers are tired in ways that are hard to explain to people who are not carrying the same kind of daily load. The work is repetitive, often invisible, and emotionally expensive in ways that do not always show up on the outside. It is not hard to understand why a mother would feel depleted, under-seen, or stretched too thin. A great deal of that is real, and any serious response has to begin there.
By Peter Thwing - Host of the FST Podcast4 months ago in Families
