interview

Interviews with family experts, counselors, non-traditional relatives, genealogists, and your Great Aunt Gertrude.

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 Podcast5 days ago in Families
What My Parents Got Wrong — And What They Got Right
For a long time, I thought my parents got almost everything wrong. That’s dramatic, I know. But when you’re twenty-two, broke, and trying to figure out who you are, it’s easy to turn your childhood into a courtroom. Every rule becomes evidence. Every “because I said so” becomes a scar.
By John Smith12 days ago in Families
The Night Everything Fell Apart
The Night Everything Fell Apart Ubaid I used to believe that life collapses slowly—like a building with cracks that warn you before it falls. I was wrong. Sometimes, everything shatters in a single night. It was a Thursday evening when the sky looked strangely heavy, as if it knew something I didn’t. I remember sitting at my desk, pretending to work while my mind wandered through unfinished conversations and silent disappointments. My phone lay beside me, face down, as if hiding from the truth it was about to deliver. At 9:17 p.m., it rang. I almost didn’t answer. It was my younger sister, Areeba. She rarely called me at night. Her voice trembled when I picked up. “Bhai… you need to come home.” There are certain tones in a person’s voice that freeze your blood. This was one of them. “What happened?” I asked, already standing up, my heart racing. “Just come. Please.” The drive home felt endless. Every red light felt personal, as though the universe had chosen to delay me. My mind ran through a hundred possibilities—none of them good. By the time I reached the house, my hands were shaking. The front door was open. That was the first sign that something was wrong. Inside, the living room lights were on, but the house felt darker than ever. My mother sat on the couch, her face pale, her hands wrapped tightly around her scarf. Areeba stood beside her, eyes red from crying. “Where’s Abbu?” I asked. No one answered. That silence said more than words ever could. “He left,” my mother finally whispered. Left. The word didn’t make sense. My father wasn’t the kind of man who “left.” He was the quiet pillar of our home—the one who paid the bills, fixed broken taps, and watched the news every night at exactly 10 p.m. “He said he couldn’t do this anymore,” Areeba said, her voice cracking. “He packed a bag and walked out.” It felt like the floor shifted beneath me. For years, I had noticed the tension. The late-night arguments behind closed doors. The cold silences at dinner. The forced smiles during family gatherings. But I had convinced myself it was temporary. Every family has problems, I thought. We’ll get through it. That night, I realized denial can be a dangerous comfort. “Did he say where he’s going?” I asked. My mother shook her head. “He just said he needs peace.” Peace. The word echoed bitterly in my mind. What about us? What about the peace of the family he was leaving behind? I walked into my parents’ bedroom. The cupboard door was slightly open. Half his clothes were gone. His watch box was empty. On the bedside table, there was a folded piece of paper. It wasn’t addressed to anyone. Just a few lines in his familiar handwriting: I tried. I really did. But sometimes staying hurts more than leaving. Forgive me. I read it three times, hoping the meaning would change. It didn’t. Anger rose inside me like fire. How could he walk away? How could he leave my mother to explain this to relatives, to neighbors, to a society that thrives on whispers? How could he leave Areeba, who still needed him to check her math homework? And how could he leave me—with the sudden weight of being “the man of the house”? That night, everything fell apart—not just our family structure, but the illusions I had built around it. Around midnight, the power went out. Normally, we would joke about the timing. That night, no one said a word. The house sank into darkness, lit only by the faint glow of streetlights filtering through the curtains. I sat on the floor beside my mother. For the first time in my life, she looked small. “I failed,” she murmured. “You didn’t,” I said quickly, though I wasn’t sure what I believed. “This isn’t your fault.” But blame has a way of creeping into broken spaces. It fills the gaps with questions that have no answers. Around 2 a.m., my phone buzzed. A message from Abbu. Take care of them. That was it. No explanation. No location. No promise to return. Just a responsibility handed over like an inheritance. I stared at the screen, my chest tight. I wanted to call him, to shout, to demand answers. Instead, I turned the phone off. Because deep down, I knew this wasn’t just about one fight or one bad day. This was years of unspoken pain finally spilling over. As the night stretched on, reality settled in. Tomorrow, I would have to face relatives asking uncomfortable questions. I would have to manage finances I barely understood. I would have to be strong for my sister when I felt like collapsing myself. But in that darkness, something unexpected happened. We talked. For the first time in years, my mother opened up about her loneliness. About how silence had replaced partnership. About how pride had stopped both of them from seeking help. Areeba admitted she had heard more arguments than we realized. And I confessed that I had seen the cracks but chose to ignore them because it was easier than confronting the truth. The night that broke us also stripped us of pretenses. By dawn, the sky softened into pale blue. Birds began to chirp as if nothing had changed. But everything had. Our family would never look the same again. There would be judgment, financial strain, and emotional wounds that wouldn’t heal overnight. There would be moments of anger and days of deep sadness. Yet, as sunlight slowly filled the room, I understood something important: Falling apart doesn’t always mean the end. Sometimes, it’s the beginning of rebuilding—without lies, without forced smiles, without pretending everything is fine. That night, I lost the version of my family I thought I had. But I gained something else. Clarity. Strength I didn’t know I possessed. And the painful, necessary understanding that love cannot survive where honesty is absent. The night everything fell apart was the worst night of my life.
By Ubaid 15 days ago in Families
What Fathers Uniquely Provide
The Error of Treating Parenting Roles as Functionally Identical Modern parenting theory often begins with the assumption that mothers and fathers are largely interchangeable, differing only in style or temperament. From this view, any deficits in one parent can be compensated for by the other through increased emotional effort, sensitivity, or presence. Parenting becomes a question of intention and quantity rather than function and role. This assumption is appealing because it aligns with cultural preferences for symmetry and fairness, but it collapses under closer examination of developmental outcomes.
By Peter Thwing - Host of the FST Podcast18 days ago in Families
Chicago Communities on Edge as State Probes Alleged Landlord Tip to lCE. AI-Generated.
A recent ICE raid in Chicago has once again put immigrant communities on high alert, and now Illinois state authorities are investigating claims that a landlord may have tipped off federal agents before the operation. The raid, which targeted residents of a South Shore apartment building, led to dozens of arrests and left families shaken, fueling questions about tenant safety, civil rights, and community trust.
By Asad Aliabout a month ago in Families
Blessing Platinum-Williams on Church Belonging, Family, and Accountability: Community as Sacrifice and Care
Blessing Platinum-Williams is a London-based, self-taught software developer and the creator of Tonely AI, an “auto-reflect” keyboard for iOS and Android that surfaces the likely tone and intention behind a message as you type. Tonely aims to reduce everyday digital harm by prompting users to reconsider wording that may sound blunt, passive-aggressive, or manipulative. Privacy is a core design choice: Tonely runs tone detection on-device and, per its terms and privacy policy, does not upload or store your messages. She founded Tonely AI Ltd in Britain. She also has a law degree and a therapy-informed perspective on language for everyone.
By Scott Douglas Jacobsenabout a month ago in Families
Bettijo Hirschi
Introduction Bettijo Hirschi is a multi‑talented creative professional from the United States. She works as a designer, art director, photographer, writer, and event planner. Bettijo has built a long career in creative work and media. People know her for her artistic skills, her work in magazines and television, and her lifestyle blog. She is also known in recent news because of changes in her personal life.
By Farhan Sayedabout a month ago in Families
Fleeing Home - Again.... Content Warning.
Today I am not going to lie about or sugarcoat how I am doing. I am doing terribly. My children and I ended up fleeing our home last night. Again. Because of a man who decided to tell me that I had no other option than that he was going to be accessing my property.
By The Schizophrenic Mom2 months ago in Families
The Love That Stays Off-Camera
I didn’t notice the fire until it was almost too late. It was a Tuesday in late October. Dry wind, brittle leaves, the kind of air that crackles with danger. I was inside, scrolling through bad news on my phone, when the smell hit—acrid, sharp, wrong. I ran outside just as smoke curled over the ridge behind our street.
By KAMRAN AHMAD2 months ago in Families
The Last Gallop
In a small village nestled between golden wheat fields and sun-cracked hills, there lived a horse named Bahar. He wasn’t sleek or swift, nor did he have a pedigree worth boasting about. His coat was dull in places, his legs bore old scars, and one ear was half-torn from a long-forgotten storm. But to twelve-year-old Rehan, Bahar was more than a horse—he was memory, comfort, and home.
By meerjanan2 months ago in Families
The Last Day of 2025. Content Warning.
2025 was an objectively hard year for me. I would be lying if I said that I wasn't extremely thrilled to be done with whatever this last year has been! It is fitting that I want to use Wednesdays to write wacky things... and the end of 2025 is on a Wednesday - as it has been one wacky year!
By The Schizophrenic Mom2 months ago in Families
The Space Between Noticing
The city woke up loudly, but Jonah always noticed the silence first. It lived in the early hours, tucked between the hum of traffic and the clatter of metal gates opening for business. It lingered in the spaces most people rushed through without a second thought. Jonah didn’t rush. He never had.
By Yasir khan2 months ago in Families