When talking to friends, siblings, and colleagues, the sentiment is that this is a growing concern.
It may be more or less important in different situations.
If your parents are retiring and you want to live closer to them, it’s a big deal.
If you work from home and live at the office, it’s even bigger of a deal.
If your parents are divorced, and you live in the city and your dad is in the suburbs, or the other way around, it’s probably a bigger deal still.
Your family
This one will be different for different families, based on the number of kids, age, size, socioeconomic status, and so on.
For my family, it’s a big deal.
We had one sibling who grew up without a father figure, a single mom, and my mom worked at the grocery store while my dad was deployed and we were very poor.
Our family was very fractured and disconnected. My mom is the ultimate anchor and we knew that.
We now have four kids and two parents. It’s even more critical for us.
Our parents are getting older and we’ve lost some of them, including my mom.
The kids really miss them. They can talk to them on the phone and see them a lot.
We still maintain strong relationships with all our parents, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
On the other side of the coin, a handful of my friends have non-traditional or single-parent families, and it’s a much bigger deal to them.
It may even be a deal-breaker. They have a hard time making family connections.
A family network
This ties into the one about living closer to the parents. Some families are much closer than others, and that matters a lot.
A lot of my friends can’t think of anything else but their kids and my friends on the other side of the family have trouble thinking of anything but their grandchildren.
It really is important.
Our parents
This one should be easy. But it’s so much more complicated than you think.
I’ve noticed that even though I’m close to my parents, I rarely go home.
When I’m around, I’m usually hanging out with friends or playing a computer game.
When I was in my 20’s and 30’s, I really, really wanted to spend time with my parents, and we did spend time together.
But that was a long time ago, and the rules have changed. I can’t be home as much now, but I still need to maintain relationships with my parents. I feel this important.
My kids are young and our parent time is even more important to them than to me.
Our neighbors
I know a few families where the kids play together all the time.
They ride bikes, go to the park, etc. We live on a small island, and the kids are so close in age, that we really do enjoy seeing them.
Sometimes we go to the beach to walk.
My partner has a friend who says that every night at 7:00 pm they go down to the beach to wave goodnight to their neighbor’s kids who come home from the mainland.
I don’t know if that’s true, but it sounds pretty cool. I’ve never been there.
And then there’s my neighbor’s family. They have two kids and they have a blast together.
Every single day. They play hide and seek, ring around the Rosie, let’s go fishing, they built a birdhouse together, and
I’m sure there are a million other things they do together.
In the wintertime, you have probably spent a lot of time shoveling snow
If you have children, they will probably have enjoyed helping out with this task.
If you have older kids, they will have probably played games that involved shoveling snow.
When the snow melts, you can make a snowman. What fun that is!
Also, when the snow melts you can enjoy the warmer weather.
Think about all of the people in your family and the times that you have spent with them
They were probably all great times, right? We all like to talk about those great times and relive them.
When you get together with your family, it is a great way to do that.
There are times when you may not all be together at the same time, but you can certainly use technology to keep in touch.
Technology has made a lot of things in our lives easier, including keeping in touch with our families.
All you need is a computer or a cell phone with data.
This will allow you to chat with your family members, or just text them and give them a quick update.
It is important to find a balance with this technology, though, and spend some time with your family members, no matter where you are.
One of the greatest moments in your life is the day that you have your children
You have been waiting for this for a very long time.
Now that your children are here, you want to spend time with them.
If you have a big family, it can be hard to find time, but if you make it a priority, you will find the time.
You can schedule dates with your children, and you can even schedule family dinners at home.
This is a great opportunity to get to know your children, and bond together.
Let your children see how much you enjoy them, and how much you love them.
Get the things that you want for your family.
You can still have your big family, without the big house, and a large number of children.
It is possible to have a large family and still be a little stress-free.
Now that you have a good idea of what a family reunion is, make a mental note that you want to go on one next year.
