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Family life

Essays and videos offering insights into the self, relationships, cognition and neuroscience

Addiction Ageing and death Childhood and adolescence Cognition and intelligence Consciousness and altered states Family life Gender and identity Language and linguistics Life stages Love and friendship Mental health Mood and emotion Neurodiversity Neuroscience Personality Pleasure and pain Psychiatry and psychotherapy Self-improvement Sex and sexuality Sleep and dreams Social psychology Spirituality Teaching and learning Technology and the self Wellbeing

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Vintage black and white photo of a woman in a garden sitting beside a large urn with a sleeping dog lying nearby.

essayFamily life

Glorious and mundane

I once exalted in the extraordinary. But as I’ve learned from Virginia Woolf, indelible beauty is also found in the everyday

Diana Saverin

Black and white photo of a woman sitting in front of a bookshelf wearing a light blouse and speaking.

videoAnthropology

Margaret Mead explains why the family was entering a brave new world in this 1959 film

29 minutes

A white playroom with a boy in a tent and his mother reading to him holding stuffed animals, toys scattered around.

videoFamily life

A mother and child bond in an unusual prison visitation space in this poignant portrait

11 minutes

A man holding a baby and a woman nearby, a person in the foreground is blurred.

videoWellbeing

Children of the Rwandan genocide face a unique stigma 30 years later

20 minutes

Photo of three women viewed from behind near a lake with trees. One holds a megaphone and wears a colourful embroidered shirt.

videoFamily life

The migrants missing in Mexico, and the mothers who won’t stop searching for them

21 minutes

Illustration of two people observing ants on a forest floor with a textured tree background.

videoFamily life

One family’s harrowing escape from postwar Vietnam, told in a poignant metaphor

10 minutes

A woman on a sofa injecting her abdomen surrounded by stuffed toys on a shelf.

videoTechnology and the self

Why single Chinese women are freezing their eggs in California

24 minutes

Illustration of a saucepan on a stove with raw meat and ginger, a pot lid is nearby on the right.

videoFamily life

The stream-of-consciousness thoughts and memories that emerge while cooking a meal

5 minutes

A painting of two girls with long hair each holding peacock feathers standing in front of a textured, muted background.

videoFamily life

The precious family keepsakes that hold meaning for generations

10 minutes

Painting of a child in a red dress with arms raised standing beside an adult in a pink dress against a dark background.

videoChildhood and adolescence

Marmar is living through a devastating war – but she’d rather tell you about her new dress

8 minutes

Photo of a man in a wheelchair on a grass field with another man’s hand resting on the wheelchair’s handle.

videoLove and friendship

For two brothers who rely on one another, love is a daily act of devotion

11 minutes

A young girl in a pink dress stands on a step, holding the hand of an adult. Four adults are partially visible around her.

essayBiography and memoir

The adoption paradox

Even happy families cannot avoid the reality – my reality – that adoption is predicated on transacting the life of a child

Fiona Sampson

Open books arranged in a grid with pages featuring bright, hand-painted floral designs, around a drawing of a loaf of bread.

videoRituals and celebrations

Flirtation, negotiation and vodka – or how to couple up in 1950s rural Poland

5 minutes

Artwork depicting a family group composed of angular lines and triangles, some but not all coloured, on a paper background

essayFamily life

A patchwork family

After my marriage failed, I strove to create a new family – one made beautiful by the loving way it’s stitched together

Lily Dunn

Illustration of three scouts in uniforms with red neckerchiefs, one wearing a hat. They have different facial expressions and are sitting in a row.

videoChildhood and adolescence

Striking shadow puppetry illuminates a skater kid’s memories of Boy Scout camp

12 minutes

A photo collage with stone buildings, a wooden door, a metal gate, and residential structures with plants in the background.

videoTechnology and the self

A ‘virtual outing’ on Google Maps reveals a treasured image from Diego’s past

6 minutes

Line drawing of a woman with short hair and a man with curly hair looking at each other against a plain background.

videoLove and friendship

Naira pitches a new sport to her husband in this strange, sweet portrait of marriage

5 minutes

Two dark haired twin girls in tartan dresses look through an unglazed window frame

essayMetaphysics

Both one and yet distinct

Being a twin (as our author knows) cracks open our ideas of the perfectly bounded self and might liberate us all

Helena de Bres

Illustration of a person with glasses looking concerned, with an “Arbeit Macht Frei” sign, symbolising a concentration camp, in the background.

videoFamily life

Against her father’s warnings, Debra resolves to learn about his time in Auschwitz

4 minutes

In the foreground a European mother cradles a newborn baby as an Indian woman looks on from the right

essayBioethics

Reproductive technologies

Infertility treatments aim to improve women’s lives. But they risk tying womanhood to the toxic expectation of motherhood

Gulzaar Barn

An elderly man and woman standing in front of an old, rusted steam engine train in an outdoor setting with greenery in the background.

videoFamily life

Fifty years ago, a train collided with Jack and Betty’s car. Here’s how they remember it

9 minutes

A shopfront with “O’DEA’S” in gold letters, two windows above with flower boxes holding pink flowers, and the number 66 on the right side.

videoHome

Whether above a pub or in a castle, our childhood homes leave an indelible mark

15 minutes

Black and white photo of a Black man in a trench coat walking, with a few other white men in suits visible in the background. He compellingly looks into the camera.

videoFamily life

The extraordinary story of a Black Holocaust survivor, as told by his daughter

21 minutes

Four children are playing on and around wooden steps outside a raised house in a rural area, with logs and foliage in the background.

essayFamily life

Amazonian childcare

In the eyes of the Runa people, Western kids grow up indulged, over-mothered and incapable of facing outward to the world

Francesca Mezzenzana