Category Archive

Families

Our sister site Offbeat Mama launched in 2009, became Offbeat Families in 2012, and was merged into Offbeat Home & Life in 2015. This archive contains all the posts ever published on those sites! We believe that while children change your life forever, being around kids doesn’t necessitate abandoning your identity. We believe in supporting and inspiring parents and caregivers who are moving beyond mainstream visions of parenting. We welcome anyone who’s interested in families, whether you’re pre-parental, in the process of becoming a parent, or choosing to live childfree.

Merry ho ho

Whatever you’re celebrating this time of year (personally, I’m most excited about the days getting longer again!) and whoever you celebrate with (family of origin? family of choice? urban tribe? just yourself?) here’s lotsa holiday lovin’ from my little family to yours…

Who does your Mom sing?

“Who does your Mom sing?” An honest question asked by my 7 year old to a friend at school. The boy looked at him strange and replied, “nobody.” Ryan came home completely amazed. “And…Mom! He doesn’t know who Steven Tyler is. Ozzy Osborne, Dimebag or even Kurt Cobain!” He couldn’t believe it. I laughed and […]

A fast and furious second home birth

July 18th, 2009 – the day I had guessed my baby would make her grand entrance, and by 5pm I was showing no signs of labor whatsoever and feeling pretty discouraged. I was only six days overdue, as I had fully expected, but my parents had to travel back to Wisconsin the next morning, and […]

Underwater at 8 months pregnant

“While trying to stay in shape (yeah, right!), keep working, and let out some creative energy while pregnant with baby #4, I decided it was time to move my work into the ocean.”

Kids are portable

One of the promises that my husband and I made to ourselves when we talked about having children, was that we’d continue to satisfy our desire to travel. We looked forward to carting our future children around the country and around the world. Our 16 month old daughter has taken three trips in her life, […]

Our secular baby-welcoming ceremony

When our baby Gene was born, my partner Martin and I had already decided during our pregnancy that there was going to be no christening/baptism or anything along those lines as we simply didn’t go to church or follow a religion.

But we DID want to have some sort of ceremony. Here’s what we came up with…

Family of six hikes 93-mile Wonderland Trail

This summer, Ben and Kami Crawford decided to go for a little family hike … “little” meaning 93 miles around Mount Rainier’s Wonderland Trail in Washington. They made the trek with their four kids — ages 2, 4, 6 and 8 — in a total of 12 days, going up and down 22,000 feet of […]

Awesome post on constructive communication with family

Dale Mcgowan wrote a great post recently about dealing with disagreements with extended family, and about how it’s not about “win/lose” conversations or proving to anyone that your beliefs are right, but rather working toward common goals: In most cases, the problem isn’t that Grandma is actively preventing you from parenting the way you want—it’s […]