No doubt, the White House thinks the American people know Obama's story. But since the Inauguration, we've seen only the president's present: his perfect family, his Ivy League elegance, his effortless mastery of complex issues. We never see him sweat. And we forget that he ever had to struggle.
There are plenty of reasons to put our cellphones down now and then, not least the fact that incessantly checking them takes us out of the present moment and disrupts family dinners around the globe.
I'm the only one in my family who is deaf, and there are still conversations that go around me that I miss out on. And I ask what's going on, and I have to ask to be included. But I'm not going to be sad about it. I don't live in sad isolation. It's just a situation I'm used to.
My childhood was protected by love and a comfortable home. Yet, while still a very young child, I began instinctively to feel that there was something lacking, even in my own home, some false conception of family relations, some incomplete ideal.
My family pride is something inconceivable. I can't help it. I was born sneering.
For an incumbent like a president, who's been in the news every day, their family, they're well known.
GamerGate has had an almost indescribable toll on my family.
For my parents' generation, the idea was not that marriage was about some kind of idealized, romantic love; it was a partnership. It's about creating family; it's about creating offspring. Indian culture is essentially much more of a 'we' culture. It's a communal culture where you do what's best for the community - you procreate.
My immediate family are from the West Indies - from Trinidad and Grenada - and I have relatives all over the Caribbean.
Indeed, I was so afraid to dishonour my friends and family by my indiscreet actions, that I rather chose to be accounted a fool, than to be thought rude or wanton.
I like going to rifle and pistol clubs and joining them in target shooting. I also share the same respect for individual initiative and love of family.
If someone who is poor says, 'I may not have much money, but for me, what's really important is to have a good television so my family can enjoy and watch,' we should be a little careful and recognize that just like we all have individual liberty to make the choices we want, that we not judge too much on that.
Individual responsibility, hard work, paying attention in school, faith, family all these things are important.
Modern society places an emphasis on individual responsibility, whereas Islam places an emphasis on collective responsibility and the family.
One family, one nation, indivisible. That mentality is essential for our salvation.
And I look forward to the time when I can become more indulgent with my songwriting. But this band is a family, and it's a process that we have to grow with together.
I have learned that it is imperative that I make time for my friends, that they demand to be as much a part of the mix as my family and my work, and perhaps more so, because they are not an inevitability.
The history of fiction is about family - an inexhaustible subject for literature. We are creatures driven by emotions that are on high display in intimate relations - inside the family.
My family had a lot to do with 'My Infamous Life.' They were the inspiration behind me starting to write. I had an interesting family life dating way back, and they did a lot in their lifetime.
In the summer of 1952, when I was 30, the Army assigned me to an infantry unit fighting in Korea. Meanwhile, though, there was other news in my family: My father had become the Republican presidential nominee. As an ambitious young major, I refused any offers for other assignments.
