Once upon a time, I resigned from a career to stay home and manage a household that grew to include three now-adult children.  On the first day entering this uncharted territory, I asked myself the world's oldest question:  What the hell do I do now?

 

When I surfaced from the whirlwind of caring for three toddlers just prior to the Great Financial Crisis, that question expanded to include:  How do we adapt and respond to the economic upheaval affecting our family?

 

And then, my wife suggested that I write.

 

Uh-huh.  Riiiiiiiigggggght.

 

But I realized from conversations with other parents and fathers that many Dads simply didn't know where to start in helping at home.  That sparked the creation of the first website, PracticalDad.  What began as advice for fathers and parents on family issues and dynamics evolved into an exploration of how to protect our families in a society that increasingly catered less and less to the nuclear family model.

 

Meanwhile, my own children grew up and I joined the ranks of the "sandwich generation", deeply engaged in helping care for a parent with Alzheimer's.  By this time, PracticalDad had grown to an RSS feed larger than 225,000 readers but the site was retired.

 

With the launch of Familinomics, I'm excited to dive back into writing.  But now, I'm lucky that my original nuclear family of wife and three kids has been joined by a son-in-law, two granddaughters and my in-laws, who moved closer to be part of our lives.  Familinomics will pick up where PracticalDad left off at the nuclear family model, exploring the layers and challenges of the emerging multi-generational family model.  

 

Through all of it, one question remains:

 

What must we do to protect our extended families in a society with fewer and fewer resources to support them?