Every Family's Got One

About Every Family's Got One

Barbara Herel is the founder and producer of Every Family's Got One. She is a writer and storyteller, wife and mother, and a recovering middle child. (You bet she has some stories to tell.) You can find her work in places like, Scary Mommy, Motherly, Adoptive Families, on page 135 in the anthology Tick Tock: Essays on Becoming a Parent After 40 (published by Dottir Press), and right here on Every Family’s Got One.

A Story About a Guilty Pleasure

By Every Family's Got One Guest Writer -- Kathy Radigan   I have a guilty pleasure that I don’t often confess to: I love reading romance novels. My favorites are by Danielle Steel. They’re extra heavy on the fluff, but some days I need an escape. Nothing does it... like losing myself in one of Ms. Steel’s books. They’re an effortless read, and I can polish one off in about an hour if I get that much time to myself as a busy mom to three. If not, they can take me about a day to read between juggling kids, house, and work.  [...]

2019-11-18T11:24:29-05:00April 10, 2019|4 Comments

A Story About a Birthday Party

By Every Family's Got One Guest Writer -- Doreen Oliver   The first time I threw myself a birthday party, my hair caught on fire. I was chatting with a friend in a West Village lounge, unaware burning candles hung centimeters away. With a slight tilt of my head to sip my lemon drop martini, my hair lit up like four out of the five rings at the Sochi Olympics. I’d never been one to throw myself a party. It had always seemed a bit self-indulgent, celebrating yourself when all you did the day you were born was lie [...]

2019-04-01T14:05:35-04:00April 3, 2019|Comments Off on A Story About a Birthday Party

A Story About the Woman Who Raised Me

By Every Family's Got One Guest Writer -- Annette Guarrasi The woman who raised the woman who raised me died on January 16, years ago. As many years have passed as the age I was when she passed. I’m humbled by how the years swiftly go. An immigrant woman... who boldly stepped foot in a new world during the Great Depression, she spoke little English, which made me think she was dumb but I was the fool to think this. She was wise but too humble to brag or insist. She knew things I may well never know. An [...]

2019-03-27T14:40:06-04:00March 27, 2019|1 Comment

A Story About Falling Out of a Car

By Every Family's Got One Founder -- Barbara Herel I remember falling out of a car.   It is a slow-moving car on a busy thoroughfare. Somehow the passenger door opens and I can feel myself falling out of the car, head first, in slow-motion. For most of my life, I’ve had this reoccurring dream. Now, I don’t remember... ever falling out of a car as a child. There is no family lore. No charmingly hilarious story about the time Barbara fell out of a car and landed on top of her head on, say, Stuart Avenue. But I’ve had this car [...]

2019-11-18T11:37:19-05:00March 20, 2019|7 Comments

A Story About an Inner Princess

By Every Family's Got One Guest Writer -- Kathy Radigan When I was seven years old, I saw the Disney version of Cinderella, and the inner princess in me was born. I loved the sewing, singing mice, and the fairy godmother who turns rags into a beautiful gown and a pumpkin into a coach pulled by six white horses. And I couldn’t resist when Cinderella met her handsome prince and lived happily ever after. But I wasn’t raised believing... that I needed a man to rescue me. My parents taught my sisters and me that we could be anything we [...]

2019-11-18T11:26:08-05:00March 13, 2019|Comments Off on A Story About an Inner Princess

A Story About Interracial Marriage

By Every Family's Got One Guest Writer -- Rochelle Fritsch "Some people are born on third base and go through life thinking they hit a triple." ~ Barry Switzer Whether that quote evokes thoughts of privileged heirs claiming they worked for every penny they've earned, or if it calls to mind superior attitudes of a people or nation that have forgotten rough-edged forebears who laid their foundation, it smacks of an embarrassing truth. No one is immune to adopting this selective remembrance or air of superiority. Including me. Fifteen years ago... God saw I needed a life partner and in His time, [...]

2019-03-16T14:43:35-04:00March 6, 2019|2 Comments
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