I often tell people that I’m a work-life scholar because I am forever trying to figure out the intersections of my own work and life. With six kids – 4 biological and 2 adopted from Haiti – family is a central theme that informs everything I do. Whether your children are biological, adopted, or the figurative offspring of your relational investments in community, family is the foundation for all other social structures. It is the training ground where we learn to interact with those who are different than us, to wrestle with uncomfortable conversations, to stick with people we don’t particularly like in the moment. In the family network, we experience the joy of commitment, the stretch of transformation, the magic of unity with diversity. Whoever you count as family creates a context for close connection and growth.