I look at family as its own type of relationship. Like friend or romantic or professional is a type of relationship. It's often worthwhile to have family that

I look at family as its own type of relationship. Like friend or romantic or professional is a type of relationship. It's often worthwhile to have family that you stick together with. Partly to maintain some connection to where you come from but also because sometimes life throws some real nasty stuff at you, and it's good if someone has your back. I think we humans are wired for this to some extent, and it can often be beneficial. If so, then it's worth some effort to maintain that family relationship. So I think there's a third option, which is to call them not because you're best buds or because you're supposed to but because you've decided maintaining that family relationship is important to you. Can you have both a friend relationship and a family relationship with one person? Yes. It's great when people have that. But it's not a given, and if you can't (or don't, or don't yet), that doesn't necessarily prevent the family relationship from being there. Personally I think calling multiple times a week is probably only natural if you have the friends type of relationship with them. If you don't, I wouldn't feel bad about not forcing it that way.