Nate’s story | “My mom and dad had children with their new spouses, but neither step-parent treated me the same as their own children.”

by Them Before Us | Apr 15, 2017 | EXPORT, Stories

My first memory is of Halloween when I was a year and a half old.  My mom put me down in front of the fireplace and turned to make some food in the kitchen.  Then my dad came over and put an orange smiley-face lollipop in my hand.  I didn’t know what I was looking at...

Allison’s story | “My step father was a different, changed man…toward his own children.”

by Them Before Us | Apr 12, 2017 | EXPORT, Stories

My father left my mom with four kids and never came back. We had not seen him for approximately 4 years when he died suddenly.   My mom remarried a couple of years after my bio dad left. The man she married is still my step father to this day, forty years later. He...

Jennifer Johnson’s story | “When my parents divorced, my family ceased to exist.”

by Them Before Us | Apr 11, 2017 | EXPORT, Stories

I have a lot of experience with divorce, far too much to ask of any one person in my opinion. My parents divorced when I was three and went on to subsequent marriages, divorces, different children, a lot of back and forth between “two homes,” and a lot of chaos. By...

James Lopez’s story | “I grew up seeing my father kiss and cuddle with two different women.”

by Them Before Us | Apr 11, 2017 | EXPORT, Stories

I grew up in a household living with not only my mother and father, but also my half-brother and his mother. My father had two kids: one with my mom (me) and one with another woman (my half-brother, who was three months older than I). When my mother was not there, I...

Denise Shick’s story | “To my [transgender] dad, my siblings and I were mistakes.”

by Them Before Us | Apr 11, 2017 | EXPORT, Stories

My biggest concern at age nine was how to keep my daddy’s secret, the one he revealed to me as we sat alone on a hill near our home. In a sense, I lost my dad that day, when he told me he wanted to become a woman. As I tried to process that revelation, he blindsided...

Melody’s story | “I would come home from college unexpectedly and there would be a woman in my mom’s bedroom.”

by Them Before Us | Apr 11, 2017 | EXPORT, Stories

Exploring yourself is never an easy topic to wrestle with and explain to others. I had a pretty normal childhood, I guess. We moved a lot and I was an only child. My parents were married for 20 years and then at the age of 15, my mother decided the marriage was over....