“I hated growing up with gay parents”

by Them Before Us | Dec 29, 2020 | Stories

(Originally published on Reddit) Right away, I want to make something clear: I’m not a homophobe. My sister is gay, many of my friends are gay. If anything, even though I’m straight, having gay parents made me more comfortable with people in the LGBTQ+ scene. It never...

Kathryn Francisco’s story | “It’s okay to believe that the method of your conception was wrong and still give thanks for your life.”

by Them Before Us | Jan 21, 2020 | Stories

It’s such a vivid memory. One day, when I was about fourteen, I was riding in the car with my dad, and we were talking about ancestry. I was very curious about my roots. When I asked him what percentage Cherokee we were, he gave an odd response. I said, “If you’re...

“To be loved by the two who created you and not from the strangers who bought you, is natural and beautiful. But I was denied this primal family structure to support a business and an unfamiliar infertile couple.”

by Them Before Us | Jul 11, 2019 | Stories

(Originally published at Anonymous Us) From the eyes of a donored baby: I’m told to be thankful for my donors because they gave me life, but this life is not merely a kidney transplant, this life is 50% of who I am genetically and biologically: my heredity, the...

J. Chen’s story | “My family ideal won’t simply revolve around my desires and what I think could make me happy, since the purpose of having a family is to make one another prosper.”

by Them Before Us | Jul 6, 2019 | Stories

In 1997, at three months old, I was sent back to my parent’s hometown in China. They came from the southern part of China, in a province called Fuzhou, where many immigrated from to seize economic freedom. My parents had an arranged marriage, as was common in China....

Elizabeth Garrott’s story | “To me, my father had died, and there was no changing that. I was looking at a shell of the man I once knew.”

by Them Before Us | Jun 3, 2019 | Stories

My parents were married in their early twenties as a lot of couples typically do. I was born a couple years later in 1976. I grew up knowing the love of my mother and father in a normal household. I was particularly close to my father as a lot of young girls are. They...

Maggie’s story | “I’ll never fully heal from having an absent father and being raised by a single mother.”

by Them Before Us | May 27, 2019 | Stories

I grew up as an only child of a single mother, and as a young kid I never really questioned it. My father had been around briefly when I was born up until age 3. I saw him a few times a year after that, and then not at all from ages 5-11.   It seemed so simple to me...