Hannah T. – I have sat on my grandma’s couch more than once crying, asking why my life turned out different than my siblings
My parents divorced when I was 11 years old. There are 5 of us children and I’m in the middle. When I was young, my father was a preacher, and I became a born-again believer in the Lord Jesus Christ at the age of 6. During this part of our childhood our mom was a...
Claire – My parents developed the idea that they deserved to have a baby, and it didn’t matter how much it cost, how many times it took, or how many died in the process
A miracle baby. That's what my parents always said I was. After 12 years of marriage and much agony, I had been conceived. They had never been so happy. I had never doubted that I was wanted. But there it was... right in the baby book my grandmother had put together...
Emmaline – As I look back now I see the impact divorce has had on me…I fear for my marriage and that of my siblings. I don’t want us to continue the cycle. It has to end.
I was raised in a Christian family by a loving Christian couple in the 90’s and early 2000’s. In the Midwest where there is a church on every corner, we grew up going to a Christian school and supportive church. It was in my early teenage years when divorce started to...
Louise – Not knowing donor identity is like being lost in the middle of a great, featureless ocean
(Originally published on Tangled Webs UK) Discovering, aged 32, that I was donor conceived was, to put it mildly, a bombshell. It made complete sense, explaining the lack of similarity to my social father, not to mention the tensions between us. It explained why I...
Evangeline Kippling – Transgender mom and meth addict dad
My parents were separated before I was even born and they got officially divorced when I was 1. My mom started dating women after that...and she also cut her hair very short and dressed kind of manly. My dad went to prison twice when I was younger for possession of...
…I was just filled with anger all the time. That’s all I really feel about my existence. Anger.
(Originally published on AnonymousUs) Growing up it was just my mom, my two very involved godparents and me. I always knew I was missing a biological father. I always had to explain to my friends since the age of five why I don’t have a dad. I liked it, I got...
Susan – I was 13 years old when Dad left the second time…Is it any surprise that I deal with depression?
My adoption was in the works before I was born. My adoptive parents had been married about 9 years and had been unable to get pregnant. My adoptive mother wanted nothing more than to be a mom. My bio-mother was married, but had been intimate with another woman's...
I hated growing up with gay parents
(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...
NPE Alicia – In the process of trying to help my mother and try to heal my family tree, I opened a larger wound. I suddenly did not know who I was anymore.
I have been watching several of your interviews and it feels good to know I am not alone in my beliefs and perspectives as a Christian and also as someone who has experienced childhood trauma, as well as an adult trauma of an NPE Discovery. For so long, I’ve felt I...
Sarah St. Onge – I needed a father, as do most other girls growing up in single parent homes
In 2016 I purchased an Ancestry DNA test. It sat on my counter for a week before I spit into the tube and mailed it out — sending my genetic material off into the universe, hoping to find some information about myself and where I came from. The idea was terrifying in...
STAY INFORMED
Them Before Us is made up of ordinary adults who are committed to putting the needs of children at the forefront of the battle surrounding the very foundation of our society - marriage and family. Are you an ordinary person too? Does your simple blood boil when children are expected to conform to the lifestyle of adults because you understand, maybe firsthand, how hard that is on kids? And are you tired of culture framing adults as victims when we all know that kids are the ones who have to pay the price? If so, we are your people.
Join us. Stand strong. Speak up. Lose friends. All the cool kids are doing it.
Subscribe here and never miss a story, article or event.
