Heather G.’s story | “Mom said to us, ‘Don’t come around too often, my boyfriend doesn’t like it.'”

by Them Before Us | Jun 29, 2017 | EXPORT, Stories

I grew up with divorced grandparents.  When my parents divorced I felt double the shame. I remember clearly the day my mum announced she was leaving us. It was the day before her birthday and my little sister’s 6th birthday was two days later. Dad said...

Pamela’s story | “My mother told me she didn’t know who my father was…in the same sentence she told me she was gay.”

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

My situation was unique in that my alcoholic mother and I lived with her parents until I was 8. I don’t have many memories of my mother even though I shared a bedroom with her. I believe God was protecting me. I don’t believe there was any physical abuse....

Alana Newman’s story | “After a wrenching divorce, I never again saw that ‘dad’ of mine.”

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

I remember the first time I struggled to understand the ethics of a case involving reproductive technologies. I was five years old, folding clothes in my bedroom with my mom. She told me that my dad was not my biological father. My biological father was an anonymous...

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...