Thank you for getting the word out on what happens to children when the adults break the traditional family structure. I've been wanting forever to somehow get out there what happens to the emotional life of a child when you don't have parents, family, a mother, or a...
My parents were separated before I knew what was going on. I remember another woman I didn't know yelling at me about something to do with a baby crawling on the floor. I remember my dad and another woman naked in a sauna that was part of the apartment. Then I...
I was born to a teenage mother. According to her siblings, and even my grandmother, my birth father loved my mother very much. I heard stories over the years of how much he loved and wanted to marry her. My mother never lied in my younger years about who my birth...
Reams of research testify to marriage being a force for good in the lives of children and statistically, the home of a child's married mother and father is the safest place for a child. However, Them Before Us does not advocate for "marriage at all costs" if the...
My parents divorced when I was eight. At the time I had no idea that their marriage was struggling, though looking back there were signs. In fact, the night they "told me" they took me out to eat and upon leaving the restaurant I put my arms around each of them and...
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...
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...
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...