“I called my dad crying and told him the truth. I was living a secret life, raising a 4-year-old. Not once did he scold me or judge me. He came to my rescue.”
‘Dad, I need help.’ I broke down in a fast food parking lot at 8 a.m., drunk from the change I scrounged together. I was taking 40 pills a day.’: Dad in tears walking sober daughter down the aisle
‘When will you make your own babies?’ I’ve never been pregnant, but I am a mother. She doesn’t have my skin color, but her little arms reached for me the very first time I called her name.’: Adoptive mom details emotional journey, ‘She is our Plan A’
“It didn’t happen the way we had imagined or planned, but she was always our Plan A. Every pain, every setback, every prayer was all worth it. She may not have my eyes, my hair, or my skin color, but she has my heart. I can’t imagine loving my little girl as anything less than a true daughter.”
‘My 4-year-old came running. ‘Ms. Susan is bleeding. I need Band-Aids!’ He was by her side the whole time.’: Mom details sweet friendship between son and neighbor, ‘I am blown away’
“Every morning he gets up, brushes his teeth, and asks, ‘Can I go by Ms. Susan’s house?’ When she goes out of town, he gets upset and says, ‘She’s been gone for too long!’ She is the perfect best friend and neighbor my little boy could ask for.”
‘I turn to walk away and she’s already crying. At 4 months old, she is realizing we are two separate people. Until now, she and I were one and the same.’: Mom shares candid reality of 4-month-old
“She came into this world only knowing our shared existence. At 4 months, she is learning her sun, moon, and stars…can just walk away. She only has one thing—a deep trust and faith I will come when she calls. As long as my arms, my chest, and my presence are where she finds peace and security, she shall have them.”
‘I wanted her approval. Ever since we met, she’s been amazing. We’re not a group of friends. We’re two sets of parents, killing the co-parenting game.’: Step-mom says co-parenting says is a ‘blessing’
“‘They are basically our family, so we might as well embrace it!’ Five days in to their visit, and it has been better than I expected, and so good for the soul. It has just felt so easy integrating our families. I look forward to making many more memories!”
‘A woman on the bus kept pointing at Meriton and touching me on the back. ‘Is he sick?’ She was loud and kept repeating herself.’: Woman urges ‘there is no cure for human being’
“The whole time I was trying to show Meriton we are equal, something was missing. I got a tattoo of a chromosome and said, ‘This will make us equally different, forever.’ The only sickness in life is the bad attitude towards people with special needs, and I’m not going to stop working to show society different.”
‘I took out the trash to ‘investigate’ our new neighbors. We watched the dreaded moving truck from the second-story window.’: Two moms find new friendship during quarantine
“While I was loading my kids into our car, the other kids made eye contact. They stood there, silently staring like it was some sort of old western stare-off. The dreaded moving truck was parked outside. In a matter of a month, our children’s childhood changed for the better.”
‘We’ve been locked in our apartment for weeks. We are at peace in the epicenter of the virus.’: Woman shares positives from quarantine in Wuhan, ‘Fear and worry have no seat at our table’
“We have bonded with and supported each other in ways I’ve never experienced in my 9 years of living here. This is a bond that may lessen when our world gets back to normal, but for now I wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world.”
‘What could your excuse possibly be, Dad? You’ve known about the dance for weeks!’: Single father says dads aren’t ‘showing up’ enough, ‘I am doing all I can to cherish her’
“Saying ‘I love you’ when they are going to bed is not nearly enough. You can’t be over-present. They want our time. Our warmth. Our interest in their lives. There are many fathers who aren’t engaged enough (or at all) with their daughters. That crushes me. This is one of life’s most honorable privileges.”
‘Does it not bother you that you aren’t getting to play?’ Her response rocked my world: ‘I know what my role is on the team, and I’m okay with that.’: Mom learns powerful lesson about sports from daughter, ‘Not everyone can be the star athlete’
“I had never had a kid be a benchwarmer before. I didn’t know how to be the parent of a kid who didn’t play. I didn’t know how to get excited for the team when my kid wasn’t on the floor. It was a new role for me, and I didn’t like it. What really bothered me most was that it seemed to NOT bother her. After 2 weeks into the season, I couldn’t bite my tongue any longer.”
