Latest Stories
Most recently published stories in Families.
Hurt. Abused. Broken.
It all started when I was in the third grade. My dad had a better job offer in a small town in the middle of nowhere. He always worked late or just never came home. That’s when it all started. The long, dark, scary nights. I came home from my first day in third grade at my new school. I was already friends with everyone. That night, I was told by my father’s ex-wife that I was a bad girl and I didn’t deserve anything but the scraps from dinner. She had moved my room to the cold, dark, lonely basement. She tied the door shut with rope so that I couldn’t get out and the cellar door had bricks on it. She’d call me up after everyone finished their dinner (dad wasn’t home) and told me to clean up. I remember time passed and if I was hungry, I had to eat a cold can of peas. I was so skinny, the only way my body knew to protect me was to grow hair. I got sent to school with only an apple and a quarter for milk everyday. I went to school and begged my classmates for just a little bit of food.
By Tabitha Rzeszutko8 years ago in Families
Failing at Dance Mom
I never thought I would be a dance mom. Well, I never thought any of my children might be a dancer or good at dancing. My first daughter took ballet and tap and it was not a great fit. She is a fabulous strong swimmer now. I have two sons and neither of them wanted to try dance at all. My second daughter decided to dance as she loved tumbling. We had a friend who owned a dance studio in town and I actually used to watch her dogs when she had to go to competitions. She told me to get my daughter in one class to see if she liked it. So, we started with a hip hop class. Well, my daughter did like it.
By Erin Misenar8 years ago in Families
What My Mother Would Have Wanted?!
If you've ever seen the movie Raising Helen then you know there's a scene where when they go to buy a turtle and John Corbett's character is giving Kate Hudson's character a lecture on what her sister expected when she left her the kids. Kate's chatacter tells him bluntly not to talk about her sister, a sister he didn't even know. I understand this so much now it hurts. Every stranger I meet has decided they know what my mom would have wanted more than I do. I spent my entire life with her, we talked about everything. They think in my grief I no longer have any rational thought, but my grief has actually made me think more rationally than before. I've always seen the world differently, more clearely in a sense. I see more of the possibilities of what could happen, I see more of reality. I never saw the world through rose-colored glasses, never pretended it was better than it was. Perhaps that's why I've always hated it so much. Disliked people so much. I've seen so much of the bad. My mother and I asked each often where are these good people who are supposedly out there? We never found an answer, no matter how hard we tried. Never found the good people. We just had each other.
By Shannon Hummell8 years ago in Families
My Journey In Grief
The one thing I've realized in the last 26 days since my life was destroyed is just how many misconceptions surround you when you lose a loved one. Now for me, I didn't just lose someone I loved, I lost the person I love most, the person I need most, the only family I have left, and the only person I can depend on. To put it mildly, I lost my entire reason for existing at all. Of course, people being the lovely creatures that they are, cue sarcasm, they have treated me like my mother's death was meaningless. Even going so far as to say so to my face. Almost everyone I tell has decided to push their own ideas and opinions onto me of how I should handle my grief, if you listen to most I'm not doing it right. Fortunately, I've learned over the years to never listen to people, never to let them make choices for me. To never follow a crowd. This, of course, makes them angry, then it's always there's something wrong with me. Their opinions mean less than nothing to me, especially now. But their cruel words would have easily driven another person to suicide.
By Shannon Hummell8 years ago in Families
PTA Mom Life
With four young kids, I have certainly been in a PTA. What is a PTA, you ask? The PTA stands for the Parent Teacher Association at any elementary, or middle school around. This organization is all volunteer positions and gets parents inside the school to help with a variety of areas.
By Erin Misenar8 years ago in Families
The Sh*t They Don't Tell You: Lesson #1. Top Story - October 2017.
"Dear God, please don't let me poop. Please, please don't let me poop when I push." Not exactly a prayer you'd expect from a woman, at the crisp young age of 19, while she's waiting to deliver her first baby. Yet there I was, praying to a God (at the time I wasn't even sure I believed in) that I would not poop while I pushed my daughter out. I think I was praying harder about my feces than I was for my contractions to stop.
By Tiffany Wade8 years ago in Families
Loving A Drug Addict
I was pretty young when I realized my mother was using drugs. I didn't know what exactly she was using, and I didn't really understand the extent of things, but I knew something was very wrong. I had lost my father at three years old, and I developed somewhat of a dependency on my mother. Honestly, more of a death grip. I was horrified of losing her. I once told someone long ago, that if I lost her, that I firmly believed it would be the end for me. I loved her. I loved her in a way so immense, so overwhelming, almost to a fault. My mother loved me, too. She loved me just as any mother loves her child, and if there is one thing I am certain of, it is that my mother loved her children more than life. Unfortunately, my mother was sick. She struggled with addiction all of my life, and I presume before I even existed. Maybe it was some kind of trauma that led her there, perhaps she fell into the wrong crowd. All I know is that I was cheated out of the real opportunity to have a mother. I was cheated out of a mother because of drugs. Opioids, to be exact.
By Cameron West8 years ago in Families
My Birthing Story
I was 21 when I got pregnant with my first child. I was with my now husband for five months, and we had just moved into our first apartment together. I went into the bathroom and took a test just to see, and the result was not what I was expecting. I yelled for him and he said "What, is there a spider?" and I showed him the test. We both were speechless. I cried from surprise, and he cried from excitement. Something we were not planning, but not against happening, was real. We did not tell anyone the news until I was about 12 weeks along. In my family, miscarriage was common in the early stage so we wanted to be sure before letting it out. I've never felt so much love from my friends and family than I did when we shared the news.
By Amanda Caito8 years ago in Families
