My Unconventional Childhood and Why It Won't Define Me

Family is not defined by who was there when you began; it is defined by who stayed through it all. It is not defined by a man and a woman raising their biological child; it is defined by the experiences that you share with the people that you love, and who it is that would sacrifice everything for you. Family thrives in all different forms. I consider my friends to be my family. My dog is my family. My boyfriend is my family.

When I was 6-months-old, I was abandoned by my biological parents. They were teenagers, lost in the world that was parenthood. I was not my mother’s first child—I came in second to my half-sister, who was 3-years-old when I was born. I was born into a toxic environment. My mother was a heavy smoker, and my father was criminally insane. He was diagnosed with the highest level of bipolar disorder that is psychologically possible. Thankfully, his mother, my grandmother, enamored with me as she was, took me in as her own and instantly knew that I would become her world. So I did. Legally, I was now hers. I never went anywhere without her. She was my mother, after all. I grew up with two teenage boys that I called my brothers—who, to my later knowledge, were actually my cousins.

My mother saved them from a violent, abusive household where the boys were locked in closets for hours on end with no food, forced to sleep in bathtubs, and were abandoned regularly in public places at just 2- and 3-years-old. So, she fought to get them out of it. When she took them home, they had never seen a Christmas tree. They had never received a birthday present or even knew what a birthday was, for that matter. Our mother gave us a life that was a million times better than we could have gotten in our respective situations. She gave up her youth for us.

It may sound like a miserable situation, but I am here to say that it wasn’t. We were the happiest kids you could find. I loved my brothers more than they could handle, and they hated me with as much love as two teenage boys can give to their baby sister who always wanted to play Mario Cart. And now, for the first time in my life, I have a father. He may have not always been in my life, but I accept him with all of the love that I would give a real father. To me, he is my real father. To the people who say that family is only defined by a man and a wife, I hope to have my story change their view and make them realize that your past is not something you can choose; you can only choose how to let it define you.