“My Mom Was Disowned”: 47 Unbelievable Things People Found Out About Their Parents

That my mom kept me from my real dad on purpose. She always told me he didn't want me, and even tried to convince me he was a dream when I asked about him. After he died, we were having coffee in a coffee shop when she just dropped, "You know he wanted to see you when you were growing up, but I wouldn't let him." What do you even say to that? He's not alive, she's just dropped a huge bombshell. I was too stunned to speak

For a long time, she tried to convince me that my stepdad was my real father. Then my real dad wrote us a letter that she left out. (I suspect there were a lot of letters.) I found it and read it and was SO angry.

She not only kept me from knowing my dad, but she also kept me from my older sister and my younger brother. Later in life, I developed a great relationship with my older sister, but she passed away way too young at the age of 54 of brain cancer.

Fortunately, my stepdad was a great dad, even though he did struggle with alcoholism. But I always wondered why my real dad didn't want me growing up. When I was 20, he wrote to me, and we had a few years of a relationship before he passed, so at least I got that.

So thanks for that, Mom!

A little bit different- I was working on my family tree and realized that my grandpa’s mother passed in child birth. I had no idea - no one ever talked about it. It made me so sad for him. (My grandfather passed away about 30 years ago). His father lived to be 100 and never remarried.

Found out by accident at age 20 that I had been adopted.

That my brother has a high IQ, is highly intelligent. They knew (it was confirmed in his early years and that HE knew was part of the problem, especially for my stepdad, a narcissist from the books).
He was the black sheep his whole childhood. Constant meltdowns, bad grades, never graduated, no job until his mid twenties, the classic problem child who couldn’t do anything right.
I can’t even imagine what that does to you as a child. Knowing you’re capable but having no one in your family to help you figure it out.
He only got his life together after he finally moved out of my mom’s house.
My mom told me a few years ago as if it was nothing and I’m still sick thinking about how different his life could have been.

I found out when just was 18 that I had an older brother that my mom put up for adoption when he was born. I was home for spring break from college when an agency called my mom saying their names matched on a registry thst my brother signed up for (it was a closed adoption and he didnt sign up until he was in his late 20s). We met as soon as I returned to school and I later ended up moving to the same city as him. We're pretty close now. He and our mom have a wildly difficult relationship, but that's their issue.

That my Dad was married when he and my Mom met. They moved in together and he abandoned his first wife. My parents don’t know I know this. I found the divorce petition filed by his wife citing abandonment and infidelity. Not surprising given their track records with relationships.

I went to university and my mom put my cat down without telling me.

I was in my 20s when Dad told me I have 3 siblings. All 4 of us are from different mothers. And those are just the ones he knows about; I bet there are more, knowing him.

That my mom had decided NOT to marry my dad…. And then she found out she was pregnant with me.

A generation before that, my grandmother had been forced to marry my grandfather because she was the third girl he had impregnated and his parents told him “three strikes you’re out”.

Neither of these marriages was happy or healthy. Thankfully my mom had the option of divorce.

I found out my dad is not my bio father. Turns out mom was already pregnant with me when they met. For various reasons, bio father was not in the picture. She and dad married when I was six ~~months~~ weeks old and he got around to officially adopting me when I was about five. They went on to have my three younger siblings and I was never treated any differently in the slightest, and so spent 49 years in total oblivion about it.

That one of my grandmothers was a "party girl" during ww2. They weren't even sure for a while if my dad was my grandfather's.

And that I wasn't really their first child. They had a boy 5 years before me who passed shortly after birth.

They had me to keep my dad from getting drafted to Vietnam.

I was a teenager when I found out my mum was 8 months pregnant with my older sister when she got married. My mum and dad thought we would never put 2 and 2 together until their 18th wedding anniversary and my sister had an 18th birthday 26 days later.

My dad used to be in a famous band before i was born.

Our dog Snoopy didn’t run away, he fell in the pool and drowned. It was an in-ground pool with ladders, not stairs, and no one was around when it happened. Poor guy.

When, during COVID, I started doing some family tree stuff just to pass the time. Chatting to my mum to try to find some more info about my maternal grandfather, she goes "Oh you don't really think he's your grandfather do you? Look how tall I am, and look how short he is!". Cue the bit where she tells me the tall "family friend" my grandmother had forever was actually my grandfather. He had passed away about 8 years prior - really gutted to have not been given the opportunity to relate to him as my grandfather. I saw him only a handful of times a year. And he was a way better human than the person I believed to be my bio GF.

My Mom had a baby she gave up about 10 years before my older brother was born. I knew kids who were adopted, I had an understanding of what that meant, but when my own Mom told me she had gone through that I was shocked. I was maybe 7 or 8.

As an adult, I have the utmost respect for her. And her giving the baby up also gave my Dad (been divorced almost all my life) “ammunition” to try to turn me against her which was one of the final straws of our relationship. He really thought that over 30 years it wouldn’t have come up and he was dropping a BOMBSHELL accusation against my Mom lol.

Both my parents worked shift work when I was young. Apparently many of my "Christmas" mornings were not on Christmas at all.

Mom and dad did not want kids but they could not figure out a good way to get rid of the ones they already have.

My dad had been gone for 12 years when my aunt (his younger sister) died. My cousins were cleaning out the house and gave me and my siblings some baby pics of his son he had before he met my mom. Great - I have a brother I never knew about. Oops, can’t meet him because he passed in an accident in 1983. Thanks dad.