Family is more than just flesh and genetics; it’s hours spent at the soccer tournaments, invested grandparents, family recipes, lake house weekends, and sibling rivalries. Complicated, messy, and oftentimes frustrating, no family dynamic is perfect, but we have a choice to consider some relationships worthy enough for the title. Sometimes, good friends will become like family or aunties and uncles will have a stronger kinship than parents, and it’s those chosen relationships that are far stronger than genetic ties. 

When a boy was abandoned as a 4-year-old by his biological mother, after almost two decades of fending for himself and getting closer to his chosen family, his mom came out of the woodwork with an asinine request: Donate money to her new family’s struggles. 

At this point, the boy had already estranged her from his life, happily living without the reminder of her abandonment, but when she pulled the «family» card, he was too furious not to say anything, and rightfully so. Sometimes, a person’s got to say their peace to move on from biofamily trauma, and it’s then that they realize that it’s their chosen kin who are their true relatives.