If you grew up with a single parent, there’s probably a part of you that wonders what your childhood might have been like if you had both parents in the picture. Would you have been better off? Or would that have made your life so much worse? I’m sure the answer varies from person to person, but one thing is clear: You want the whole truth given to you without begging for it. Where did Dad go? Is he still alive? Was he a bad person? Knowing these things allows you to find some clarity in between the unstill waters of growing up. If you thought you had all the answers and your lifejacket is suddenly ripped from your shoulders, you just might drown from the shock of the riptide.

In this next story, a man finds out that his father, whom he thought had left when he was a baby, never knew his mother was pregnant. His mother, who raised him as a single mom, never mentioned anything more. Now, the man’s father found him on Facebook and is trying to make things right. Without knowing the whole story, the man decides to stop financially supporting his mother because of the lies. Scroll to read the entire story below.