Find it Fast
Readers’ Personal Stories
Everyone has a story to tell. Whether it’s how they survived, how they persevered, how they won or even how they just barely managed to do so. We want to hear (and read!) these stories from YOU. Send us an email and tell us your story. If you want, give us permission to republish it and we’ll make sure your story gets heard. Here (and on our social media, in our newsletters and elsewhere on our site).
Thank you to those who have already shared their stories. This is only the beginning.
5 Movies to Watch with Kids to Show Dads Can Cry Too - Not so long ago, our oldest daughter found tears creeping into her eyes while watching a movie for the first...
Going Big By Going Small: Building a Community - I’ve always taken great pleasure in making the most of my neighbourhood community: taking my child to the park, walking...
Why These Moms, Who Exclusively Breastfed Now Support #FEDISBEST - Why doesn’t anyone tell us how hard breastfeeding can be before you have the baby? Melissa and I both took...
Plastic Surgery: Should a Child Have It to Put a Halt to Bullying? - Upon turning 16, most kids are looking forward to things like getting their driver’s licence or maybe a new phone,...
You Can Have It All…But Not All At the Same Time - Most of my bustling career was in the telecommunications industry; Bell, Rogers, Telus and Vidéotron. I was evolving in a...
Parenting While Battling Cancer: A Mesothelioma Warrior’s Tale - In November of 2005, I was diagnosed with a rare and aggressive cancer called malignant pleural mesothelioma at the age...
Same-Sex Parents: The Struggle to Have a Baby - For as long as I can remember, I knew I’d be a dad. I’d often dream of reading to my...
Tales of Bliss: Not Weighed Down - It was the summer of 1995. My mom and I were at a mother-daughter yoga retreat in Massachusetts, and we...
Why Awareness Days Are Important, Especially For Kids - Schools, childcare facilities and most recreation facilities promote full inclusion in classrooms and programs. This means all children—despite their physical...
Illness and Recovery: My Story of Anxiety - Four ER visits. Two by ambulance. All four times I was convinced I was having a heart attack. The sensations...
Our Son Has Aplastic Anemia - Our 11-year-old son, Aaryan is the light in our lives. He has the ability to bring a smile to our...
Me in the Middle? Survive the Sandwich Generation: Tips from a Professional Organizer - Living it now, I take my hat off to anyone going through this process. It started with my dad’s...
My Son is Genetically Predisposed to Anxiety - Our son, Cooper, inherited my upturned nose, light skin and fine brown hair. At nine years of age, he’s a happy-go-lucky...
Paternal Post Natal Depression: A Personal Story - I love my kids. I never want any harm to come to them. I hate being a father. Children require...
A Fresh Breath of Life: A Story of Lymphoma Survival - I’ve always led an active life and had an early interest in building things. I have worked in the...
How FASD Impacts Us All - As I was watching the news coverage around Bell’s Let’s Talk campaign on mental illness, I was struck by the...
Managing the Mounting Miscarriage Mindset: A Personal Story - Have you been struggling to get pregnant? Perhaps you dealt with Infertility already in your lifetime? Maybe you have not...
45 Life Lessons I Wish I Could Tell My 20-Year-Old Self - An email came across my desk this morning with letters written by some of the leading ladies of Netflix’s original...
Managing ADHD: A Personal Story - My 9-year-old son had been struggling with making friends, completing his school work, and getting angry at every small thing....
Family Business: A Story of Focused Grief - Diana McKenna’s parent’s died in a car accident when she was 14. They left behind Diana, her younger sister Maggie,...
Building a Rare Community: How One Family Coped with a Diagnosis of Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy - Like many young couples looking to build a future together and a start a family, my husband Ed and I...
Caregiver and Partner: Supporting My Husband Through Cancer - I met my husband Don forty-seven years ago, at the church in my hometown of St. Thomas in Ontario, after...
Survivors Moving Beyond Breast Cancer - Insanely, illogically, and Thank-God-for-that-ingly, there is a silver lining to breast cancer. While the disease is devastating—on average, 13 Canadian women...
How I Reversed My Own Diabetes - If you’d told me 18 months ago that eating more bacon, cheese and steak—but no bread—would make me lose weight, get...
The Sandwich Generation: Life of a 40-something caregiver - I’ve been married to my husband for 12 years and together we have three beautiful and active children. We settled...
How to Encourage a Reluctant Kid to Talk - My kids couldn’t be more different when it comes to sharing their problems. My 10 year old happily shares most of his...
A Woman in Wine: My Journey of Breaking into the Business - While I’ve worked for the Osborne Group for over 10 years, in some ways it seems like my whole life...
What About When the Parent Has Special Needs? A Personal Story - There is no such word as can’t We often hear the term “special needs parent” and, in most cases, that...
Unexpected Loss: Surviving Grief Through Reflection - Like so many others, I have always wanted to be a writer. I’ve dabbled in fictional short stories, journaling; often...
There Is Nothing Glamorous About Responding to Disasters: A Personal Story - I’m a Psychosocial Support aid worker with the Canadian Red Cross, which includes a lot of travel. Since I joined...
Lung Cancer: A Personal Story of Survival and Empowerment - There’s never a good time to find out you have cancer. I got “the call” the same week I filed...
Living with Severe Psoriasis: A Personal Story - I am an active person who can now say yes to a spontaneous Weekend away, I can expose bear arms...
My Surrogacy Journey - My journey started 2 years ago when I first looked into surrogacy. While it wasn’t the right time to start...
Motherhood Is Hard—Even for a Ballerina - Like many families today, and perhaps even yours, one of our biggest challenges we continue to navigate as working parents...
Traditional Vs. Modern Medicine: You Don’t Have to Pick Just One - When my grandmother was given two weeks to live at our local hospital, our family took her home and turned to Chinese...
Beyond Okay: Overcoming Learning Differences - Can you remember your first day of school? I do. I remember waiting for the bus so I could get...
Raising a Preteen: The Battle of Good vs. Evil - So….tonight I am sitting, thinking. I am thinking about my kids. Thinking of how they are growing. How they are...
My Journey with Cancer - I stopped getting a period for six months in 2012. I was 32, in my prime child-bearing years, and I...
A Young Boy’s Journey with Primary Immunodeficiency - My name is Julian Ferrante and I am 10 years old. When I was 18 months old, I was diagnosed...
My Son’s Crisis and the Stranger Who Saved the Day - I had visited the fast food restaurant in the late evening to use their free wi-fi. Being a single mother...
Helping Children with Chronic Illnesses Thrive in the Classroom: A Personal Story - When my son was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease at the age of six I was overwhelmed with a mix of...
Helping Others Helped Me Cope with Losing My Dad: A Personal Story - My dad was the kind of person who went out of his way to help people and be there for...
Surviving Arthritis with Kid-friendly Health Information: A Personal Story - As captain of my high school volleyball team, an avid skier and skateboard enthusiast, you might not guess that I...
Pediatric Liver Transplant: A Second Chance at Life - It’s a parent’s worst fear—watching your child suffer from a disease from which there is no cure. Unfortunately, this was...
Motherhood Sucks: A Personal Story - Honestly? Motherhood sucks. Seriously. Raising a child is hard work. Bringing up a boy who is headstrong, intelligent and ambitious is...
Detecting Cervical Cancer: A Personal Story - In 1988, my husband and I were preparing to become parents for the first time. We were so excited and,...
This mom is calling it quits - I grew up in a time when it was legal to not wear a seatbelt or to secure a...
Surprise! You’re a New Mom…Now What? - “Congratulations, you’re pregnant!” The most terrifying statement to be uttered in my direction. My immediate reaction, was of course, denial....
Losing My Daughter to Meningitis - During Christmas 2011, my seven-year-old daughter Trinity suffered a head injury while on holiday in the U.S. She hit...
Realizing My Toddler Has Sensory Issues: A Personal Story - He was only a few months old when friends, family and even strangers began to comment that my first child...
Living with Rheumatoid Arthritis: A Personal Story - When we lose someone we love—a parent, a spouse, a friend—people tell us we have to take the time to...
Wise Words From Thoughtful Little People - Sometimes words suddenly burst forth from kids’ mouths, seemingly out of the blue, but rest assured much “little people” thought is...
Struggles Of a Millennial Parent - In so many ways I’m the prototypical Millennial. Obsessively chasing my passion? Check. Freelancer? Check. Renting instead of buying? Check....
Why My Daughter Has to Wear a MedicAlert: A Personal Story - You’re out on the playground when suddenly your child’s face begins to swell up like a balloon. Within seconds, she’s...
Kids Grow Up Way Too Fast: A Personal Story - “You won’t believe how time flies as a parent. Savour every single moment.” Prior to becoming a dad, this is...
Parenthood Through IVF: A Personal Story - Like many couples, my husband and I began dreaming about having children soon after we were married. Becoming parents was...
Endometriosis, It’s Not In Her Head: A Personal Story - For some women, their first monthly ‘visitor’ was something to dread—a shock, some confusion, a fearful betrayal by their body....
Dads Can Lose Their Sh*t Too: A Personal Story - Four years into the process, I’m fully aware that parenting is challenging. Sleep deprivation, role ambiguity, the loss of “free...
A Vaccine to Prevent Cancer? Yes, Please: A Personal Story - The Human papillomavirus (HPV) can cause cancer in men and women and will infect 3 in 4 Canadians during their...
Why My Kids Need to Unplug: A Personal Story - If ever there was an important goal for 2016 that I continue to make as a parent, it is to...
Don’t Let Kids Settle for a Mediocre Education: A Personal Story - As a teacher, there is nothing, and I mean NOTHING, that frustrates me more than seeing unused potential in...
Does My Urge to Stay In Make Me a Bad Parent? A Personal Story - I am an introvert. Or, I am someone who assumes they are in introvert because they don’t talk a lot,...
An Open Letter to Employers From a Stay-at-Home Mom: A Personal Story - Dear employer, I stayed at home with my two boys for a little over eight years, after which time I...
A Plea for My Life: A Personal Story - This is a plea for my life. My story with the illness that changed my life forever begins on October...
Who is a Canadian Family? - What’s in a name? Who is a Canadian? What does a Canadian Family look like? I have had cause to...
A Personal Journey: The Odd-Sox Project - This is the story about two 10-year-old girls who really wanted to make a difference. Our names are Carly Goldhar...
How We Almost Lost Our Son - Our son Kazik (pronounced (Ka’ zheek) was born in 2009, by C-section. He was healthy and all was well with...
Tattoos and Tears - Helen Argiro will never forget the day she found out her l7-year-old daughter’s secret. Krista had slept through her alarm...
It’s Okay To Wish For Gay - I have had a revelation: I am not the shining example of an LGBTQ ally that I wanted to be....
My Stepson Manny - I have a stepson. Actually he is not technically my stepson yet as we are not married, however, I think...
One Day, He’ll Be Two - There are no pictures of my son on the day that he was born. There are some photos from...
Raising a Child With Cerebral Palsy - I have never met anyone who said they were prepared to be a special needs parent. It’s not something you...
17 Things I Never Thought I’d Say - Once upon a time I wasn’t a mother. I was a single lady (put your hands up), without a care...
How to Survive a Week Camping with Kids - A handy tip, fathers with children under 10: If you want your kids to sit still and remain calm,...
How This Mom’s Gut Instincts Saved Her Son’s Life - Furakh Mir’s son Sulayman was only a few days old when she noticed something wasn’t right. “He had a low-grade...