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  • This Family Portrait Has A Beautiful, Bittersweet Backstory

    Can someone convey unconditional love, loss, grief, hope and joy all with a single tattoo?

    That seems to be the case for a husband and wife whose backs are adorned with a matching pair of wings. A touching photo displaying their his-and-hers tattoos has gone viral—and when you hear the heartbreaking story behind the image, you’ll understand why.


    A Heartbreaking Loss

    Steven and Gloria Kimmel’s son Isaac was born in 2014. When he was just six months old, doctors diagnosed Isaac with spinal muscular atrophy. The rare, progressive genetic disorder that affects the muscles and nervous system is estimated to occur in one out of 6,000 live births.


    The Kimmels, of Kendallville, Indiana, shared details of little Isaac’s trials and triumphs on a Facebook page called Isaac’s Strength. Although doctors told them that the disorder was terminal, Isaac’s parents relished every moment with their son and even participated in a clinical trial that led to a new drug for SMA patients.


    While he did regain strength for a time, Isaac contracted a viral infection that his little body simply couldn’t fight. Sadly, Isaac passed away at just 14 months old.


    As a way of dealing with their grief, which Gloria called “unimaginable,” the Kimmels decided to have matching angel wings tattooed on their backs.

    ‘He Is Always With Us In Spirit’

    “The tattoo was meant to be his angel wings,” Gloria told Yahoo Beauty. “He was half of each of us, so we each had one of his wings to hold us. He was the angel that was holding us together when we were so lost without him. The tattoos are a reminder that he is always with us in spirit.”


    Shortly after what would have been Isaac’s third birthday, the Kimmels had cause for celebration when their daughter, Claire, was born. To share their excitement while remembering their precious son, the family had a photo taken with swaddled Claire resting on their backs, the angel wings aligned perfectly behind her.


    Gloria’s sister Grace Arend shared the photo on Twitter.


    “My sister & her husband got tattoos of angel wings after their son died 2 yrs ago,” Arend tweeted. “They had a baby girl in June. This moves me to tears.”


    Thousands of people were touched by the emotional family photo, which has been shared on Twitter over 20,000 times and liked nearly 70,000 times.


    Gloria pointed out to Yahoo! Beauty that even now, two years after losing Isaac, she is still learning new ways to cope with her grief. As anyone who has suffered a loss knows, grief doesn’t have an expiration date. For Gloria, she says support from loved ones and her church, plus grief journaling have helped. Here’s hoping the arrival of their beautiful, healthy daughter will help them heal as well.

  • Mum Ordered To Allow Formula Feeding

    Mum Ordered To Allow Formula For Her Exclusively Breastfed Infant

    An American judge in Maryland  has ordered a mum to allow her six-month-old son to have formula when he is with his father and so rages the debate between the rights of a mother, father, and child. 


    Amber Brown and Corey Lewis separated not long after their now 6-month-old son was born. Brown’s plan was to follow World Health Organization guidelines that cite recommendations for babies to be fed breast milk exclusively for the first six months, but the baby’s father took her to court, asking a judge to order that the baby be given formula. It seems Brown, like many mothers, had a hard enough time supplying milk as she nursed, and she simply couldn’t pump enough to supply Lewis with milk for night-time feedings. 

    Lewis argued in front of two magistrates in Charles County, Maryland, that he should be able to give the baby formula overnight, because Brown’s desire to exclusively breast feed prevents him from his rights of overnight visitation as the baby’s father. Magistrate Monise Brown agreed with Lewis in July, saying that the mother’s insistence to breastfeed was not a valid reason to withhold visitation, and in fact, could be purposed alienation toward Lewis. 


    Brown filed for an exception, based on her pediatrician’s recommendation that the baby remains nursed, as he could not tolerate formula. The follow-up hearing was just held and Magistrate Mitsy Metzgar concurred with the first ruling that if formula was what was needed for dad to have overnight visits, it should be done.


    And so…this is where it gets so, so sticky.


    While WHO recommends nursing for the first six months, the fact is that the baby has been nursed for six months, with Lewis saying he allowed that to happen. He says that he should now have the overnight visits with his son he is entitled to. Yet, a licensed pediatrician has gone on record saying the baby cannot tolerate formula, and no one seems to be taking that into account. Do judges have the medical experience that licensed clinicians do? Is it normal for them to turn away the advice of certified medical professionals?


    Interestingly, Maryland is one of the states with strong legal wording when it comes to breastfeeding. The law (MD 20-801) states that no person can restrict or limit the right of a mother to breastfeed her child. It would seem that we now are looking at the issue of whose rights trump whose — the right of the mom to breastfeed, or the right of the dad to overnight visitation?

    What about the baby’s rights? If his mother is not able to protect him from possible gastrointestinal issues due to formula intolerance because judges deem that an excuse for her keeping him from his father, who can? Who will?

    What’s your thoughts?

  • I Lie To My Kids, Do You?

    I’m a good parent and I lie to my kids. Lying isn’t what makes me a good parent, but it doesn’t mean that I’m a bad one either.

    The truth is, everybody lies. Toddlers, teenagers and adults – we all lie. Think about it, you even lie to your own kids you know you do. If you say you don’t, you’re lying!


    We lie to our children for a multitude of reasons; we want to protect them, or we don’t always know the right answer, or we’re just lazy or we’re just having some fun. The latter backfired on me recently.


    Obviously, there’s a difference between little white lies and lying to kids specifically to hurt them. The former is the result of taking care of the small people we love but who inevitably drive you to your breaking point and threaten to send you over the edge. [The latter, we don’t even go there.]


    So, with that mind, here are some common lies Reddit and Pinterest users have heard parents tell their kids. Feel free to add your own in the comments section.


    1.”The ice cream van only plays music when he runs out of ice cream.”


    2. “My dad told me the rumble strips on the highway were for blind drivers.”


    3. “Your mom and I were just…em, wrestling.”

    4. “If you don’t behave in the drive-thru you’ll get a Sad Meal.”


    5. “Smoke detectors are actually Santa-cams.”


    6. “My dad told me people only get 10,000 words per month. If you reach the limit, you can’t physically speak until the new month begins. Anytime I was especially talkative, dad would say, ‘Careful, you’re over 9,000 by now.’”


    Little white lies…

    Little white lies…

    7. “If you pee in a pool, there’s a special dye that will turn it red so that everybody knows.”


    8. “If you lie a red dot appears on your forehead that only parents can see. It only goes away when you tell the truth.”


     9. “They don’t sell replacement batteries for that toy.”

    10. “When I was a kid my parents warned me that if I pressed the ‘reset’ button on the power outlet the house would explode.”


    11. “You’ll have to drive a little Smart car if you don’t eat your vegetables because you’ll be too little for a big car.”


    12. “We’re not French so we can’t eat the French Fries in McDonalds.”  


    13. “The tooth fairy won’t come if your room is messy.”


    14. “If I didn’t sit still during a haircut, the barber would cut my ear off. The worst part was that the barber would play along.”


    15. “We have to leave the zoo now. The zookeeper called my cellphone and your crying is upsetting the animals.”

    16. “We’re going to bed now, too.”


    17. “I’m leaving without you.”



    18. “When I was little my Dad told me that toys grew under the weeds in the yard and if I pulled them, eventually a toy would pop out. And I believed it for a long time…”


    19. “The car won’t start unless everyone is buckled in.”


    20. “We’re almost there.”


    21. “I want to carry you but the doctor said your legs would stop growing if you didn’t walk.”

    22. “Our fish went to live with their friends in the ocean.”


    23. “My father always said the animals on the side of the road were just taking a nap because the road was warm.”




    24. “My son was 8 before he knew that football games on school nights had a second half. I always sent him to bed at halftime.”


    25. “When we go on a road trip I’m going to tell my kids, ‘If you go to sleep, we’ll take the shortcut.’”


    26. “We got our daughter to eat fish by calling it ‘Argentinian Chicken’. That worked for a long time until grandma came along and messed it up.”


    27. “Parents used to tell my only brother and I that we used to have another brother who turned into a mushroom from not taking a bath. Even added him to the family albums.”

    28. “My dad said if I could look after a special growing rock, and watered it each day until it stopped growing I could get a dog. I’d water it and every week, while I was at school he’d replace it with a slightly bigger rock.”


    29. “The funniest one I heard was a father who was asked about coconuts in a store by his son. He said: ‘Don’t go near those son…those are bear eggs…’”


    30. “That drawing is fantastic.”


    31. “I’ve got eyes on the back of my head.”


    32. “We’ll come back later and buy it.”  

    33. “If you have the lights on in the car at night, the police will pull us over.”


    34. “If you don’t wipe your bum properly, it’ll close up and you’ll have to spit out your poop.”


    35. “My dad told me oil stains on the street were little kids that got run over because they didn’t hold anyone’s hand while crossing the street.”


    36. “To keep my sister and I busy my mom would tell us if we could kiss our elbow we would turn into the opposite sex..”


    37. “Burger King is for royalty.”

    Have you any funny lies that you were told when you were young? Do you tell lies to your kids? Comment below.




    Credit :DigitalDad


  • Man Ends Up In Court Over Viral Photo

    When Heather Whitten’s son Fox was sick, her husband Thomas brought his son into the shower to help give Fox some relief.  The photo was taken by Whitten, who is a professional photographer.

    “I snapped a couple of pictures,” she said. “It was just beautiful. It was not surprising or anything out of the ordinary; it’s how he has always been with the kids.”
    She likes the image because it shows that “it is okay to get naked with your son and nurture him … the important thing is really taking care of your kiddos.”

    While many loved the photograph of a loving moment with father and son and were upset when the photo was removed, not everyone agreed, and a single individual sent a letter of complaint to the local authorities.

    The Whittens, who have four children — Lillian 7, Leena 4, and   2-year-old twins Fox and Persephone — were then investigated by Arizona’s Department of Child Safety and the Sahuarita Police Department for a number of claims that the person made in their letter.

    While the police said they wouldn’t take action and the case would be closed, a DCS investigator spent the next few months working to portray Whitten as “an immodest, neglectful and abusive mother based on the single interview she had with me.”

    Whitten detailed the whole ordeal on the GoFundMe page she made to help raise funds for her civil case.



    She said the investigator’s negative opinion of her was largely based on the fact that she had chosen to openly breastfeed one of her twins during the interview.

    The claim against the Whittens could be substantiated against Heather in that she “neglected to supervise our children by allowing their images to be online and so put them at an unreasonable risk of harm.”


    If this claim turns out to hold weight in court, Whitten will be added to Arizona’s Central Registry for 25 years, and her right to foster or adopt children will be taken away.

  • How To Be A Dad

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  • This Dad Is Doing It Right

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  • Is This The Greatest Baby Name

    Ok so when we received this message last year we weren’t sure if it was real or not but my god did it make us laugh.

    Hi can I have a post please, I split from my girlfriend a few months back and she’s just given birth to our son, this is great im so excited to be a dad.

    But she’s named the baby Keith, not only do I not like the name but even his initials spell Keith

    K…Keith                                                                                                            E…Edgar                                                                                                           I..Ian                                                                                                                 T…Thomas                                                                                                        H… Holmes.

    The new dad went on to express his fear of introducing baby Keith to his friends, saying how do you tell people that your child is named after a 50 year old Scottish brawler.

    Mums Advice members laughed at the name choice but took pity on this poor new dad, many defended the name Keith saying it was a lovely name but the initials were too much.

    Is this the best baby name ever?

  • Cancer Made Me A Single Dad

    My story So some quite a few years ago I met my lovely wife, as time went on I knew she was definitely the lady for me.

     She had often said she wanted children, to me I wasn’t fussed either way.

    Shortly before going on our holiday my girlfriend Stacey said she was going to the doctors as she has something weeping from her nipple. So she went to the doctors and was told not to worry it’s just an allergy, and to put some cream on it and perhaps change our washing powder.

     She had a sigh of relief and off we went on our holidays. On our return she without me knowing did a pregnancy test and found out she was pregnant. I wasn’t over fussed but she was happy. 

    As the time went on she was having a number of issues, bad back pains, leg and hip pains and starting to hunch over a lot so went to the doctors, and we were told she’s just one of the unlucky ones who’s having a bad pregnancy, she was sent to physio etc.

    A few weeks later a lump had formed on her left breast which again she had checked out by the doctor and was told it’s just a blocked milk duct you just won’t be able to breast feed. 

    At the time I was working away a lot so she had to go to either her mums or sisters as she was struggling to do things on her own, I was helping her shower. 

    We did all our scans as you should found out by the nurse blabbing that we were having a boy which I was a bit more excited about if I’m honest.

    Then we were at home and she went to the toilet and saw some blood in it so went off to hospital, we were told that her waters had broken at 21 weeks. 

    We were then told our hospital was not kitted out to deal with a baby that premature so she had to be moved to Luton hospital and monitored.

     There she was for 2 weeks constantly being monitored and checked, after the 2 weeks she was discharged and we were told that yes the waters had broken but only a small amount of fluid had escaped so all was ok.

    I returned to work that weekend, to get a phone call from Stacey’s mum saying they had to take her back to hospital and the hospital think she has got pneumonia.

     I asked if I should leave work straight away but they said just come back in the morning as usual. The next morning I went to Stacey’s mums before going to the hospital, by this time she had been moved to intensive care ward. 

    I came in and saw she had been put in to an induced coma and they had been doing tests on her. 

    After a few hours a doctor and nurse came and saw me and said that they found Stacey had breast cancer, which had also spread to the glands under her arms her lungs, and all of her bones causing 2 vertebrae in her neck to collapse. This aggressive amount of cancer had spread so far because of her being pregnant.

    They then told me that they need to give her chemotherapy there and then and needed my permission to continue. I was not sure what to say as we weren’t married at that time, but they said if I didn’t she would definitely be dead within a weekend, I asked about the baby and they said that they have done it before but as it stands Stacey was here and the baby wasn’t. I agreed and they gave her the treatment. 

    After a few days she was still going down hill on a breathing machine, they said they wanted to try giving her a tracheotomy (putting a breathing pipe direct in to her wind pipe ).

    This seemed to help and gradually she improved, all the time still pregnant.

    Eventually the doctors were saying about delivering the baby at 30 weeks while she was still in a coma. But they ended up not doing that. 

    She was then revived and we had to give her the news of what had been going on. 

    After a few more weeks she was stable enough to be moved to the cancer ward.

    They were also  saying that they wanted to deliver the baby and finally made the decision to do so on April the first, however my baby didn’t want to be born on April fool’s day so Stacey went in to labour on 28th march.

    We were shortly moved to  a maternity ward and we were taken up to delivery at about 7am on march 29th. She was told she had to have a Caesarian as her body couldn’t deal with a normal birth. 

    I was allowed in as Lind as the epidural worked which it did, so there we were and out came our little boy about 7 weeks early weighing 4lbs exactly. We chose his name Thomas and off he went to baby intensive care.

    After Stacey was stitched up and sorted we went to see him, we were told he would be on a breathing machine for about 2 days but he was off after about 2 hours!!

    As the weeks went on I would take Thomas from intensive care over to the cancer ward and also take Stacey over to see Thomas, eventually we were all allowed to go home on the same day. 

    All was great Stacey had fought off all the cancer except for in her bones which was being managed by regular treatment. Thomas was growing and doing fine then after about a year Stacey started getting headaches so we went to see the doctor to be told that she had secondary cancer on the brain which they might not be able to do much with. 

    We were managing but arguing a lot because of all the medications she was on. 

    Rapidly approaching was our wedding day and Stacey was really upset she lost her hair again just before getting married. Then on the week before we were getting married I was mugged I had my head stamped on etc so had to wear make up to my wedding haha! 

    It all went great, but over the next few months Stacey started having nose bleeds and fits etc..

    Finally she was taken in to our local hospice for what I thought was rest bite but once she was there I found out they were stopping her medication as it wasn’t doing anything they would just be giving pain relief, they expected her to be there for just a few days. But after a few weeks I started to think they must be wrong, but I was, on the 9th week of her being there I arrived and I had been there for no longer than 10 minutes and she passed away 10 days before out 1st wedding anniversary. Thomas was 2. 

    Thomas is now 8 it has been very hard for me especially when he’s upset about missing his mummy. But we get through it.

    I’m not looking for sympathy. I just hope my story will educate people of some of the early signs of cancer

  • Best Part Of Being A Dad

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  • Stay at home Mum VS. Working Mum

    Stay at home Mum VS. Working Mum
    Having a child is kind of a big deal. It changes everything. Things that used to seem important suddenly fall off your radar. Suddenly you have this little person that you need to care for. You no longer just think about yourself, you come second, first is your child.
    Inevitably for some parents, you have to make a very difficult decision:
    Do you return to work or do you become a stay at home mum?
    If you return to work do you go back full-time or part-time?
    If you become a stay at home mum will you have enough money?
    Will I be setting a good example if I don’t return to work?
    Will I miss too much of my babies childhood if I do return to work?
    Will people think I’m a bad mum if I return to work?
    Will people think I’m lazy if I don’t?
    It seems crazy doesn’t it? All this stress and worry about something which should be an easy decision. But it isn’t. It is a very difficult decision for every parent.
    When I first became a parent I was 21 years old, I had 1 year off work with my daughter then I returned, back to full time work. 40 hours a week plus an extra hour a day for travelling.
    When I made this choice I knew it was for the best. My husband and I were saving up to buy a house and we couldn’t do that on just one wage.
    I was hard. Really hard. Actually thinking back, it might be the saddest I’ve ever been. I felt awful. Like the worst mum in the world.
    I thought everyone was judging me. Calling me a bad mother.
    Of course they weren’t.
    And I wasn’t. I was being the best mother I could be. I was looking to the future trying to build a better life for us.
    I worked full time for nearly 4 years. Then my son was born. This time the choice was easier. I remembered how unhappy I was working so much and being away from my daughter, so I told my husband that I wasn’t going to do it again. I was done. I was quitting as soon as the baby was born…. Well that didn’t go as I planned. As it turns out I could change my contract. Instead of working 5 days a week I could work just 1! It was a big pay cut but once I got to work that 1 day a week I really enjoyed it. Having grown up conversations, drinking coffee while it was still hot. Not watching Peppa Pig for the billionth time. I guess I had the best of both worlds.
    Now it’s 4 years later and I’m back to basically full time although it’s “family friendly” so some weeks I will only work 1 day and others I’ll do 6. But it works with my family, we have a good balance and with the kids both in school now I don’t feel guilty anymore for “leaving them”.
    I’m not really sure what their is in my little story to take away.
    I guess I just want people to see how difficult it can be for mothers and fathers to make this decision.
    How what works in one household wouldn’t work in another.
    That you don’t know what’s happening in the head and the heart of the person you might be judging because they made a different choice.
    Anyway.. Thank you for reading.
    If you found this helpful or informative don’t forget to give us a LIKE or a SHARE.