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Viral stories of people helping strangers pay for groceries are inspiring other acts of kindness

"Do good recklessly."

Viral stories of people helping strangers pay for groceries are inspiring other acts of kindness
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You're standing in line at the grocery store, and the person in front of you has their card declined. You know nothing about this individual, except that they can't pay for the items that have been rung up.

Maybe she's a single mom who's struggling to make ends meet, or maybe she's an addict who spent her kid's diaper money on drugs. Maybe he's a veteran living on disability, or maybe he's a scammer trying to mooch off of kind-hearted strangers. There's no way to be sure.

So what do you do?

A viral collection of stories about strangers helping strangers in the checkout line illustrates what it looks like when people choose to "do good recklessly"—and it's just so dang beautiful.

Screenshots posted by Facebook user Ashley Westover have been shared more than 80,000 times. Clearly people like to be reminded that kindness wins the day.

The first story reads:

"I was in line at Aldi and this girl with two toddlers in front of me had her card declined and she looked so fucking sad and said 'let me call my husband real quick' and it was only 18 dollars, so I just paid for it, and she was very sweet and then as she walked off, the lady behind me said 'You know that was probably a scam, right' and like, even if it was, like what a sad fucking scam, right? 18 dollars at the Aldi. If you're 'scamming' me for some Tyson chicken and apple juice and cauliflower, then just take my fucking money.
'A scam' people are fucking wild.'"

Another person then chimed in:

"This happened to me, too. A woman had used WIC for the majority f her stuff (which I say from personal experience is such a long and embarrassing process) and to buy the remainder of her groceries, which included diapers and wipes, she used a card, and it got declined. I bought the other $30 of her groceries because hey, I've been there, and now I'm not. She was extremely emotional and began to cry and even hugged me. My mom called me on the drive home and could tell I had been crying myself, asked what was wrong, and when I told her what happened, she berated me for being 'duped.' I couldn't believe she could be so disappointed in one of her children for doing something—nice? Is that the hill you want to die on? Getting mad about people needing groceries?"

This mom's viral story of strangers' kindness illustrates how it truly 'takes a village.'

Next up came a person who helped a woman with a vet bill:

"I once paid for a woman's bill at the vet...it wasn't a big one, but she was trying to pay for some medication for her dog, and her card was declined. And her lip started trembling, and she says 'I don't get paid until Tuesday, would he be ok until then?'
So I just told them to add the $20 something onto my bill, and I thought she was going to break down crying right there.
And I don't care if it was a scam or not. Just do nice things for people sometimes."

And another shared a story about how their dad served as an example of generosity:

"One time, my dad and I were living [sic] the grocery story and there was a guy outside asking for money to buy some stuff to take home for his kids. It was around Christmas time. My dad asked him if he could give him groceries instead of money, and the guy immediately said yes, so my dad gave him one of everything we bought (meant, rice, some chocolates, milk, oil). At that time, my dad hadn't gotten his paycheck because the company he worked for was going through a tough time, but he didn't care, he saw an opportunity to help someone and he did.
Another time, my dad gave 50 bucks to a guy who said he needed to buy medicine for his kids. I told my dad he was probably going to spend the money on alcohol or something, but my dad said that 'whether he was lying or not says something about HIS character, but hearing someone in need and choosing not to help when I have the means to says something about mine.'

I never forget that."

Finally, somoeone shared a personal story from the receiving end, bringing it all full circle:

"So this has happened to me but from the other side. Several years ago when my oldest was around three or so, I had my debit card decline at Walmart. It wasn't a scam or a mistake, I was genuinely broke. Out of money. I checked my bank and discovered I had something like 7 dollars left to my name and a hungry kid and nothing to eat at home. So I sat there trying to come up with the best way to stretch that tiny amount of money to feed my kid. Not even to feed me. I can live on popcorn or something if I have to but my kid was three and he had to eat.

So there I am trying really hard not to cry while I slowly take things out of my basket to get it down to under 7 bucks, when a lady tapped me on the shoulder. I looked up and she smiled at me and started putting the things back in my cart. I opened my mouth to tell her that I didn't have the money for them but she stopped me right away and said 'Don't worry about it. It's gonna be fine.' Then she handed the cashier her credit card and said 'Ring up all of it.' My kid got to eat because of her. I got to eat because of her. I had laundry soap and deodorant because of her. She could've just ignored me silently struggling in that line. She could've decided I was a scam and gone home feeling good about avoiding being duped. But instead she chose to help me and she saved us.

So maybe the person struggling in front of you is trying to put one over on you or maybe they are just sad and broke and trying to figure out what to do. You get to decide which you want to believe and what you want to do. But I'll tell y'all, no one has ever been more beautiful to me than that lady in that line who saved me and my baby. Be like her. Be beautiful."

A simple, three-word response summed up the whole beautiful thread: "Do good recklessly."

Isn't that the best life motto? Put it on t-shirts. Stencil it on walls. Tattoo it on biceps. DO GOOD RECKLESSLY.

Imagine a world where people gave one another the benefit of the doubt more often than not. Imagine a world where we all assumed the best in people. Would we sometimes get taken advantage of? Probably. Would we be helping people more often than we were being duped? Definitely.

There's a place for wisdom, and no one is saying not to ever be wary of scammers. But situations like these stories are times when assuming the worst may leave someone feeling alone and hopeless. Imagine a world where more people did good recklessly.

That's the world I want to live in.

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Man finds genius loophole to beat squatters at their own game. Homeowners say he's a hero.

"All I'm doing is becoming a squatter and flipping this process on them."

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Flash Shelton has been nicknamed the "Squatter Hunter" and helps people take their homes back.

Squatters' rights laws are some of the most bizarrely misused legal realities we have, and something no one seems to have a good answer for. Most of us have heard stories of someone moving into a vacant home and just living there, without anyone's permission and without paying rent, and somehow this is a legal question mark until the courts sort it out.

According to The National Desk, squatters' rights are a carryover from British property law and were created to ensure that abandoned property could be used and to protect occupants from being kicked out without proper notice. The argument is that it's better to have someone openly living in a home and taking care of it, properly maintaining it, versus it laying abandoned and rotting away. Families and residents add value to a community, and those residents should have rights — or so the reasoning goes.

It should go without saying that squatter law isn't meant to allow someone to just take over someone else's property, but sometimes that's exactly what happens.

A squatter takeover is exactly what happened to Flash Shelton's mother when she put her house up for rent after her husband passed away.


A woman contacted her with interest in the property, only she wanted to do repairs and look after the home instead of paying rent. Before anyone knew it, she had furniture delivered (which she later said was accidental) and set up camp, despite Shelton's mom not agreeing to the arrangement.

But since the woman had expressed her intention and already moved in, the matter was out of police hands, as Shelton found out when he tried to contact the local sheriff. If that sounds like trespassing to you, well, join the club.

“They said, ‘I’m sorry but we can’t enter the house, and it looks like they’re living there, so you need to go through the courts',” he shared in a YouTube video.


Shelton rightfully didn't want the expense of a court battle, so he took matters into his own hands—not with violence, but with logic. He had his mom lease the home to him, and then told the squatter that she had to move everything out because he was moving things in.


squatters, homeowners, criminals, trespassing, law, property law, viral videos, youtube, squatter hunter How exactly is squatting not trespassing? It's complicated, for some reason. Giphy

“If they can take a house, I can take a house," he said.

He was calm and clear about her having to get everything out within the day or he would have people come and take it, and thankfully, she didn't put up a big fight.

That experience made him realize how squatter law can be abused, but that there's a faster system for removing a squatter than to go through the court system. If a squatter can move in and force a homeowner to take them to court to prove they are living there illegally, then he could simply move in alongside the squatter, putting the squatter in the position of having to take the homeowner to court instead.

"The legal process is so slow, and at some point when they're in there, you're going to feel like they have more rights than you do and that's how you're going to be treated. So even though you it's your house and you're paying the mortgage or whatever, at some point squatters feel like they have more rights than you, so they don't have an incentive to leave until a judge tells them to, until they're actually ordered to, and that could take months."

After successfully removing the squatters in his mother's house, Shelton has been tackling similar squatter situations for other homeowners in California, earning him the nickname "The Squatter Hunter."

"All I'm doing is becoming a squatter and flipping this process on them," Shelton told CBS News. "I figured if they could take a house, I could take a house."

According to CBS, he's successfully removed a dozen squatters in the past year. ""I'm not going in and I'm not hurting anyone," he said. "I'm not kicking them out, I'm not throwing them out." He's literally just moving in himself, setting up cameras, and then creating small annoyances until the squatters get fed up enough to move out; like making uncomfortable alterations to the home or making a ton of noise at inopportune hours.

Shelton parlayed his success into a reality show on A&E called, fittingly, Squatters. It premiered in July of 2025. To put it lightly, it looks intense! Clips posted on Shelton's social media show hostile standoffs with angry squatters and even he and his team causing damage to the home or creating nuisances to help drive the squatters out.

California isn't the only state that has seen issues with squatters. There are squatter stories from all over the U.S. of people moving into a property and refusing to leave without a court order, tying owners up in lengthy, expensive legal battles.

Though squatting is relatively rare overall, some areas of the country have more issues than others. California, Texas, Georgia, and Florida are areas, in particular, that struggle with squatters and abandoned properties.

Shelton even has a Change.org petition to try to get squatter laws changed to "make squatting in residential maintained homes criminal." Making squatting illegal "will shift the burden of proof onto the squatter and make the crime punishable with restitution an option for damages," the the petition states.

Not all homeowners will have access to someone like Shelton and his team to fight back against squatters. But until the laws change, he's doing as much as he can.

Watch Shelton share his personal story:

- YouTube www.youtube.com

This article originally appeared last year. It has been updated.


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Animals & Wildlife

Watch two humpback whales desperately try to save a seal from hungry orcas

The orcas get petty about it in the end.

Canva Photos & By Ecohotel, CC BY-SA 3.0

Humpback whales have been observed going out of their way to rescue seals from killer whale attacks.

Orcas, sometimes called killer whales, are the ultimate apex predators. They are physically imposing, for starters: fast, powerful, and vicious. But they're also brilliant and are generally considered one of the smartest animals on the planet. It's their brains that truly make them elite hunters.

If you need an example of how proficient they are at killing, they purposefully hunt and eat great white sharks along with their steady diet of fish and seals. Typically, they hunt great whites in groups, but a single orca is more than capable of easily handling what is usually considered one of the scariest and deadliest creatures in the ocean.

Orcas have a variety of incredible hunting techniques at their disposal. They're best known for their "wave wash" move, in which a pod of orcas will swim full speed at an ice block and create a huge wave to knock off any seals that may be sheltering on it. They also "karate chop" sharks with their tails and flip them upside down, causing the sharks to go into a state of near paralysis, making them an easy meal. Orcas can even take on much larger species of whales by preventing them from reaching the surface to breathe and drowning them.

In other words, when a pod or orcas zeroes in on potential prey, there's almost nothing that can stop the hunt. Except maybe a humpback whale.

orcas, killer whales, humpback whales, ocean, wildlife, ocean life, marine life, national geographic, viral videos, nature, animals They look so friendly, but they're the ultimate hunters. Giphy

Humpback whales have been displaying a strange behavior lately.

The whales have been caught purposefully disrupting orca hunts. It's almost as if they're trying to save the seals and other animals once killer whales set their sights on them. It's likely a behavior that's been happening for a long time, but it's become extremely well-documented in just the last couple of decades.

A team from National Geographic recently caught one such encounter on film in the waters of Antarctica.

In the video, a pod of orcas is spotted by explorer Bertie Gregory as they zero in on a Weddell seal perched atop a chunk of ice. The whales ready themselves for their famous "wave wash" move, charging together at the ice block...but no wave comes.

“They swam under the chunk of ice, just like they normally do, but we could see no breaking wave, and we were like, ‘Oh, they must have messed it up,” says Gregory according to National Geographic. “But instead they were making an underwater shockwave.”

The whales were impressively able to destroy the seal's ice perch from below, sending him into the water, where the hunt was on. But pretty quickly, it became apparent that the seal had backup.

“Then, all of a sudden, two humpback whales just turn up,” says Gregory. “They do this amazing trumpeting noise [that’s] so loud, it reverberates in the hull of the boat, like an elephant trumpeting.”

Though not as speedy, nimble, or vicious, humpback whales are quite a bit larger than orcas; making their presence pretty disruptive. The filmmaking team firmly believed that the humpbacks were purposefully trying to protect the seal and screw up the hunt. In many cases just like this one, the humpbacks are successful at driving the orcas away.

Sadly for the seal, the humpbacks arrived too late this time. The orcas even appeared to gloat with their kill afterward. A little petty, but the killer whales were understandably annoyed.

Watch the whole fascinating incident here:

- YouTube www.youtube.com

Despite their size, getting tangled up with a pod of hungry orcas is extremely dangerous for a humpback whale. So why risk their lives trying to save some random seal?

Orcas regularly take down great whites, one of the ocean's top predators, and have even been known to hunt blue whales—the largest animal on the planet! So no matter how big you are, you probably don't want to mess with a pod of killer whales.

Some people, experts included, see the seal-saving behavior as a sign of altruism. Altruism, of course, referring to a selfless action—one in which there's no inherent benefit for the whale. Humpback whales: Protectors of the ocean. Has a nice ring to it, right?

Another incredible seal-saving incident was observed in 2009. In this case, the humpbacks were successful in saving the seal, with one of them actually carrying it on its belly to shield it from the orcas. If that's not altruistic, I don't know what is.

A more likely explanation, however, is that the humpbacks are launching proactive attacks on orcas in response to killer whales regularly hunting their calves.

"I think they just have a simple rule," marine ecologist Robert Pitman told Science.org. "When you hear a killer whale attack, go break it up."

orcas, killer whales, humpback whales, ocean, wildlife, ocean life, marine life, national geographic, viral videos, nature, animals Humpback whales live by a simple rule: Troll the orcas whenever possible. Giphy

It's similar to an animal behavior called "mobbing," where groups of prey animals will band together to drive predators out. In a 2022 study published on Science Direct, Nora V. Carlson and Michael Griesser write, "Mobbing is an important anti-predator behavior where prey harass and attack a predator to lower the immediate and long-term risk posed by it, warn others, and communicate about the predator's threat."

Humpbacks have strong memories, and they may remember and even have trauma from previous killer whale attacks. So, they probably figure: let's go get them before they get us!

All that being said, altruistic behaviors do exist in the animal world. Animals of the same species or, particularly, ones that live in the same social group, often help each other or make sacrifices for the greater good. But cross-species cooperation does happen, too. Dolphins have been known to help stranded whales or even save humans from shark attacks. Many animals have been documented adopting orphaned young of another species.

In all of these cases, there may be some benefit to the animals that we don't understand. But it's a lot more fun to imagine, especially in the case of the humpbacks, that they're doing it just to be kind.

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Retired teachers in their 30s live on cruise ships full-time for a little over $10K a year

“It sounds mad, but the numbers made sense."

via Matthew Barra/Pexels

A cruise ship could be your home for a way lower price than you'd expect.

You know that feeling toward the end of a great vacation when you stop and think: I wish I could stay here forever. It might be an all-inclusive resort, a secluded beach, or a fun-filled cruise on the high seas that you just don't want to leave. Of course, for most people, it's a fantasy. You can't just quit your job and live a permanent vacation. But what if you could?

Giving it all up and retiring to live on a cruise ship at 32 seems like a lifestyle choice only available to the ultra-wealthy. However, two financially savvy retired school teachers from Tennessee have managed to do just that, spending under $10,000 for the first eight months at sea.

Monica Brzoska, 32, and Jorrell Conley, 36, met in 2015 while teaching in Memphis, Tennessee. The following year, they booked a week-long cruise to Mexico, Belize, and Grand Cayman. After that, they were hooked on cruising together.

Eight years later, in March 2023, they booked a week-long Caribbean cruise and had the time of their lives. When it was over, instead of returning home to Memphis, they had a wild idea: Why not continue to book consecutive cruises? So, they did just that.

Monica was inspired to start living the life she always wanted after her father fell ill and her mother told her: "Don't wait for retirement. Follow your dreams."

The couple crunched the numbers and found that if they chose the cheapest cabins and used the deals and promotions they’d received from Carnival Cruises, they could book the first 8 months for just under $10,000.

That's not per month. That's the total, coming out to around $1250 per month. Not a bad deal whatsoever. Plus, the more cruises they book, the more perks and deals they get.

“It sounds mad, but the numbers made sense. Accommodation, food and entertainment would be included – we’d only need spending money,” Brzoska told The Sun. “And because we’d been on so many Carnival cruises, we’d earned access to some amazing offers.”

Hopping from ship to ship isn’t difficult for the couple because many disembark from the same ports. But they sometimes have to fly when they can’t walk to the next ocean liner.

The couple then quit their jobs, sold their possessions, and started a new life on the high seas. They rent out their 3-bedroom home in Memphis to maintain steady cash flow. The average 3-bedroom home in the area rents somewhere between $1200 to $1900 a month.

Over the first year of their new life, the couple completed 36 consecutive cruises.

They have already visited countless destinations across the globe, but they can’t choose a favorite. "For a cultural experience, we loved Japan," Brzoska told a Carnival Cruise director on Instagram. The couple also loved Greece for its “history” and Iceland because it was the "closest to being on Mars."

More recently, they've spent time in Amsterdam, the UK, Germany, Belgium, and more. What an amazing adventure.

One of the most incredible benefits of loving on a cruise ship is that so many things are taken care of for you. The couple never has to cook any meals, do any laundry, or drive. Every night, there is something to do, whether it’s checking out a comedy show or enjoying drinks and dancing in the nightclub. Plus, there are always new friends to meet on board with every new cruise.

Plus, on cruises, just about all the costs are covered, so you rarely have to open your wallet. It’s a stress-free, all-inclusive lifestyle. Brzoska says that when you remove the everyday stresses from life, it’s great for your marriage. “Without the daily stresses of life, we rarely argued, but always told each other if we needed space or more time together,” she said.

Brzoska and Conley were one of the first high-profile couples to get attention, followers, and media coverage for the permanent cruising lifestyle, but they're definitely not the only ones. It's an especially popular choice for retired adults and seniors, who find it cheaper and way more fun than living in a retirement community or nursing home. It's also a great choice for people who can work remotely and flexibly, or who own their own digital-nomad-friendly businesses.

The couple also makes sure to have one date night a week, during which they dress up and have a nice meal together.

As of this writing, the couple has been cruising full-time for over two years, or 916 days to be exact. They've been on 106 cruises and visited over 45 countries together. Absolutely unreal.

Most people may be unable to give it all up and live their lives hopping from ocean liner to ocean liner. But there’s a great lesson in the story of Brzoska and Conley: You never know how much time you have left, so don’t wait for retirement to live the life of your dreams.

This article originally appeared last year. It has been updated.


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Passenger on 274-day cruise is surprised to learn the one word you can't say on the ship

"It's like saying 'Macbeth' in a theater."

via Mattew Barra/Pexels
There's one word you can't say on a cruise ship.

There are some things you just don't say. You don't yell out "bomb!" on an airplane, make jokes about carrying weapons while going through security, or, as Michael Scott from The Office knows, loudly proclaim that a boat you're currently on is sinking.

Those are all pretty obvious examples, but sometimes etiquette and decorum are a little more subtle. If you're not experienced in the ways of the venue you're in, you might not know all the unspoken rules. And you might find out the hard way. Cruise ships, for example, have their own very specific set of rules and regulations that guests should abide by.

On December 10, 2023, Royal Caribbean’s Serenade of the Seas set sail on the Ultimate World Cruise—a 274-day global trek that visits 11 world wonders and over 60 countries.


cruise, 9-month cruise, Marc Sebastian, cruise life, vacation, titanic, unspoken rules, etiquette, cruise etiquette, royal caribbean 9 months is a very long time to be aboard a boat, even a giant cruise ship. Photo by Peter Hansen on Unsplash

This incredible trip covered the Americas, Asia Pacific, Middle East, Mediterranean and Europe with a ticket price that ranges from $53,999 to $117,599 per passenger.

With such a unique and incredible offering, it's understandable that Royal Caribbean wanted to invite plenty of influencers to help them get the word out.

Aboard the Serenade to the Seas was popular TikToker Marc Sebastian, who documented his experience throughout the journey. In one video with over 4.3 million views, he revealed what he’s learned over his first few weeks aboard the ship; the biggest was the one word you’re not allowed to say.

"So here's [what] I've learned about cruising since I've spent 18 nights on this floating retirement home with a Cheesecake Factory attached. First, number one, you're not supposed to talk about the Titanic," he says in the clip.

Titanic! It's the ultimate taboo when you're on a giant ship traversing the ocean. Even after all these years, it's still too soon to make even lighthearted comparisons or jokes.

@marcsebastianf

someone get whoopi on the line girl i have some goss for her #ultimateworldcruise #worldcruise #serenadeoftheseas #cruisetok #cruise #9monthcruise #titanic

“Who knew that? I didn’t,” Sebastian said. “I brought it up to an entire room of people having lunch that our ship is only 100 feet longer than the Titanic — when I tell you that utensils dropped. Waiters gasped. It’s dead silent.”

Sebastian was flabbergasted. "It wasn't in the... handbook," he joked. "Not that I read the handbook, clearly."

After the unexpected reaction, his cruise friend told him, “You’re not allowed to talk about the Titanic.” It makes sense.

Who wants to be reminded of the tragedy that killed around 1,500 people while sinking one of the most impressive engineering feats of the era? More experienced cruisers chimed in that they were familiar with the unique piece of etiquette.

cruise, 9-month cruise, Marc Sebastian, cruise life, vacation, titanic, unspoken rules, etiquette, cruise etiquette, royal caribbean Pro tip: Don't ask the band on board to play "My Heart Will Go On" by Celine Dion Giphy

"When I went on a cruise, my mom told me saying Titanic was equivalent to screaming ‘bomb’ at an airport," Mikayla wrote in the comments.

"It’s like saying Macbeth in a theatre, it’s an unspoken rule" another commenter added.

"I’m sorry you’re telling me you had a Harry Potter like experience saying Voldemort at Hogwarts but it was the titanic on a modern day cruise I’m cryingggg" joked another.

Later in the video covering little known cruise facts, Sebastian admits he was surprised to learn that cruise ships have godmothers and that the pools are filled with seawater.

In an update from June of 2024, Sebastian explains that he only stayed on the cruise for 18 nights. He was not booked to stay throughout the entire voyage, and for him, that was a relief.

He initially jokes that he was kicked off the boat for saving a penguin that had jumped aboard. But in the end, he admits he was more than happy to deboard early.

"I walked off that ship not a happy man," he said, saying the ship was overstimulating and stressful. In another video, he films as the ship navigates the Drake Passage, one of the most notoriously dangerous and choppy stretches of water in the world. It looks stressful indeed, to say the least.

Cruising isn't for everyone, let alone for 274 days straight! But now Sebastian knows the golden rule for his next cruise.

This story originally appeared last year. It has been updated.

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Modern Families

Grandma realized her granddaughter didn't look like her siblings so she got secret DNA test

It was a shocking decision but people are saying she was right to do it.

via Christian Buehner/Unsplash and Warren Umoh/Unsplash

The grandmother was suspicious.

A grandmother always felt her middle granddaughter Lindsay, 15, looked slightly different from the rest of the family because she had blonde, curly hair, while the rest of her siblings’ hair was dark “I thought genetics was being weird and I love her,” she wrote.

But things became serious after Linday’s parents “banned” her from taking things a step further and getting a DNA test. If the family was sure their daughter was theirs, why would they forbid her from seeking clarity in the situation? After the parents laid down the law, the situation started to seem a little suspicious. “I told my son and [daughter-in-law] that there was something fishy around her birth she needed to know. They denied it and told me to leave it alone,” the grandma wrote.

Lindsay wouldn’t give up her quest. She approached her biology teacher, who admitted that it was “odd” for her to have such different traits. This confusion was too much for Lindsay, so she went to her grandmother for help. “She came to me distressed, asking me to buy a DNA test since she needs to know,” the grandmother wrote.

DNA test, medical lab, grandparents The grandmother's post about her secret DNA test went viralImage via Canva

The grandmother purchased a DNA test and it proved their suspicions. “Long story short, she is not her mother's kid,” the grandmother wrote. “My son got someone else pregnant and her bio mom gave her up.”

The interesting thing was that Lindsay was a middle child. So, the dad had a baby with another woman while he was with his wife. This revelation begs the question: How did the family suddenly have a baby out of nowhere without people being suspicious?

“They were on the other side of the country when she was born, and I met Lindsey when she was about 6 months old. Really not hard to hide the whole thing,” the grandmother wrote. “Our family has a history of miscarriages, so it’s common to drop news about a baby late in the pregnancy. They did the same with their oldest and didn't think anything about it.”

grandparents, DNA test, secret DNA test The grandmothers secret DNA test sparked a debateImage via Canva

The big revelation has caused friction in the family. The family no longer talks to the grandmother, which makes Lindsay even more furious about the situation.Should the grandmother have taken such drastic steps if she knew what could happen if her suspicions were true? The commenters on Reddit overwhelmingly supported the grandmother’s decision. The big reason was that Lindsay needed to know her family history for medical reasons.

"Your son and his wife suck for lying to her until she is 15 about something so important and trying to keep lying to her even after she obviously started to question things. There are medical reasons a person might need to know what their genetics are/are not, and if you hadn’t helped her, she would have found out some other way," Shake_Speare423 wrote.

Another commenter noted that protecting the parents’ lie wasn’t nearly as important as Lindsay’s mental health.

"People have a right to know their genetic heritage. Lying about adoption is linked to increased suicidal ideation, anxiety, and depression. You put her safety and comfort ahead of your son’s preferences. Parental rights do not have greater value than a child’s right to access comprehensive medical care, and hiding an adoption does precisely that. Maybe some things, like a child staying healthy, should matter more than a parent's right to lie, gaslight and manipulate their child as they see fit," RemembrancerLirael added.


- YouTubewww.youtube.com

The commenters overwhelmingly supported the grandma for putting herself into an uncomfortable situation to protect her granddaughter’s mental and physical health. However, one commenter noted that she could have gone about it in a less polarizing way.

“Bit out of the norm for the responses here, but you should have gone through your son [and daughter-in-law] and convinced them. Told them that the biology teacher had highlighted that she had traits that didn't make sense, etc. and convinced them that Lindsey would find out either way,” PhilMcGraw wrote. “It would have allowed them to find a way to tell her without it being forced on them angrily. A DNA test is the absolute worst way to be told. I'm sure they would have much rather told her than let her find out by a DNA test if that is what was coming.”

This article originally appeared three years ago.

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