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The internet is falling in love with this mom's note to her ex-boyfriend's new girlfriend.

Stepparents deserve a 'thank you' every now and then too.

The internet is falling in love with this mom's note to her ex-boyfriend's new girlfriend.

Audrey Loving, her daughter Riley, Riley's father Corey, and his girlfriend Whitney are just one example of a functional family.

They may not look like a traditional family, but not many families in America do these days. According to a 2014 Pew study, less than half of kids in the United States today live in "traditional" households with two married, heterosexual parents.

Photo by Audrey Loving, used with permission.

Loving and Corey had Riley during their long-distance relationship, which spanned several years, though they never married. The distance ultimately separated them, but today they both take care of their daughter amicably, and, yes, that often includes help from Corey's girlfriend, Whitney.

While the expectation might be that relationships between moms and new stepmoms will be tense, that's not how things are for this family.

"I've always had a good relationship with [Whitney]," Loving writes in a Facebook message. "My parents raised me to love and like all. I hit it off with her instantly. She's a doll."

Loving herself grew up in a blended family, complete with stepparents and stepsiblings, so she's familiar with how easily a stepmom can be labeled negatively. However, she also had loved ones who taught her a family doesn't have to look any one way.

"I don't want someone to feel awkward or unwelcome, because I've felt it before, and it doesn't feel good. So I showed her the love I was taught growing up," she writes.

To show how grateful she is that Riley has such a wonderful second mom, Loving wrote Whitney a thank-you note on Facebook.

She wanted the world to see just how much love can exist in a nontraditional family.

This is my daughters fathers gf. The sweetest thing ever! I'm super thankful for her because when she visits her dad she...

Posted by Audrey Nicole on Wednesday, November 2, 2016

Here's the crux of her touching message:

"No one said it was easy trying to be a mother to a kid you didn't have. So when there is someone trying, don't push them away! Because they don't need the drama, they will leave, and then you're stuck with someone who is the evil stepmom. Yes they exist! I see them everywhere! A kid can have two moms, because, in my eyes, the more people that love her, I'm happy!!! I would never make her feel like an outsider. I'm extremely thankful for this girl."

Loving's original post has been Liked over 351,000 times and shared over 145,000 times. Many of the tens of thousands of comments are from parents and stepparents who've been in similar situations and share her sentiment 100-fold.

Loving hopes her message will resonate with her daughter most of all.  "If we start teaching [love and respect] early, it will just go down the line," she writes.

Photo by Audrey Loving, used with permission.

The amount of love a family has to share has nothing to do with its size or shape. Love is love is love is love.

"I'm lucky to have the family and friends that I do," Whitney wrote in response to Loving's Facebook note. It just goes to show how important it is to take time to show appreciation for the people in our lives who might get overlooked, or who might find themselves the target of unfair stereotypes and assumptions because of the role they play in it.

Of course, not every family functions or co-parents as amicably as Loving, her ex, and his girlfriend do, but their story is a wonderful reminder that there's no one way to build a family. If you happen to have someone who could use such a reminder or a note of appreciation, there's no better time than the present.

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Daughter tweets that her laid-off dad wants a job at Costco. It got all the way to the CEO.

via Mike Mozart / Flickr

Rebecca Mix's 58-year-old dad, Jeff, lost his job at a hospital a year ago due to COVID-19-related cutbacks. For the past year, he's spent his time hunting, fishing, and doing countless DIY projects around the house.

With the pandemic receding into the rearview, Jeff, like many of us, was ready to get back to his regular life and that meant finding a new job.

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Daughter tweets that her laid-off dad wants a job at Costco. It got all the way to the CEO.

via Mike Mozart / Flickr

Rebecca Mix's 58-year-old dad, Jeff, lost his job at a hospital a year ago due to COVID-19-related cutbacks. For the past year, he's spent his time hunting, fishing, and doing countless DIY projects around the house.

With the pandemic receding into the rearview, Jeff, like many of us, was ready to get back to his regular life and that meant finding a new job.

Late-in-life career changes aren't easy, but Jeff thought that he'd do well working at Costco. He wanted a job where he could work with people face-to-face and he heard the company was good to its employees.

Keep Reading Show less
business
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The Elevate Prize
The Elevate Prize
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Want to be the change? Join an Elevate Giving Circle.

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If you've ever donated to a cause but worried that your contribution wasn't really enough to drive real change, you're not alone. As one person, it can be tough to feel like you're making a real difference, especially if you don't have a lot to donate or if times are tough (aka there's a worldwide pandemic going on.)

That's why, for years, the idea of philanthropy felt a little bit like a rich person's thing: if you had millions, you could donate and make change. The rest of us were just tossing pennies into a cup without really doing much.

But that's a problem: the priorities of a wealthy few don't represent the priorities of many, which means that good causes are often left underfunded, leading to a lack of meaningful action.

The thing is: it doesn't have to be like this. We can all make a difference, especially if we pool our money together.

Enter: Giving Circles. These are when groups of people with shared values come together to drive change. They do it by pooling their time and money together, then deciding as a circle where it should go. That way, they can cause a real targeted change in one place quickly in a very people-powered way by giving what they can, whether that's volunteer hours, money, or a mix of both. Best of all, Giving Circles are a social experience — you get to work together as a community to make sure you do the most good you can.

In other words, giving circles are a way to democratize philanthropy, making it more accessible regardless of your age, income, gender, or race.

That's why this year, The Elevate Prize, a nonprofit founded in 2019, is launching a new pop-up "Giving Circle" program so that problem solvers, budding philanthropists, and anyone that wants to do good can come together and drive real impact at a large scale. And you can do it all in just 90 minutes.

All you have to do is join one of the Elevate Giving Circles online. Learn about organizations doing good for the world, then pool your money together, and as a group, direct it where you think that donation could make the most difference.

But that's not all: every single donation made is matched by the Elevate Prize Foundation — basically guaranteeing that you double your impact for good. The theme for the first cycle is education, and Elevate Giving will match up to $75,000 in total donations for each cycle.

Ready to get involved? Elevate Giving experiences start June 26th, so sign up now for your spot to make a difference. There's no minimum fee to join either — so get involved no matter what you have to give. Now that's philanthropy for all.

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