My Parents Put Me Up For Adoption Because I Was A Boy. My Mom Said: “i Wish You’d Died As A Baby” 19

The Wrong Parts and the Industrial Strip

My parents put me up for adoption because I was a boy. My mom said,

“I wish you died as a baby.”

19 years later, they showed up at my business begging for money to send my niece to college, but karma couldn’t have written it better. Hey Reddit, my parents didn’t just play favorites; they straight up gave me away for being born the wrong gender.

So I built my own life, my own family, and kept it moving. But of course, they came crawling back years later and things got messy fast.

Before we get there, let me start at the real beginning. I’m 25, run a couple repair shops and a small wholesale line.

I am self-made mostly, but that’s not where this starts. This starts in company housing next to an industrial strip in Jersey City where everyone knew everyone’s business and nobody minded their own.

Row houses were pressed together like sardines. Noise from factories was bleeding through walls.

Diesel, fried food, and humidity were hanging in the air. Gossip traveled faster than shift whistles.

Mrs. Katry two doors down once told my mother she’d seen me playing outside before my mother even knew I’d left. Sirens were background noise.,

Workers trudged home with grease on their uniforms and no hope of getting out. That was the world.

I was the third kid, unplanned, unwanted. My parents, Ferris and Salma, already had two daughters when I showed up and ruined their system.

Leila first, then Nor. They weren’t rich; delivery routes and mall retail don’t go far.

Two kids was manageable; three was a burden. This was especially true when the third came out with the wrong parts.

Salma had a brilliant cost-saving plan. Hand-me-downs were on rotation between my sisters.

When I arrived male, she didn’t adjust. She forced it anyway.

I have fractured memories from age five. Six sparkly hair clips were pinned to my head because they were already there.

A lunchbox with Nor’s name scratched out and mine scrolled underneath. Pink sneakers, a princess backpack, and a ruffled jacket.

Every item screamed wrong, and Salma dared me to complain. School was a nightmare.

Kids have radar for weakness. They locked onto me instantly.,

They called me No. They used my sister’s name like it was mine.

I’d take the clips off before school. Salma would slap them back on.

She said we couldn’t afford new ones. She said I should be grateful.

The bullying escalated daily. Shoves, trashing my lunchbox, and games where they’d yell,

“Hey, No!”

and laugh.

No matter what I did, they followed me home chanting it. Neighbors watched through curtains and did nothing.

Bathroom breaks were the worst. Boys blocked the door and said,

“I didn’t belong.”

Teachers saw it and shrugged. Small community logic meant if everyone knows, then nobody has to help.

I’d come home crying. Ferris ignored me.

Salma called me dramatic. My sisters thought it was comedy.

Nor would repeat the insults at home just to watch me flinch. Ila joined in because it was easier.

Salma never stopped it. Sometimes she smiled.

I started acting out around six. Hiding their stuff, breaking toys, and cutting the hair off Nor’s favorite doll.

Spilling juice on Ila’s homework. Small victories, big consequences.

I didn’t care anymore. Punishments were harsh.,

Locked in my room for hours with no dinner. Making my own breakfast while my sisters were served.

Ferris would walk past the door, pause, then keep going every time. Then came the day everything changed.

Worst bullying session yet. Three older kids cornered me by the playground.

One yanked out a clip, waved it around, and mocked me in a high-pitched voice. Another dumped my backpack while the third kicked dirt over everything.

Teachers were 20 feet away and did nothing. I walked home filthy, bleeding, and six years old with the understanding that nobody was coming to save me.

Salma was in the living room with photo albums getting ready for some family event. On the table sat a framed photo from a few months back.

Ferris, Salma, Ila, and Nor were in the center. I was on the edge, half-cropped, and barely in frame.

They’d paid for that photo, dressed up for it, and positioned me like an afterthought. I knew instantly it wasn’t the photographer’s choice.

Something snapped. I grabbed the frame and smashed it.

Glass everywhere and the photo torn. Everyone froze.,

Nor was screaming, and Ila was crying. Ferris was standing but not moving.

Salma just stared. She didn’t yell; that was the terrifying part.

Her voice was calm, final.

“We’re done,”

like she’d been waiting for an excuse. She sent the girls to their room and made me clean every shard of glass while she watched.

She didn’t speak or move. She just watched me pick up pieces of a family I’d never really been part of.

Two days later, they told me I was leaving. They put me up for adoption.

They didn’t do formal adoption paperwork right away. They couldn’t afford the fees and didn’t want the hassle of court dates and social workers.

Instead, Ferris knew this couple one town over who ran a tailor kiosk with a tea window attached. Reena and Dev, late thirties, with no kids.

They worked brutal hours. They had tried for children for years, looked into adoption, but the process was expensive and slow.

When Ferris showed up offering a six-year-old who needed a home, they saw it as fate. I remember the conversation while me standing in the hallway was hidden behind the door.

Ferris was telling Salma the arrangement was set. My sisters were celebrating with actual joy.

Salma was saying the couple was poorer than us and that I probably wouldn’t finish school. She didn’t care; neither did anyone else.

Nor asked if they could have my room. Salma said yes.

They were already dividing the space before I’d even left. That night I packed my stuff.

One bag, clothes that fit, and the lunchbox with the scratched out name. There was not much else.

I stared at the cot in the corner of my sister’s room, the blanket with the hole, and the cracked ceiling I’d memorized. I thought I should feel sad but felt nothing.

The drive over was silent. Ferris didn’t talk.

I didn’t cry. I just watched the industrial strip fade into residential blocks then into a different set of row houses.

Same poverty, different zip code. He changed the radio station twice, never found anything he liked, and never looked at me.

Reena and Dev’s place was tiny, only one bedroom. They’d converted their storage room into a space for me.

Bare walls and a thin mattress, but it was mine. A real room with a small window with a blue curtain, my favorite color.