ADOPTIVE FATHERS

Okay today is the day I rail against my first adoptive father. I will try not to curse like some chat rooms that I have been in. It is not my first adoptive father's fault that the adoption system is the way that it is. I am not going to even dog out the adoptive system today. I am though going to try and work out my feelings about the way he treated myself and members of my family.

The reason why my parents got divorced isn't absolutely clear. Honestly that situation isn't even my or my family's problem to deal with today or any other day since that point in time. All I do know is that he isn't a very clear, truthful and/or honest human being when it comes to his children. Any man who leaves the state in order to avoid paying child support for his children is despicable. Even at the toughest times of my own marriage, my husband was willing to take care of his children no matter what. It was about 15 years ago that I realized what kind of damage that he did to me. He adopted another child with the same name as his daughter within two weeks of ending his marriage to my own mother. Believe me, this is all on record at the hometown courthouse. What does that tell a child? Maybe that she is dispensible, expendible, and utterly replaceable. Its bad enough that I, as an adoptee, have to deal with the initial primal wound. I have to deal with it all over again with my own adoptive father. In order to survive and protect myself from further real or imagined wounds, I buried all of this. Its no wonder that my spirit rages on day after day. Although my dad, my step father, had his character defects, he loved us girls(to include my mother) passionately. He stepped up to the plate to do a job that wasn't his to do. I will forever honor him in that and in my life. Because my first adoptive father is angry with me over something that I would not do, he is making his own grandchildren pay for their mother's crime. He did not send a card to his oldest grandchild. This is his history all over again. He made all of us pay for my mother's decision which she did to save her own sanity. AND PAY I DID. His actions have chipped away at me for most of my lifetime.

So what do I do now? Within the last year my grandmother suffered a serious health problem. My sister went to represent all of us. When they went to go eat, my sister and her family was shunned like they were a disease. When my sister confronted my father and his siblings about this, she got to see a very rabid side to my aunt and uncle. My father sat there twisting his head back and forth between two of them. Not once defending her or her family. My brother-in-law even told my father to step up. That this will be his only chance to do this. He just sat there almost dumbfounded. My sister defended my mother against all the lies that this man has told over the years. It was not my mother that got remarried after two weeks. It was not my mother who adopted another child to get even with his ex-wife. Those were his actions. That day left my poor mother in tears. When my grandmother was told about this incident, she took up for her son. Well I hope her punishment is to haunt her children about the treatment of all of their children.

Again I am back to the question that I originally asked. He is great at intelligence not the common sense kind though. I could write him a letter but would he really see his behavior as being a detriment? I doubt it. He would find some way to find me totally nuts. I will probably send him the letter anyway. Just to get some of the rage off my chest. I will end all communication with him and his family after that. Any comment would be welcome.

Every adoption situation needs to be judged for its own merits. Some regulation must be involved in this area but each circumstance again must be determined by its own merits or demerits.

Until we meet again, write your congressmen and women. Write your senators in your home state. Help change laws with the power of the pen.