From: root@dogear.spk.wa.us (Bob Kirkpatrick)
Newsgroups: alt.child-support
Subject: Re: Coren
Keywords: truth
Date: 9 Apr 92 01:20:09 GMT
Followup-To: alt.child-support
Organization: Dog Ear'd Systems of Spokane, WA

In article <1992Apr7.162557.10471@ll.mit.edu> yasu@ll.mit.edu (Alan Yasutovich) writes:
>
>	My purpose here is not to flame.
>
>	Now let me tell you *my* story, since you're new.  (Everyone else
>	can go have a coffee).  My son is now 14 1/2.  After my divorce
>	in the early 80's, my ex told me basically to stay out of her life.

"Truth. What a concept," as Robin Williams says. Perhaps a bit on the terse
side, but Alan has made a good point here.

When a man (or woman) has been ejected from a life, and creates a new one,
just what rights should those involved in the previous life have? 

Offhand, I'd say little to none. Bear in mind that I'm a 'kid' person. I have
great love for kids and distaste for people who hurt them. From that
position, I see Alan's statements still valid.

When my divorce was in full bloom (or is that BOOM?) I feared losing contact
with the kids. I was told by quite a few professionals that I wouldn't really
lose them, because in later years they'd be interested in making a new
relationship with me.

Big Deal.

If I hadn't seen my children for 10 or so years and they came to me, they'd
come as strangers. I'd have had little or nothing to do with the kind of
people they were, and they would represent a horror in my life. My response
to the professionals who told me that it would all even out in the end to
give some thought to the dad point of view. 

I ran into an old friend last year. He'd been a close family friend, and one
of my best friends for nearly four years. In his later-years personnae I
couldn't stand him. 90% of what he said I found irksome, and the other 10%
was irrelevant in my book. It was a simple case of having absolutely nothing
in common. He was like a puppy dog. Once he found me, he hung on me like glue
for about a month. I tried all of the nice ways to avoid him, and then
finally dropped by his house and had a frank talk with him. He was offended,
but I think that both of our lives are better. I don't have the irritation,
and he doesn't have some false hope or false vision of what our friendship is
all about. He did thank me for being honest, and apologized for being a pain.
I accepted this by telling him that it was my fault --I should have been a
bit quicker to limit our contact. 

I'm adopted. A thing which causes my wife to prod me about every now and
then. She thinks that I should go find my 'real' parents. I respond each time
that my real father and mother are now buried, and I attened the funerals.
The people who raised me are my parents, and I have no interest in the
biological parentage. If they wanted something to do with me, or could have
had the ability to raise me, they probably would have.

Now what about a child who had little do do with the ejection of a parent
from their lives? Well, the simple truth I see there is that if enough time
has gone by, they will still be strangers. As Alan pointed out, the parent
will have built a new life, and the liklihood that it was built with room for
something a long time lost is pretty small.

The ejection of that parent was (in our case of divorce here) the result of
the other parent --who should take the full brunt and responsibility for
their actions. There is no statute of limitations for murder, and the killing
of a relationship for vindictive purposes is a murder. Dad should not be
blamed for something that mom did, and vice versa.

Our system of divorce is a national and societal failure. It's an
embarrassment greater than the Savings and Loan scandal, worse than our
Congressoids writing checks equal to their personal and political worth.

Yes, I'm a 'kid' person, but when the kid isn't a kid anymore, and they
delayed getting involved and issuing pressure to retrieve the ejected parent
for an unreasonable amount of time --I'm just not on their side.

Like a feminist, on overhearing a conversation between me and my wife about
my divorse said, "Life's a bitch."

So was she.
-- 
root@dogear.spk.wa.us - Bob Kirkpatrick, Dog Ear'd Systems of Spokane, WA
"...I know it when I see it."  --potter stewart
Newsgroups: alt.child-support