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  • From: sjc <indexer AT localnet.com>
  • To: homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [Homestead] Just stiff (seriously OT, but I need to vent)
  • Date: Fri, 17 Nov 2006 00:28:39 -0500


At 08:03 PM 11/16/2006, you wrote:

...........Of course, this has oft been turned around on
me, as some claim I used the kids as weapons and that I am the one who
is manipulating. You have to go back 45 years.........

This reminded me of a bit of history......

I had a similar situation (14 parents and step-parents total plus seemingly untold numbers of full, half-, and step-siblings), and like Bev, left it behind. I had 3 kids of my own and was often the butt of such accusations. But the kids never had even one (and that is never, ever) card, letter, or phone call from any relatives, including their grandparents, so when my family complained, my stock reply was something to the order of "I'm sure he'd enjoy a card on his birthday; do you need the address?" and I let it go at that. As to the kids themselves I hardly ever mentioned family, so it wasn't high on their minds. They were busy being kids.

At one point, when the youngest was 3 yo, we took a trip and for reasons too long and boring to relay, decided to go by my father's place. By that time he was on his 5th (I think, not quite clear how many were marrieds and how many shackups) wife; my own mother was his first divorce and many years dead by then. He lived on an island and on the way over there it occurred to me that my youngest son had never even heard of Grandfather McKay, so I gave him the 2-minute 3-year-old's course in genealogy (your parents' parents are your grandparents; we are going to visit my father, your Grandfather McKay, that was about it). As I was making introductions (this is Grandfather McKay, this is Grandmother McKay, blah) after we got there, his little eyes lit up all at once and I knew he was going to say something I didn't probably want him to say but before I could get over there and catch him he'd put 2 and 2 together and said excitedly " Grandmother McKay! Grandmother McKay! I thought you were dead!"

The 'new' grandmother McKay caught on right away and fortunately, she thought it was hilarious. My dad, otoh, never spoke to me again. Oh well, nothing new there.

So even these unbelievably wacky family situations have their funny moments. That's the one all my kids remember and the one I choose to remember, too.

Susan Jane, in Maine





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