My three parents

It's all ridiculous actually.

I know a few in this tangle. They got married and had a couple of kids, Then they got divorced. Started flirting again which is what they were really after. Both got re-hitched (I can't call it married) and have another kid each with another divorcee they had met at a Singles Nite who have a kid or two as well between them. And an ex apiece who both set about the same operation. One of them hits the jackpot on a property deal and another gets thrown out of work and hits the bottle. The rest are in working two shifts domestic bliss systems.

Then the kids start eyeing up the way the land lies and want to be with the jackpot guy and out of sight of the boozer and start playing hard to get on the "how important it is to love our children" shite and they all end up after the inevitable passage of time in a permanent thinking about nothing else nightmare lurching between sloppy and at each other's throats and devising ways to get at each other and when the jackpot guy's will is read there's litigation gets under-way and that's it. About ten lives gone. Plus collateral damage on the edges.

All in the name of personal happiness being the most important thing in the whole wide weary world of woe at the particular moment when it serves the purposes required if the acting is up to speed. Which it usually is from watching actors and actresses faking it so good for entertainment purposes for so long.

It's like watching monkeys trying to be moral philosphers.

On a national scale the murders, suicides, going off the rails or givings up and staring into space must be quite an appreciable number. Which, I suppose in understandable. The ones who spend all day every day trying to make it look civilised and respectable are the nutters.

And it's only just started to pick up speed. You can see from my numbers that it's exponential.

0 Replies

@Joe Nation,

Joe Nation wrote:

It's not about you, David.
It's about the relationship being a child and his parents
and the respect, or lack thereof, you have for same.

First, be my friend, then be a friend to my child.

Joe(or get the hell away from us. )Nation

U don't seem to have read my post, Joe.
In addition, your post implies falsely that I went
over there imposing myself on them. That is not the case.
I don't like going over there, but I 've been requested
to help them out with a few things, taxes, contractual interpretation,
and potential litigation both as plaintiff n as defendant
in different cases. I am (silently) a little annoyed
when the kids enter and distract. Most of the time,
I do this for free for friends of very long standing.

Joe, if u ever come over to my place,
I promise that no one will call u names,
other than the name u want.

David

1 Reply

@OmSigDAVID,

May it please the Court, I should like to have the testimony of David read back:

Quote:

Too ofen, my friends who have children
have told the children to call me "Uncle David".
I don't like the idea. I always tell them just to call me David.
Sometimes, the parents r strident on the point.
In practice, the kids have done it my way.
I just wanna be a friend, not an authority figure.

The parents have told their children to call you "Uncle David."
YOU don't like the idea.

To repeat, it's not about what you want, even though you are happy that the children have disobeyed their parents and "done it your way", it's rude and a violation of your supposedly friendship.

Maybe they are willing to allow themselves to be undermined to save a few bucks on legal costs.

Joe(Shame on them then, and shame on you.)Nation

1 Reply

@Joe Nation,

Joe Nation wrote:

May it please the Court,
I should like to have the testimony of David read back:

DAVID wrote:

Too ofen, my friends who have children
have told the children to call me "Uncle David".
I don't like the idea. I always tell them just to call me David.
Sometimes, the parents r strident on the point.
In practice, the kids have done it my way.
I just wanna be a friend, not an authority figure.

I stand by my testimony.
I find no fault with it.

Joe Nation wrote:

The parents have told their children to call you "Uncle David."
YOU don't like the idea.

That is accurate.
I suspect that the kids did not like it either, but I don't know that
for a fact, in that none of them ever expressed himself on that point.

Joe Nation wrote:

To repeat, it's not about what you want,
even though you are happy that the children have disobeyed their parents
and "done it your way",

I don 't have to put up with anyone calling me names.
I'm surprized that u don't know that; u r usually a fairly rational guy.

Joe Nation wrote:

it's rude and a violation of your supposedly friendship.

U seem to be exceptionally sensitive,
delicate ego, on this particular point.

Joe Nation wrote:

Maybe they are willing to allow themselves
to be undermined to save a few bucks on legal costs.

I deemed their fathers to be putting the kids in emotionally degrading positions
of implied subservience. I defended them from that.
I ratify my choice. If I had ever been in that position,
when I was a kid, that 's what I 'd have wanted to happen.

In point of fact, when I was a kid,
on seldom occasions, I DID defend my friends of approximately
equal age from their less than 1OO% rational parents. (I had a mouth.)

Joe Nation wrote:

Joe(Shame on them then, and shame on you.)Nation

Your posted reasoning is very, very poor, especially qua "shame".
No one was ashamed (except I dunno if the kids felt humiliated
by their fathers, or not).

At this point, any further explanations from me
woud only be REDUNDANT, except for one additional point:
I have had the sense of the situation, whenever this has happened,
that by this "Uncle" command, the parents sought to honor me,
to exalt and to elevate me up on a pedestal with the title, above ordinary David,
whereas in contrast, the children were in a relatively lower position,
based on their ages, devoid of any honorific titles. I disliked that,
considered it to be emotionally abusive of them,
and I refused to be complicit in that. I stand by that choice.

I shud show as much respect for the children as thay do to me.
When I was on-the-job, taking testimony from juvenile litigants, or juvenile witnesses,
I never addressed them by their first names; it was always "MISTER Smith" or "Sir".

David

0 Replies

@Joe Nation,

I was raised by my maternal grandparents. I was in grammar school before i even knew who my biological parents were, and understood the relationship. Whatever either biology or the law say, my grandfather was my father, and my grandmother was my mother.

2 Replies

I had six uncles and about ten aunties. They were always called Uncle this or Auntie that. They still are and most of them are long dead or at least I think so. Addressing any one of them directly with just their first name never entered my head and still doesn't when they are referred to by myself or any other of my sibbies or their own sibbies when referring to their uncles and aunties.

If my mother addressed my father by his first name I used to slip out of the door for a few hours.

I don't know what I would have thought if one of my uncles had asked me to drop the formality of "uncle" so we could be friends. I think I would have thought he had a screw loose. I was innocent then. I would have thought it unusual.

Two of my aunties, maybe three, it's a long time ago, were not even related to us. Possibly one of the uncles. I'm not sure. They didn't tell us everything. I was mostly neither seen nor heard. They had collar studs for ****'s sake. And I could feel Bill Haley coming.

I remember seeing Dylan at Earl's Court in 1981 and thinking that there was nowhere left to go. Nothing could ever get close to even imitating it.

I had nothing in common with my parent's lot except all my DNA. Which goes to show how useless DNA is in tracing the progress of mankind. It can't even do a one-trick reproduction without banjaxing it. And animals can do it nearly every time.

0 Replies

@ehBeth,

Yup. All families make up the names for who is who.

The way to differentiate Patricks and Michaels in any Irish family:
there's Mike's Paddy, Paddy Mike, Little Mike's Mike and Big Pat, Big Mike, Big Mikey, Big Paddy and Soldier Boy John.

That's just the scattered Uncles, next there all the aunts named Mary.

Joe(lordsaveus)Nation

1 Reply

@Joe Nation,

I used to call two of my father's brother's wives' neices cousin. They were the cuddliest little kissing cousins that ever skipped o'er the meadows.

0 Replies

@ehBeth,

Quote:

I was raised by my maternal grandparents. I was in grammar school before i even knew who my biological parents were, and understood the relationship. Whatever either biology or the law say, my grandfather was my father, and my grandmother was my mother.

Is this ehBeth or Setanta?

I think this type of arrangement was very common once, and really still quite common today, but the law has gotten trickier.

When my mom and dad married 50 something years ago my dad already had a kid -- my brother. My mother raised him as her own (and he's always been her favorite) and there was never a question about who was his mom. (One of the few fistfights I've ever been in was when someone suggested he wasn't my "real" brother.)

Twelve years after my father died a thing he had been working on wrapped up and he was due a big chunk of money. We all wanted my mom to get it but because she had never formally adopted my brother it was impossible for that to happen. Half had to go to mom and the other half had to be split between the four kids. My brother felt absolutely awful about the whole thing -- mostly the insinuation that mom wasn't mom.

Because of the laws I can see having more than two legal parents being a complicated matter.

2 Replies

@boomerang,

Oops . . . that was me.

1 Reply

@Setanta,

Thank goodness. I thought I was having a major senior moment!

I agree with your sentiments 100%.

1 Reply

@boomerang,

I won't get into my family. Inheritances, significant or petty, were a roiling source of intrigue, deceit and strife. I didn't get one red cent, and i don't care. I just regret that i have no physical momentos of my grandparents.

1 Reply

@boomerang,

Quote:

Is this ehBeth or Setanta?

Can we never be sure?

1 Reply

@Setanta,

We never expected a red cent. We were all pretty broke when my dad died. Nobody even really knew about this deal. It was weird.

I hate to hear that you have no mementos. My most valuable possessions are the worthless stuff I have from family.

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@spendius,

I was pretty sure but I was trying to be polite.

I know parts of Set's story and of course there's Hamburger who I was pretty positive wasn't a grandparent.

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@boomerang,

This is where robots come in handy. Can't wait for a first generation robot nanny and butler that will provide the same emotional support as a father and a mother.

Raising kids seems like such a hassle.

2 Replies

@aspvenom,

It's only a hassle for those who see the offspring of their loins as the last chance for their genetic material to show how superior it is to other sorts of genetic material.

1 Reply

@spendius,

Whatever you said or meant doesn't apply to me.
Imagine a future society where children are conceived in labs and raised by corporations or state. It does seem a bit weird though, but adults would have more time for themselves. Quite inhumane and too industrial, I must add.
Reminds me of Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. That book was an excellent food for thought.

2 Replies

@aspvenom,

That can't be a serious post.

0 Replies

@aspvenom,

aspvenom wrote:

Whatever you said or meant doesn't apply to me.
Imagine a future society where children are conceived in labs and raised by corporations or state.
It does seem a bit weird though, but adults would have more time
for themselves. Quite inhumane and too industrial, I must add.
Reminds me of Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. That book was an excellent food for thought.

As I remember, both
the nazis and the commies had ideological thoughts along those lines.

I 'm thrilled that we beat them both.

David

0 Replies

My three parents

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