Today’s Motherlode blog is fairly appalling to me. It’s a guest post by a lady who has been happily married for six years, mother to a 2-year old and a baby. Her family’s “dirty secret” is that her husband has an illegitimate 10 year-old son from a previous relationship. The father pays child support, but never sees the boy, ever. The child’s grandparents never see him. He is never acknowledged. He is a “dirty secret.”
I think six years ago I could have read this post and thought, well, the boy has a stepfather and a family of his own. He gets $1000 a month from his biological father. Seems pretty good, actually. The biological father has taken financial responsibility, and the stepfather presumably provides emotional support.
Or maybe even six years ago I would be appalled that the family keeps the secret for fear of what others will think or say about their airbrushed “perfect” family, if only they knew. That the father never sees his son because it wasn’t his choice to continue the pregnancy. That the wife, whenever they argue, asks the father, again, How could you? (father a child out of wedlock).
But it is not six years ago, and it seems to me that anyone over the age of thirty should have lived enough by now to know that no family is perfect. And, even more importantly, that few people expect families to be perfect. And that if you are in some sort of social or religious or political group that expects people to never make mistakes, you should run, not walk, to a different social or religious or political group.
I’m not even sure what the lady means by perfect. She says outsiders looking at her family see “two towheaded children, one of each sex, an expensive red stroller, and often a dog, trotting along beside.”
If that is the only incarnation of a “perfect” family, then holy hell, people, could we get any shallower? Could we be that misguided in our judgment? That fearful of the judgment of others?* That’s the real problem in this case — the fear of judgment, the cowardice and dishonesty and supreme shallowness that denies a child’s existence because his life reminds us that his father was a stupid young kid once who acted as many stupid young kids act.
But the real reason this post appalled me is because I know a family who has almost the exact same circumstances as the family in the post. A husband and wife who have two young children, who have been happily married for five years. They have an illegitimate (do people still really use that word to describe children?), twelve-year-old son from a previous relationship of the father’s.
Except in this case, the father was involved with his son from birth. The son has always spent every weekend with his biological father. The son has lived with his father and his wife and their children.
This father, who was a stupid young kid once, took that mistake and turned it into one of the most loving, strong, and supportive (financial and otherwise) father-son relationships that I have ever seen. This son has a bedroom in his father’s house and the foods he likes to eat in his stepmother’s kitchen. He calls his half-sisters his sisters and his step-cousins his cousins. His father’s siblings and parents and his stepmother’s parents (all those grandparents and “step” grandparents and relatives and “step” relatives) — they all know him and love him and treat him just like their other nieces and nephews and grandchildren.
Their family isn’t perfect. There are frictions and jealousies, annoyances and inconveniences. But there is love, and honesty, and my life and family are better for knowing them.
Because they know what the family on the Motherlode blog hasn’t figured out yet: that the son isn’t the mistake. The son isn’t the dirty secret. The mistake is fear and the dirty secret is the valuing of image over love.
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* I edited those two sentences from the original, which was “Could we get any more judgmental, or fearful of judgment?” As I said in a comment below:
where the writer fears judgment for having an illegitimate step-son, I think this is wrong for two reasons — not because “judgment” is involved, but because:
A) I think she’s wrong about the possible judgment — I don’t think that sort of judgment exists to the extent that she thinks it does. That was my point when saying that no families are perfect.
and
B) Whether that judgment exists or not, it would be wrong to order one’s life according to the judgment of others, to do the wrong thing out of fear of judgment.
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Totally agree and well said. Laughed at the red stroller bit. Very shallow and silly and funny.
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Well said. Extremely sad.
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I’m heartbroken for all their family is missing out on while hiding their dirty little secret.
Though from the sound of things maybe this young man is better off without being constantly reminded he is the dirty little secret.
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Jane Reply:
December 9th, 2009 at 5:04 pm
Good point. Would be even worse if they expected him to be always grateful for their loving forbearance or something.
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I read it. The lady seems more concerned with hair color than love and family. She can’t describe her own children without throwing in their hair color, and then her stepson’s brown hair like that very aspect of him is inferior, proof of his illegitimacy. How can I feel sorry for someone like that? “Expensive red stroller.” Woo-hoo. I have a cheap pink one, and a brunette daughter (and two blondes haha), I guess I’ll go hang myself.
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Jane Reply:
December 9th, 2009 at 5:07 pm
Yeah, the harping on hair color is interesting. In the fairy tale mythos (e.g. Andrew Lang, HCA, etc) it seems the good ones are always fair and the bad ones dark. You’d think someone as reflective (however self-servingly) as the writer would be aware of exposing her irrational prejudices.
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Oh ouch. That article is sad. Just sad. Yeah, obviously her husband made a mistake and did something he regretted—but the writing makes it sound like a ten year old boy is the mistake and he’s not, as you accurately point out.
This isn’t her ‘problem’ or ‘our problem.’ It’s just not. She’s taking her husband’s failures and shortcomings as a father (she acknowledges he’s a deadbeat) as her own. I’ve done the same thing, and spent years agonizing over someone else’s poor choices long before I knew him—but it had nothing to do with me. Yes, others’ choices impact us—but when she says that the mother keeping the baby was not “our choice,” unless she was with her husband then and he consulted her on this, she’s mightily confused about whose baby—and ultimately whose responsibility—this is.
And when it comes down to it, it’s not about her. It should have always been about the boy.
But seriously, in today’s society? She doesn’t live in Utah (I assume)—does anyone (other than her MIL) care?! Where I grew up, unmarried parents for whatever reason were probably the norm. And besides, which “looks” worse—having a child out of wedlock or making no effort to be a father to him? (I wonder which one the author is really ashamed of. I see indications of both, but I hope it’s the second.)
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Wow. Very well said, Shannon. It’s interesting that a bright red stroller makes for a perfect family. Wonder if it’s a Maclaren…if so the mother of those towheaded children is in for a surprise.
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I am shaking right now. I cannot tell you how much reading that hurt me. As someone who married a man with 6 other children, a child is never “the graffiti on our white picket fence”.
This broke my heart.
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(When I say it isn’t her ‘problem,’ I mean that this isn’t something her husband has done TO HER. It’s something he’s done, something she presumably knew when she married him, and they are both dealing with the consequences—but ultimately, these are his choices to make.)
Also, I do want to say that I totally understand her not telling her kids yet—they’re two and under. How on earth could they understand this?
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Jane Reply:
December 9th, 2009 at 5:03 pm
Well, in the family that I know w/ similar circumstances, there was never any explaining to do — he was just there, loved and accepted and normal. Someday they’ll probably have to clarify the historical details, I guess, but you don’t have to explain “family” to little kids.
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Jordan Reply:
December 11th, 2009 at 3:03 pm
But it’s a bit harder to explain a brother who isn’t just there. If they never see him, then there really isn’t a reason to bring it up until they’re at least old enough to understand who he is and why he isn’t there.
My nephew is 2 and happens to be adopted. It’s not a secret, but I doubt my SIL and BIL have sat down with him to explain that he didn’t come to their family the same way his older sister did. (Maybe they have. I know they’re ready to, but I seriously doubt it’s crossed his two year old mind.) I believe he’s seen pictures of his birth mother, but he doesn’t know what that means—and I highly doubt that he considers her (whom he hasn’t seen since he was three days old) “family,” though she may be. (I’ll bet good money they’re saving the fact that his biological parents have since married and had another child for a time when he’ll be old enough to understand what that means. Again, it’s not a secret, but it’s also not something that he can understand.)
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It really doesn’t have to be that way.
When I got divorced, everyone said “oh no one has to know – you don’t have kids, etc.” And my now-mother-in-law didn’t want to tell anyone why I’d been through the temple, etc.
It isn’t like it comes up all the time, but I decided that if it does come up, I’m not going to hide it! We have life events that shape us, make us who we are.
As for this dad — I’m sorry but I don’t think God is proud of that complete abandoning of posterity either. I mean, I don’t know what God thinks – but my husband was abandoned by his father and it was really hard for him.
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Jane Reply:
December 9th, 2009 at 5:01 pm
I have learned/thought a lot about this sort of thing since my sister got divorced over a year ago. Before her husband left her, I might have thought my family was an example of a “perfect” (i.e. “intact”) family, but now I think my conception of that was pretty shallow and image-based.
In my sister’s case there’s no chance of hiding it bec. she has three kids and lives in the same area, after having been married for seven years, etc.
But why hide it anyway? She did nothing wrong. (I mean, of course she did lots of things wrong — WE ALL DO), but she has nothing to be ashamed of, and nothing really to be gained by hiding the truth.
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I read that, and this was the comment I left there:
“You said, “the one that said it was her choice, not ours, the one that trapped a young man, barely out of college into paying for a child he never wanted with a woman he had already left long before.”
I’m assuming that a man who had attended college was aware of how children are conceived.
He CHOSE to have sex. Therefore, he also CHOSE whatever consequences resulted from that.
And regardless of his attitude toward the child, I’m sickened that YOU would allow a child–any child–to be treated in such a way.
Your dirty secret isn’t that your husband has an illegitimate child. Most people would hardly care if they found out. Your secret is how your family treats that child. THAT is what you should be ashamed of. Not an innocent child who did not ask for a father who doesn’t love him.”
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Yanno, I never understood ‘hiding” somethng for someone elses good. It always has a way of biting you in the butt. I know that C had a life before me. We didnt meet until we were in our 30s for crying out loud. There is always a possibility that he might have a child somewhere out there. The thought really doesnt thrill me, but I would like to think I am woman enough to be accepting and that our love is strong enough to withstand it.
Steff
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Well said, as far as it goes. What if the mother of the dirty little secret (DLC) is married and has managed to convince her husband that the DLS is his? Getting the truth out in the open might make the mother and her lover feel better (carrying the secret is a worrisome load), but the husband would be crushed. He doesn’t deserve that. She should keep her mouth shut and carry the load by herself, and tell lover boy to get lost, having created enough trouble. The truth might make one free, but it can also cause undeserved harm. All three should thank God, lover boy for getting away free, mother for keeping her husband and the DLS, and husband for his “innocent,” fertile wife.
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Jane Reply:
December 9th, 2009 at 4:57 pm
It was clear from the post that the stepfather was aware that he was the stepfather, otherwise this might be a good point, except that I think it still ignores the most important person in the whole scenario — the little boy.
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Everyone seems to agree with you, but I HAVE to put in my two cents.
You are against judgment and being judgmental, yet you are judging the writer of that entry.
Just sayin’…
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Memarie Lane Reply:
December 9th, 2009 at 6:03 pm
I have to say, some things are kind of hard not to judge. No one’s really seeing any benefit of doubt right now for Tiger Woods, for example. If her article had been written differently I may have seen it differently, but she wrote it as though she is looking for sympathy for her family and their decision to ostracize an innocent child. I can’t give her that. If she’d written it with any amount of contrition or humility I may feel differently, but she didn’t.
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Jane Reply:
December 9th, 2009 at 6:21 pm
I thought about putting that in as an asterisk at the bottom of my post, with a “the only difference is . . . I’m right.” With a rueful, smiley emoticon.
But the truth is — I’m not against judgment.
What I am against is wrong judgment, or self-serving judgment, or acting in fear of someone else’s (wrong) judgment.
(When I said “Can we get any more judgemental?” that was parallel to “Can we get any shallower?” and I was saying “we” are NOT that shallow or judgmental, and that the writer is wrong to assume that people are — though maybe I have disproved that by judging her for something else entirely?)
I should have worded it better — where the writer fears judgment for having an illegitimate step-son, I think this is wrong for two reasons — not because “judgment” is involved, but because:
A) I think she’s wrong about the possible judgment — I don’t think that sort of judgment exists to the extent that she thinks it does. That was my point when saying that no families are perfect.
and
B) Whether that judgment exists or not, it would be wrong to order one’s life according to the judgment of others, to do the wrong thing out of fear of judgment.
(I hope that makes sense and doesn’t just sound like a bunch of rationalization, which it may very well be, but I hope not
.
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If you’re only fairly appalled, you’re doing better than I am. ‘Course, I’m a child who was given up for adoption — even at almost 30, I still think of myself as a child, in this one way — so the issue hits very close to my hot buttons for me.
I think what made me the most insane is the idea that men never get a choice when a woman decides to keep a baby she didn’t intend to get impregnated with. Because the woman was the only one having sex, the woman was the only one who didn’t use birth control — I mean, it’s our responsibility anyway, right? — Clearly he is completely above reproach in this situation. And obviously, their own clear distain for the innocent child could have nothing to do with the mother’s frequent excuses as to why they shouldn’t see him. No, certainly not her urge to protect her boy from people who see him as a problem to throw money at and then ignore.
Ridiculous. And if I am being judgmental, then so be it. I’m comfortable with it.
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This:
“Because they know what the family on the Motherlode blog hasn’t figured out yet: that the son isn’t the mistake. The son isn’t the dirty secret. The mistake is fear and the dirty secret is the valuing of image over love.”
Perfectly said Jane!!
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I think the most appalling part of this article is that somehow they are victims. It’s her mother-in-law’s fault for not being honest about her grandson/stepson (respectively). It’s the mother of the boy’s fault for the husband having an estranged relationship. It’s their children’s ages which make for the inability to comprehend the complexity of the situation–so why try? Rather, just give up?
I can understand that there is a blight on the master-race image they’re trying to keep up, but I think it isn’t the boy himself, it’s that they care about the image too much. You said it right.
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WoW! What a thought-provoking post! Clearly, I am one of your older fans as I come from a time period where “unwed” mothers went into hiding to bear their babies, give them up for adoption, and then reappear at school the following semester/year all slim ‘n trim ready to pick up where they left off. (Forgive the string of cliches.) Nearly everyone “knew” the “dirty little secret” but NEVER spoke of it.
Years after high school I made friends with a darling neighbor who had lived through that experience. She did not regret giving up her child for adoption, but she was still hurting from the pain of it all. However, she did feel a sense of relief with her choice speak freely about that time in her life. She chose NOT to keep the “dirty little secret” securely stashed away in a closet of skeletons, but to share the experience for what it was and how it affected her.
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Jane Reply:
December 10th, 2009 at 9:24 am
The more I think about this, the more two things bother me — the double standard this woman subscribes to — that the girl “trapped” her husband, and that she uses an image of the son being “the graffiti on our white picket fence.” Add those to her materialistic, image-conscious shallowness, and I’m beginning to think the boy is better off without this “family.”
One of my very straight-arrow cousins is married to a woman who has a baby from a previous relationship. And if that is okay in my very conservative family, it’s okay ANYWHERE. (Thanks for reminding us of the female experience w/ this).
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I clicked over and found myself shaking my head as I tried to read through the piece at Motherlode. I couldn’t finish it – it was just too sad and self-serving – poor little me! Our perfect family is forever blemished by an innocent but illegitimate child! The shame! The horror! (Insert gagging noise)
I hope that the little boy is in a wonderful family of his own, one that celebrates the blessing that he is and the potential of who he can grow to be in this world. I’m quite certain from what I did read of that article that he is far better off spending no time with his biological family/step-mother; I cannot imagine that they would offer him anything but sugar-coated spoonfuls of guilt and shame.
My two cents.
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“There is nothing that shames me, not drugs, not sex, not my sometimes wish that my children would ride off into the night so that I might get a good sleep.”
Seems to me I’d be a lot more ashamed of drugs than what she’s ashamed about. We all know there are psychos in this world and you found one of them. This lady is crazy. Doesn’t she realize that by making it a shameful, secretive thing that damages not only the other child but her children as well. How do you teach them of their worth while ignoring the worth of their step-brother? Or even the EXISTENCE? It makes me die a little inside, honestly.
I tried to read the whole thing and I just couldn’t. That girl lives in another dimension. One where appearance and selfishness are everything and honesty and the wonderful gift of life mean nothing. I think she is just mad that $1000 goes to that kid every month. Honestly. She brought it up too much for that to not be true.
I guess we shouldn’t be surprised based on what she said of her mother. I feel for that boy, and those “legitimate” kids. They’ve got one messed up path looming ahead of them.
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This happened in my family with my older brother. I found out ‘accidentally’ that I had this older borther when I was 13. The repercussions last multiple generations and it made me ANGRY at my family for years. The only difference is that our father died when I was a baby so there was never a chance of forgiveness.
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so, if the boy grows up to be the president of the United States one day, will the woman who wrote the article sill consider him her dirty secret or will she all of the sudden become the proud stepmother?
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Does the DLS know he’s a DLS?
I suppose I should click over and read the post…but really, I could care less about the old dad/new wife…they’ve moved on and achieved perfection.
I clicked over and read most of it…she has to hide her wringing hands under the table from her best friend? Seriously?
So, I guess the DLS knows he has a Dad out there. It is the boy’s feeling that I care about. I wonder if his mother considers at some point how he would like the relationship to be. Does his step-father REALLY treat him as his own? In most cases there is always a wall there. And at this late stage of the game…there would be with the real dad too.
It’s the kid that I feel sorry for.
The writer is just annoying in her quest for sympathy.
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