The Defintion of "Parent"
How contemptible, how utterly unforgivable, the very thought of the possibility of the abandonment of children, by their mother.
In their formative years, needing a parent's guiding hand and emotional support, to be left to their own devices, to puzzle out how they could conceivably look after their immediate needs. Shelter and food the uppermost needs of survival. No manner of shelter or food nourishes a soul that has been left adrift, a young boy or girl bereft of parental oversight and caring guidance.
How could such abandoned children, having grown to adulthood bear anything but a shrivelled and dry memory of such a parent?
No possible room for any memories other than the time they were summarily left on their own, to rise to an impossible occasion, to be responsible for their well-being in a world that would have become suddenly bleak and strange and unwelcoming. Which such children, become adults would have any curiosity whatever about the whereabouts and well-being of such parents?
Ken Anderson, fifteen years old when his mother informed him she had no further use for him and left him on his own, following his father who evidently also had no further interest in this boy. Furthering his education was out of the question; his first priority was to keep body and soul together, whatever there was of each. With a number of casual jobs at gas stations. And no permanent home.
Thirty-one years later, he is made aware that his mother, now 71, has expectations that he and four of his five siblings will care enough to ensure she is well looked after. Not that she is counting on their kindly memories of their loving mother. Instead, she is suing them, using British Columbia's Family Relations Act that has an obscure section legally obliging children to support 'dependent' parents.
One wonders, is it too late for Mr. Anderson and his siblings, all of whom loathe the very thought of the woman who left them to fend for themselves, to sue their mother for damaging their lives, for abandoning them, for leaving them to stumble about fearfully in a world without adult direction and support? "The only time she ever called was to ask for money", Mr. Anderson says of his mother.
Even so, he has not spoken with her for almost twenty years, up until the time she decided to sue them for support; before the lawsuit. A lawsuit hanging on an 80-year-old section of the law when no public pension program existed, unemployment was rife, and governments were anxious to ensure the poverty-stricken and the ill did not become state wards.
As far as Mr. Anderson and his siblings are concerned they have no feelings of concern whatever for the welfare of the woman who abandoned them as children. They cannot even afford a lawyer, but they have determined between them that they would fight this affront to decency.
They feel they have no moral or legal or empathetic obligation to raise a finger or to donate scarce funds to a woman purporting to be their mother, but representing in the words of Donna Anderson, the "mother we never had."
In their formative years, needing a parent's guiding hand and emotional support, to be left to their own devices, to puzzle out how they could conceivably look after their immediate needs. Shelter and food the uppermost needs of survival. No manner of shelter or food nourishes a soul that has been left adrift, a young boy or girl bereft of parental oversight and caring guidance.
How could such abandoned children, having grown to adulthood bear anything but a shrivelled and dry memory of such a parent?
No possible room for any memories other than the time they were summarily left on their own, to rise to an impossible occasion, to be responsible for their well-being in a world that would have become suddenly bleak and strange and unwelcoming. Which such children, become adults would have any curiosity whatever about the whereabouts and well-being of such parents?
Ken Anderson, fifteen years old when his mother informed him she had no further use for him and left him on his own, following his father who evidently also had no further interest in this boy. Furthering his education was out of the question; his first priority was to keep body and soul together, whatever there was of each. With a number of casual jobs at gas stations. And no permanent home.
Thirty-one years later, he is made aware that his mother, now 71, has expectations that he and four of his five siblings will care enough to ensure she is well looked after. Not that she is counting on their kindly memories of their loving mother. Instead, she is suing them, using British Columbia's Family Relations Act that has an obscure section legally obliging children to support 'dependent' parents.
One wonders, is it too late for Mr. Anderson and his siblings, all of whom loathe the very thought of the woman who left them to fend for themselves, to sue their mother for damaging their lives, for abandoning them, for leaving them to stumble about fearfully in a world without adult direction and support? "The only time she ever called was to ask for money", Mr. Anderson says of his mother.
Even so, he has not spoken with her for almost twenty years, up until the time she decided to sue them for support; before the lawsuit. A lawsuit hanging on an 80-year-old section of the law when no public pension program existed, unemployment was rife, and governments were anxious to ensure the poverty-stricken and the ill did not become state wards.
As far as Mr. Anderson and his siblings are concerned they have no feelings of concern whatever for the welfare of the woman who abandoned them as children. They cannot even afford a lawyer, but they have determined between them that they would fight this affront to decency.
They feel they have no moral or legal or empathetic obligation to raise a finger or to donate scarce funds to a woman purporting to be their mother, but representing in the words of Donna Anderson, the "mother we never had."
Labels: Family, Social-Cultural Deviations, societal failures
posted by Pieface @ 6:08 PM
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