<p>This story is really uplifting with its parable of forgiveness and love.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2014/12/26/i-was-a-politicians-abandoned-love-child-finding-him-taught-me-the-importance-of-fathers/?hpid=z10”>http://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2014/12/26/i-was-a-politicians-abandoned-love-child-finding-him-taught-me-the-importance-of-fathers/?hpid=z10</a></p>
<p>Interesting and positive story. I know/knew many adults who didn’t know their dads growing up, and most did not have the PTSD-like symptoms the reporter described. Also one who grew up with his father only (mother ran out and left the kid), and he was really messed up.</p>
<p>But, to be honest, the person who happens to donate DNA to you can be immaterial. And I wonder, were the psych symptoms because her mom said “this guy Mr. X is your father, and he broke my heart” as opposed to not talking about it? I know someone who basically told her son, a similar thing BUT the “father” actually assassinated her character with his family’s help, and said she was sleeping with everyone in town (she wasn’t) and she got nothing to raise her son. And the son was fine, he wasn’t trying to kill himself or agonizing over it every day. He had male role models in his grandfather and his uncles. And he never felt the need to contact his father (who happened to die quite young, never married and a drifter after the war).</p>
<p>Barely a mention of her mom, kind of an insult to single moms everywhere. I’m sure she didn’t mean it that way, but to her, it sounds like her father was the linchpin of her life, some guy she never met but was actively trying to avoid her (early paternity suit), and her mother felt necessary to mention to her at a young age.</p>
<p>I would rather have no father than one who felt roped into a responsibility he didn’t want. And I guess the guy grew up, and could deal with an adult daughter at that point in his career.</p>
<p>@rhandco I think the dynamic is often different for girls vs boys. Not having a caring, involved father carries over into a woman’s self esteem and adult relationships with men in a very different (although perhaps no less devastating) way than it does for boys in the same situation. </p>
<p>I feel bad for the mom and wonder where and how she figured into this woman’s life after she moved to dad’s rich life–whether mom was abandoned yet again–this time publicly, by D. </p>
<p>While the article was certainly a “feel good” story, I too feel her mother was given short shrift. Wondering how the story would have been written (or written at all) if her father had turned out to be a “regular joe” or an out of work minimum wage earner. Can’t imagine someone swooping in and taking my teenage daughter away to live with them. Seems really disloyal and short sighted on the daughter’s part. Her mother raised her on her own when the father walked away. Guess the glitter of the governor’s office and the allure of power trumps that?</p>
<p>Maybe there is more to the story that we don’t know but I feel for the mother.</p>
<p>Right? That was my first thought, too. Wait? At 17 years old you packed up and left your mom to go live with your dad who you had never met but he had a mansion and a yacht. Okay, maybe the mom was fine with it and also supported the idea but the story left that part out and I also noticed and you would think a discussion with mom about what t do at that point would be somewhat relevant to the big picture. Let’s just say it did not exactly leave me feeling good.</p>
<p>Yea, she even changed her last name to “famous dad’s”; no information about how MOM feels/felt about all of this and how mom is even part of the “new life.” This is not a “happy story” for me, and I’m not a single mom.</p>
<p>This story made my skin crawl. Maybe the book softens the edges, but this excerpt reads as though she abandoned her mother for her absentee father who treated her mother like yesterday’s trash.</p>
<p>"Not having a caring, involved father carries over into a woman’s self esteem and adult relationships with men in a very different (although perhaps no less devastating) way than it does for boys in the same situation. "</p>
<p>Uh, my dad only now, as an old fogey, appears to be caring and attentive. He had no care about my grades, whether I was out or home, and only did things for me if my mom ordered him to. Like take me to the doctor. Honestly, I figure he has Asperger’s or something, he just has no idea how to act with people he should love. When my oldest sibling was 3, he was hit so hard by my dad that he even now has permanent hearing loss. At least that is the one positive thing my mom did, threatened to leave if my dad hit us again (and he did and she did hit us again, but “normal” hitting not within an inch of our lives like my poor brother). Neither of my parents said they loved me or any of us, I actually told my mom I loved her when I was in my twenties. Because I certainly could not like her but had feelings for her that I didn’t have for my dad. (these were the same parents who asked my brother “where are you going to college?” after his HS graduation, and he told them he never applied. Then they went all apecrap with panic about getting him into a “good school” because the relatives would chastise them if he didn’t go to college)</p>
<p>And I have an amazing relationship with my spouse, the product of an early (he was 5 when his father was kicked out) divorce with spotty visitation that basically was visiting with grandma and his aunts while his dad was around. And I found it funny that when I told my parents that his parents divorced when he was very young, they thought that was a major risk, as if staying married when you fight like cats and dogs and lock yourself in your room to avoid your kids and get drunk is better than getting divorced. As if staying in a bad marriage is an achievement.</p>
<p>Too many folks want to put their own psychoanalysis results out as the general rule (guilty as well I’m sure). I SOOOOO much value my relationship with my spouse, and I do many things as does my spouse to make sure that we are good friends and care about each other, and are happy. Too many dysfunctional marriages came from the post-war period, where they really had no clue how to transition from 100% deferential wife to 50-50 partnership.</p>
<p>And I tell my kids I love them, even if they get an F or stay out late. I tell them why I care about them staying out late, or not answering their phone when out. And I try to teach them to respect both men and women. </p>
<p>Two lessons I got from my parents:
<p>So much unhappiness in the world, I feel like the author is leaving out something that went wrong with her upbringing by her single mom, somewhere between “she did the best she could” and “why wasn’t I her primary concern?”. It is very alarming to read about someone trying to kill herself at age 10, so maybe there is more than meets the eye. </p>
<p>(I however, despite my cynicism, don’t necessarily think she only abandoned her mom for her father’s apparent wealth. Something is missing about the mom, or as others said, she is really doing her mom a disservice.)</p>
<p>"…she is really doing her mom a disservice."</p>
<p>I simply did not get that particular vibe from her story. I’ll agree with you by saying that something seems to have been left out.</p>
<p>They needed money is what was left out. Her adopted dad left them and she and her mom sued her rich dad a few times before they made some kind of deal.</p>
<p>Although I’m glad that she reconnected with him, it’s rather obvious that the only reason he was willing was because the political heat would have destroyed his career if he hadn’t. </p>
<p>This article, linked within the OP article, indicates it wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows:</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20110709,00.html”>http://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20110709,00.html</a></p>