A sucky situation all-around.Follow

Jr. is an extremely loving child, but he also has a great need of love. He knows her faults and that this is just how she is, but he is too forgiving & ultimately too hopeful (I think) to ever really shut that door.

Sometimes I hope he never does, because I don't want her to be the reason he learns to close his heart and become bitter.

I am so torn on this one. I really think this should be determined on a case by case basis. So I am going with the depends on option, that gives them the right to contest etc.

My own RL examples:

Married, kid, divorced. I never once spoke badly of his father and stayed true that if he was going to hate his dad, it would be his dad's doing, not something mommy did, said, etc. I think he was 16 before he learned his dad beat me up and put me in hospital, was preggers too.

Married again, 2nd kid. If I were to die, I'd want my kids to stay together, but knowing my son would be better off with his own father since they were a lot alike, I did make sure that the ex and the new had each others phone numbers, address, etc. It also helped that we did things as an extended family and the men were friendly. If I'd have had a choice in the matter, would have sent the daughter to live with her brother and his dad. To this day, my son is adamant that if I were to die, he'd fight her dad for custody and would spend his life making sure she had a great life.

Yup, on my 3rd one. And since my daughter has grown quite close to her new siblings and their father and the new guy is 100% more qualified to be a father, I'd want her to stay here. Her father has remarried and would most likely she'd be shipped off to them. I just prefer my daughter not grow up in a small town of less than 5k where weekend activities for teens is drinking, smoking, sex, shooting guns and racing on dangerous roads. I want her to have more opportunities than what she could receive there. I guess this makes me sound shallow, but I want my daughter to go to college and succeed whereas she'd probably be a mother by 13 otherwise. The fact that her father decided to move to another state without even a slight consideration of his daughter does not help his case any whatsoever. This is also the same man who quit a VP job, went unemployed for months to attempt to get out of paying child support and made no attempt to be fatherly until after his new wife "made him."

Thumb and DF, are all of the birth parents still living?

Flea: Yup for me, and IIRC for Thumb, no.

Yeah, that'd suck. No kid wants to turn into their parents.

Yeah, Ray and I were able to unify and streamline our family in a much easier way. But even though the boys were rather young when their birth mother died (oldest was 5 and youngest was 10 months), I have made a conscious effort to not erase her memory from their lives. The adoption was open and there has been times when the oldest one has gotten me confused with a memory he had of his birth mom, but I've tried to be as open as possible.

Their birth mother did have another son from a prior relationship and we are in regular contact with him. He lives in the Philippines and although I have never met him, we chat often online and he calls me his mother and Ray his father. The boys know that they have a brother in the Philippines and of course now Charmaine says she has a brother in the PI. I don't give a distinction in that technically he is not mine or Ray's since as far as I'm concerned, he lost his mother, his father isn't around, his only family is here in the States and I'm not going to deprive him of that connection. It would be cruel and unfair.

Ray is not as open as I am when it comes to this and I believe that it has made him uncomfortable at times, but I've told Ray that when he married the boys' mother, he accepted everything into his life. I can do no less.

The only regret I have is that I should have delayed the adoption on the boys because their brother now has no standing for a relative sponsor for an immigration petition because the adoption terminated the legal sibling status. It would have been a very slight chance, but still a chance, for an immigration petition to be filed on behalf of the boys for their brother to come to the States.

If you grew up not knowing any different, there's really not much difference compared to other children.

I've lived a few years with just my mom as a child, it really wasn't anything special in the sense that there's a parental figure, a house, your bread gets made, you go to school and that's about it. Eventually, my Mom met my now step-dad, and he pretty much turned out to be the best father I could wish for as a child. Especially when I came to the conclusion my Biological father creeps me the hell out and I absolutely never want to meet him again.

Short answer to the topic: The case should be checked individualy, sometimes step-parent are by far the best choice for a child. It should not solely be based on the child's thoughts, but it should play a good part. The sake of a child is by far more important than the ego of any parent.