I remember going and visiting my aunt and Uncle, the ones I lived with when I was younger for about a year-and-a-half or so. I remember one particular incident where where it was the afternoon and my cousin and I were hanging out together. My aunt, his mother was in the kitchen making dinner, and he went in and got a glass of milk from the fridge. I watched hesitantly as he helped himself. Then I finally got enough courage to go in and get a glass for myself and my aunt told me to wait until dinner. There were many other incidences…. I remember staying with him for Christmas and getting a truck and he got a drum set. I think I was living with them at the time. He also got a set of converse and a 49 er helmet.

Some parents refuse to treat someone else’s child on an equal footing with their own. To some parents it’s an insult to their child, even a flat out wrongdoing -to treat another person’s child on the same parr as theirs. My aunt and uncle were such people. I lived with this many times over the years I visited and, the one year I once again lived with them. It’s a sad thing for a child to be made to feel inferior to another child -less loved.

I remember my Uncle telling me one time how my father never gave them 1 cent to help with my support. Maybe that was it, they expected some money for taking me in. Whatever the issue, I don’t think taking it out on the child is the answer.*

* I don’t recall them as being poor – my uncle had a good job at the butter factory in San Francisco. But what I gathe4 now from many more years of observation – that both my aunt and Uncle are very instinctual, or ignorant when it comes to the protection and support of their own blood line. For some people blood is everything. For some people immediate blood is everything. For some people blood doesn’t mean as much as the experiences you’ve shared with one another. No matter how much I helped my aunt and Uncle through the years I never manage to be taken in as one of their own -in spite the fact the majority of their own children weren’t there to support them in their latter years of life 😒 You may be asking yourself 🤔 I’ve tried to answer this question myself. I think with my history, ultimately I just wanted to be loved and accepted as a member of their family, since my own had failed me.

•Title credited to Rachel Bolan/Dave “the Snake” Sabo – sung by Skid Row (1989).