As someone who has raised kids who were not biologically related to me, I can say that this is one of the most ridiculous statements I have ever heard.

That being said, I am sorry that your step-dad and bio-dad sucked. Not sure how to say that to someone I don't know so it doesn't sound sarcastic, so I will say that I don't mean it sarcastically and hope that suffices.

It's hard for me to believe that you really believe that. Or that anybody does. It's insane.

You nutty libs are really far out there, much too far gone. Human beings are animals. Blood and flesh. Instincts and tooth and claw and all. Your paper-humans don't exist except in your secular fairy tales.

Every time I see you post something like this it just smacks so desperately of something you need to be true to maintain your world view. You need to believe that non-biological parents can't properly raise kids, because otherwise you might have to accept that gay parents are fit to raise children, and good heavens, we can't allow that!

I would also like to throw my hat into the ring as someone who thinks your stories are 99% fabrication to show us how much strife and suffering you were "saved" from. My youth pastor used to tell us he was a converted satanist priest. You guys are too much.

There are animals that cooperatively raise children, there are animals that adopt and there are animals that will eat their own young. Your arguments need more work.

I'm uncertain why and how the "nutty" and "lib" comes into play, but then again political characterization from someone who thinks real world animal behavior is a "secular fairy-tale".... well, we'll leave it at that.

You guys sure took a detour from the abortion conversation. Not complaining, just an observation.

I've already come to grips with the fact that I am debating people who don't have the experience of life that I have had. But my life hasn't been so bad. I just spent 30 minutes on the phone with a woman suffering from cancer and undergoing grueling radiation treatments, who also lost her son (24 years old) last year. Those are traumatic events that I just don't think I could ever handle.

If you want to convince me that most atheists are hairy, pallid, flabby, mouth-breathing degenerates that are still living in their mother's basements, and still retaining juvenile characteristics, while sleepwalking through life, you are welcome to do so. But I don't think that you want to do that.

When I read the bible, and read about the life of Paul, or the life of David, or the events in Christ's life, I do not read it as fiction. I know what can be accomplished in a life. I know that a whole life can be lived out in a matter of a year or two. If you don't understand that, it gives me some modicum of understanding into your perspective of life.

I also know that responding to these personal attacks is "playing right into their hands." So I won't defend myself. I'll up the ante.

-- About 8 years ago I saw someone get stabbed multiple times in Bayonne. They were fighting over a girl. The other guy had a bat. I was on my way to a wedding with my ex. A car was double-parked and I stopped behind it. A young spanish man had a woman held to the hood by her throat. He then let go, circled the car, and attacked another man who was in a car that he was blocking in. They fought on the sidewalk. Knife vs bat. We called the police, did play-by-play and left. I tried to get out, and felt like I should do something, but she stopped me, and we argued. At the red light, after we pulled off, I look to my left and see blood splattered all over the hood of the car next to me. "Call the police," I say. "Look," I say, and point. Then the light changes and the guy cuts me off and makes a right turn. I follow at speed. But I was thinking as I sped down the street after the guy that if I run over a kid or crash, I will not be afforded the legal protection that a cop might. I gave up. And had a hell of a story at the reception.


- As to my dad, he was violent, and immoral, but he was also my hero when I was younger. I was only 8 or 9, and he had me on a rare sunday night, about 1 am. He took me to Atlantic city (as he was wont to do). He had a girlfriend at the time, and she had an infant. We were walking past an arcade when there was some sort of scuffle in front of the arcade. My dad said "hold him," and handed the infant to his girlfriend.

The rest is a blur to me: my dad saw a gang of youths surrounding this young man and demanding money of him. I remember my father fighting this one spanish guy, like in a movie, with jabs and straight rights and heads being snapped back by punches. But this I will never forget- behind my father, a kid climbed up on top of an arcade like a money and vaulted off, drop-kicking my dad in the back of the head. (Apparently the leader of the gang bit off a little more then he could chew, as my father was a black bet in isshinrryu karate, trained by Don Nagle himself.) My dad was down, swiftly kicked in the head. I'll never forget the change flying out of his jeans, spilling forward with a clip of cash. The fight was over. He had lost.

A skinny little white boy moved in with weak knees, took position in front of his downed father, mimicked a karate stance his father taught him, and froze up- and was knocked the **** out by the leader.

I opened my eyes on the boardwalk and my dad is next to me on the boardwalk and he grabs me and yells "run!"

And we ran into a pizza place.

His girlfriend and infant were already there.

I remember hearing the sound of horses running on the boardwalk. We turned toward the hoof-beats and saw the guy my dad had saved running down the boardwalk with 6 or 7 guys chasing him.

"He's dead," my dad said. "They're going to find him dead."

Then we are in the police station. They are pissed. They keep checking my face, cursing and saying things they ought not say. I'm still only 9.

Then, like in a movie, someone is brought in in cuffs, and starts protesting his arrest, turning to me at one point and yelling "TELL THEM IT WASN'T ME WHO HIT YOU."

It wasn't him.

I don't know.

Life isn't always great. But I just love telling these stories. I love life. I love my dad. I love my life, no matter how crappy it has been at times.

I have one comment to make on this. Respect is earned, not given. Bad parenting does not deserve respect. If bad parents have not earned their child's respect that is not the fault of the child but the fault of the parent. The Bible and other holy books stemming from Asia teach people that respect should be given to parents regardless of the way they treat their children but this is blatantly wrong and detrimental to the welfare of the child - in the long-term. This kind of philosophy equates to - 'blindly obey your tyrants and bosses no matter how they treat you'.

Part of the reason you get no respect around here is because your lack of self awareness is so apparent it boarders on comical. You called posters "nutty libs" in the post I was responding too, ffs.

You are basically the Janitor from scrubs, except not charming.

By God, you are right!

I'm like an omeba. I stretch forward my ectoplasmic limbs every morning and ooze toward the kitchen. It takes an hour, at least, to slowly spill down the stairs and land on the linoleum. The *horrors* I tell you, the painstaking effort it takes me to reach the coffee machine, even- it takes 3,000 man-breaths. I'd be better off on a ventilator, where even then, I might be in grave danger of choking on my own tongue. lol!

Single- parents and foster care? Yes, the stats are not pretty. But they ARE pretty for two parent adoptive families. As it turns out, while adoptive families often adopt higher risk children (ones with health issues, ones from other countries who become minorities in school systems, ones who have spent years in the foster system, older children from disrupted families, etc), they also are usually in a better financial position, genuinely wanted and aimed for the children (opposed to accidental pregnancies), spend more time with their children, enroll them in more activities, read to them more, and so on. By most ways one can measure parenting statistically, adoptive parents are better and despite higher risk children end up doing well in school graduation rates and the like.

But you didn't actually want a substantive discussion, now did you?

You are a big fan of the personal anecdote. Do you accept people who provide anecdotes different from your own? As in, one who found care and compassionate attention from their step-father and didn't find it from their violent criminal biological father?

As usual, you couldn't be more wrong. There is actually a legal defense called "adopted child syndrome." Ever hear of it? It's pretty popular as a defense when an adopted child kills one of his step-parents.

Now, how could that be, under your worldview, where there is no biological bond between a father and son, or mother and daughter, and we are all paper-men and pawns to be pushed around on the clean slate of the psychic game-board?

The truth is, the numbers on adoption are grisly, especially when you consider the fact that men and women who adopt are closely and seriously vetted, and you are dealing with the very titter-top of the parental range.

no one, including uke, is denying the existence of biological bonds between parents and children.

What people are saying is that, where the bond is weak, or unable to function, or the parents have mental health issues, or whatever, that children may be better off with foster or adoptive parents. Do you deny this? This doesnt mean that the child stops having feelings for his parents ( and vice versa), just that , as far as care giving goes, they may be better off with foster or adoptive parents.

Also, with your statistic, correlation does not imply causation. An alternative explanation is that the children are already so ****ed up from their biological parents, they cant function properly.

I agree, but very much doubt that doggg will. Many parents also seem to think they can demand respect. It doesn't work that way either.

Also, tendencies towards certain kinds of anti-social behavior has a genetic basis, so if the biological parents of adopted children are more likely to have exhibit anti-social behavior, then it is more likely that their children will also have anti-social tendencies.

1) Adopted children are more likely to be serial killers (a very rare trait)
2) ????
3) "You can't fake care and compassionate attention"

Can you explain 2? I'm not seeing the connection.

Your chosen stat seems like a very weird one, and hardly the first place I would look for measuring the relative efficacy of adoptive vs biological parenting. Even in places where you can manage to find statistics showing outcomes are lower, as suggested you still have your work cut out for you: you have to show the statistic represents problems with parenting, and not various selection biases for the types of humans that come to be adopted. It isn't even just nature differences, there are also significant nurture differences in early childhood such as adopted children being breast fed for less time which we know is relevant to a bunch of other things.

At the end of the day, we have fairly clear evidence that there are million of adoptive families where both children and adopted parents very clearly love each other with no discernible way to distinguish the amount of love shared from biological families. Bringing up stats about 80 serial killers seems very hollow.

I have no idea what a biological bond is supposed to mean in this case. Clearly there is shared genetic information, but that isn't what is really implied. It is something more like "emotional bond". But this is something that is NOT unique to biological parents. If you want to talk about physiological indicators like neurotransmitters released and the like, I am sure we could google evidence that adoptive parents and adoptive children experience similar physiological symptoms while bonding.

BTW, I'll add that I have some first hand experience with this. While I'm not adopted, many members of my extended family are. And I've mentioned here before that I have two mothers-in-law that I lived with for years. I've seen both sides of it: family members adopted from birth, as well as I have some gay uncles who adopted four kids from the same mother over a period of years from the same drug addict mother who is in and out of prison. The children adopted from birth (all of my parents generation now) are indiscernable from their nonadopted brothers and sisters. Of the four adopted to my gay uncles, the oldest wasn't adopted until he was 8. He had considerable problems, was never able to adjust, and was as close to a failed parenting situation as one could probably say. Nobody is in contact with him any more. The younger children, with the youngest two being born in prison and adopted immediately, are entirely normal living seemingly great loving lives.

You might both be interested in this story: The neuroscientist who discovered he was a psychopath.

It's an interesting story in its own right, but it also serves as a good reflection on the broader issue regarding the importance of nurture.

Since you opened the door to personal anecdote...

I've only closely known two adopted persons. One was arrested for running down the street naked when he was 17. He became the talk of the town, he did. I tried to avoid him, but he was a friend of my friends. He used to loudly use the N-word to greet you if he considered you his friend- even around black people. He was as nuts as can be.

The other one I know is one of my closest friends- have talked about him before. He's been homeless over 20 times in his life, and the dramas and situations are non-stop. Just last year he was living in a tent in Florida, and I had to find him help.

His brother was adopted, too, actually- and he is in jail.

You're making a fool of yourself. Would you like us to start listing all the derelicts, murderers, and theives who were NOT adopted and brought up by their original parents? I'm not sure 2+2 has enough bandwidth. Or how about if we just name those who were adopted and went on to be successful? Might take a little less space, but I'm sure it would still be an impressive list.

You're staggeringly ignorant and live in a closed off world full of rhetoric and dogmatic beliefs. Either you've been brainwashed to remain willfully blind to your surroundings, or you've never made it out of your home town.

I find it scary that people like you exist, but I suppose if you stay in your small closed off corner of the world you're harmless enough. You should really try getting out more. Maybe travel the world a little. Expand your horizons beyond your depressingly myopic worldview.

Its funny when you say go out and see the world when you (and Doggg) say there are a lot of derelicts, murderers, and theives out there. Yeah good idea, go out get mugged, raped and killed.

I'm just sharing some personal anecdotes.


29 states. Lived in 5 (including a mansion in Salt Lake City Utah when I hooked with an older woman). Including out of my car in my early 20's, a year of surfing couches, sleeping in rest areas, a college campus, and multiple two-week periods in Costa Rica, as well 4 drives across the country, and 6 more by train from Jersey to Florida (afraid to fly). I'm not a world traveler by any stretch, but I know the states.

Actually, America in general is safer than people think it is. That is what I've noticed, anyway. I think that is true of almost anywhere.

When I was in Costa Rica, every home was gated, with barbed wire on many, and people talked constantly of crime and the Nicaraguans (ALL crimes was blamed on the migrant Nicaraguans). I remember actually looking up the statistics for murder in Costa Rica in a given year, and it turns out that they have the lowest homicide rate in Central America, and most homicides are drug and gang-related.*

There is actually this weird culture of fear almost everywhere, though. There's a lot of unjustified "don't walk in that neighborhood" and don't walk down that street."

*- Though I do have to mention this: every day in Costa Rica I'd walk down to the main center of town in the morning and get coffee, cigs, breakfast. Two houses away a very friendly old man in a fedora would greet me and attempt to make conversation with me in spanish (my spanish is not good). He greeted everybody, talked to everybody. One night my wife called me and told me that the police were everywhere, and she was scared. Apparently he had invited some "nicaraguan" kid into his house, and that he was smashed over the head by a frying pan or something and killed for a cup of change in his own home. Last time I was there, and passed by the darkened, silenced house, it definitely colored my mornings a slight shade of gray.

I think there are good and bad places in every country, but Central and South America is a different beast. I've spent some time living in South America, and have travelled around Central America, I wouldn't call it safe in general terms.