Fighting over the Will of a dead parent is a big deal in any family. It often tears people apart. At any rate, death of a parent can bring out an interesting side of siblings that one never knew was there. Grief counselors will explain that a death can rearrange entire family relationships all over again.
I’ve written some posts about dealing with sick and dying parents who are divorced but haven’t published them. My parents were both dying from Lung Cancer at the same time. That was hell. Two completely different households. When a parent is single the kids have to take over. The other parent is off having a good time. In my case my Mother got sick first. My Father got sick a couple of years after. They died within a year of each other.
But the classic awful story of inheritance is of the Step-Parent who takes all the money. I know this because it happened to me. It was clear that this would happen so I never fought. My Step-Mother had been kicked out of a Country Club by the wives who were tired of watching her go after their husbands. Then she kept coming over to my house, supposedly to pick up her daughter who was my friend. Money was pretty much the only thing that this woman wanted. My Father’s extremely successful business failed after he got involved with her.
Because this happened to me I always hear stories the greedy step-parent stories. They are told quickly and efficiently. Having a step-parent in the family always seems to add that detached, efficiency thing to all emotional relationships. Step-parents can take advantage of this situation very easily and in my experience they generally do. The biological parent gets tired of hearing about how manipulative his kids are and how they never call for anything but money and eventually sides with the Step-Parent. So, this is a very common story. The illness and death of the parent can be devastating. And the strange and unusual loyalties within the family and of feeling loved become even stranger through the intense feelings of the grieving process. I suppose if a child is used to being batted around back and forth through court proceedings and alimony and child support trauma another fight in this regard may not affect some kids.
My advice is: do it. Fight. The parents’ possessions are their last message to you. The Lawyers like to watch this stuff happen. They wil fight in the Divorce Courts for years, but they like to let the kids know that they don’t deserve any possessions of their parents. They bring up the Spoiled Child image. Call a zillion lawyers if you have to to find one that will find the loophole in the law. Don’t worry about the lawyers who humiliate you into meekness.
Inheritance actually gets more complicated than that. My Father had been prominent in his field and I googled his name one day a few years ago to see if anything had been written about him. I found a website asking for information about him. I could only add a bit of information. All of his papers had gone to his wife and had probably been used as fuel for a bonfire at a beach party. Most of his work is now lost. Since most of my childhood experience of him was as the workaholic father who never came home this is strongly embedded in my love for him. His wife only wanted the money and the prestige and the long trips around Europe. I assume that his work failure after his involvement with her was an embarassment to her. Actually, I don’t think she probably gave any thought to it one way or another because she was so selfish. I’ve also found that my ex-step-brother runs a pawn shop. No doubt the jewelry that was left for me by my ancestors in a safety deposit box were his first sales.
Filed under: Bad Children of Divorce, Birth Order, Courts, Possible Personality Traits of Children of D., Prostitution, Violence, money, separate households
Between Apr. 10 and April 16 three women were bound and robbed in Hotel Rooms in Boston, Massachusetts and Rhode Island. They had all advertised as masseuses on CraigsList. One of the victims, Julissa Brisman, was shot multiple times and subsequently murdered. The other two women survived. 23 year old medical student Philip Markoff has been traced to all 3 attacks and is currently being held in jail. A gay man is also said to have contact with Markoff through an email (news about that is sketchy right now).
The media is going on and on about Markoff’s impending marriage which was to be held in August. It sounds as if Markoff’s family history is quite strained as well and, although, I can’t find the full picture, this is what I’ve figured out so far. The information may change. One thing is certain: Markoff is a Child of D.
People are blind sided by Markoff’s Double Personality. (Why are people never blind-sided by a Double Childhood that results from growing up in a Divorce?) Markoff is described as being very nice, clean cut, sort of nerdy (there’s that nerdy description again applied to a Child of D).
As an aside, I’ve tried to find information about Markoff’s alleged victims’ childhood status to see if they also were from Divorce. His alleged Murder victim, Julissa Brisman, had the same last name as her Father while her Mother’s last name is given as Guzman so there is a possibility that Julissa’s parents are divorced. In that case, it is not surprising that, like Markoff, Julissa led a double life. Her friends, apparently, had no idea that she worked as a masseuse. Children of D grow up as involuntary voyeurs of sorts. They witness much behavior in their families that can’t be discussed with anyone else due to extreme emotional behaviors, secrets, allegiances, betrayals, loyalities that it is not surprising to see how double lives can manifest later in life. Innocence doesn’t exist for Children of D. Distorted sense of lack of positive authority figures also is lacking. In a very few people this experience of childhood into extremely advanced states of consciousness and wisdom. In others it can cause problems as the child continues to show signs of normalcy to the outside world. And who knows? Maybe Markoff (assuming he’s guilty of course) is just a bad egg.
It would be interesting to know whether or not Markoff’s fiancee is from a Divorce or Intact family just for comparison’s sake but she’s going through enough Hell right now and doesn’t need any more scrutiny.
Markoff’s parents were divorced when he was very young. I don’t have an age. Right now I just know that it happened before he was 5 years old because that’s when his Mother gave birth to his sister who was his Step-Father’s child.
I’ve read that Markoff’s Father, Richard Markoff, is a Dentist so that probably puts Markoff in a wealthy class on his Father’s side. I’ve read that his Mother is or was a Casino worker. That definitely means that his Mother is not wealthy. If it’s true it paints a much different attitude toward money in that household and that Markoff would have constantly tried to reconcile two great schisms of class into his life (all the while trying to grow up). Children of D often grow up in two completely different financial classes. One can pretty accurately assume that the poor parent expresses great resentment over the other parent’s financial status. Even if that doesn’t happen, the child is a witness who is stuck in between. This can create detachment and just plain old weird behavior.
Markoff has an older brother, Jon, from his parents’ marriage. It seems that Jon is his closest relative. News reports showed that the Brother spent the most time visiting with Markoff in jail. Siblings in Divorce often have to take over as supports. One might imagine that Markoff’s parents probably can’t stand each other and are adding to the tension for Markoff. Anybody who has endured bringing both parents together for family “celebrations” like graduations and weddings knows how tense those situations are. Imagine if you’ve just been stuck in jail for murder and need emotional support from self-absorbed parents. At any rate, the Rich Dentist Father is probably so tired of hearing from the Mother about financial support problems that he’s not about to help his kid out here (my assumption about situation which is hopefully wrong).
Both of Markoff’s parents reportedly have remarried which means that Markoff was blessed with Step-Parents on both sides. Maintaining a sweet, nerdy disposition was probably Markoff’s greatest survival tool during childhood. He made everyone comfortable and was well liked for never making a fuss.
Markoff’s older brother reportedly moved in with his Father and Wife while Markoff lived with his Mother and her Husband. Don’t know what age.
When the oldest child moves out this can possibly show a couple of things. Who knows if they apply in Markoff’s case. First thing to think about is that the household that the only child is leaving is problematic. Second, the younger sibling will go through feelings of rejection, loneliness and grief over having been left behind. There could have been money problems, addictions, gambling, lack of compatibility.
By Age 5, Markoff had a younger half-sister through his Mother and Step-Father. So there are birth order changes as is typical of step-families.
Markoff’s Mother is said to have split from his Step-Father four years ago. Her last name at the time was Carroll. I heard on a News Cast that her current last name is Haines so perhaps she has remarried or perhaps the media just couldn’t get the all the family mish-mash information straight.
Either way, it looks right now as if Markoff’s Mother’s 2d divorce would have occurred in 2005. This is the same year that Markoff is said to have met his Fiancee. I believe he would have been around 19 years old.
Source: http://www.boston.com/news/local/breaking_news/2009/04/alleged_craigsl.html#commentshttp://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2009/04/26/2009-04-26_suspect_and_victim_led_secret_lives_med_student_gambled__actress_gave_massages.html?page=0
One of my most prominent memories from my parents’ divorce was the discussion over the Child Support. This is a real bartering tool during Divorce and lets the children know exactly how much they are valued.
So, I was reminded of it by reading this gossip column/forum type thingee concerning a Celebrity Divorce. Although it’s a bunch of anonymous people ranting anonymously on the Internet it actually does remind me of the types of verbal “considerations” that were going on in my family. And no doubt in my community.
The link to the article is here:
http://www.starpulse.com/sp_comments/viewcomments.php?object_id=91276.
The Celebrity involved is Baby Phat dress designer Kimora Lee Simmons. She has two daughters with her ex-husband Russell Simmons. She won a Child Support settlement of $480,000 “for her children.”
The discussion, of course, discussed how the children would obviously be brought up as spoiled rich kids. I doubt this discussion would have happened if their parents had remained married. It just totally amazes me that people will pick on kids who are going through this situation. No one, absolutely no one on the board felt any sense of loss for the children. After Death, I doubt that these people would have discussed the Children’s financial situation.
Of course, the Mother, Kimora was ripped to shreds. All the usual. She was called a gold digger, a slut, a bad mother. People were saying they would no longer buy her clothes. People, I suppose, expect her to be a victim. Women work well in that situation. I assume that most of the people on the forum were females but on the Internet you never know. This may just be a publicity stunt. At any rate, the comments were very accurate discussions of how people in communities discuss their friends’ divorces. Some of the participants were praising her shrewdness. Marriage is a business deal, after all. Everyone took a side.
Filed under: Abandonment, Exemplary Children of Divorce, Possible Personality Traits of Children of D., money
What kind of a childhood makes a child want to grow up and perfect his disappearing act?
The answer is obvious. Just watch Mommy or Daddy disappear. Easiest Show on Earth to copy.
Magician David Blaine just performed another stunt. This time he hung upside down for I don’t know how long. Basically the guy was hurting himself. His acts always involve hurting himself. With the economy taking a nosedive I don’t think this will be what people want to see anymore.
Although the stories of Blaine’s childhood are probably “embellished” it’s quite obvious there was pain there. He’s managed to turn this into a great career.
Here’s an older description of Blaine’s upbringing from The Guardian in an article called “Illusional Grandeur” by Lawrence Donegan. The story sounds exagerrated but the elements of abandonment, desperation, poverty are all there. Interesting how a Child of D who gets ahead has to have an “obsessive compulsive disorder” in order to become successful. The life is probably too distracting for a merely hard working, ambitious person to get ahead.: (www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2003/ang/24/theatre.
The embellishment of one’s life story is a tradition among magicians and for once David Blaine has stuck with tradition. ‘You should never be accurate, you should be entertaining. Houdini, Chaplin; they always told conflicting stories,’ he once said. Certainly, the Blaine story has the quality of a fable. His mother, described in some of his publicity as a gypsy, was a Russian Jew; his father, who fought in Vietnam, is Italian and Puerto Rican. His father left home when the child was four years old, shortly after allegedly making David crawl across a plank of wood laid between the roofs of two 10-storey buildings; thus began a love affair with danger.
‘My father left me and my mother in the ghetto, begging for money,’ Blaine says. His mother, who died when he was 19, took three jobs in order have enough money to put him through a progressive New Jersey school. She was also responsible for introducing him to magic, according to one account – buying him a cheap magic trick when he was child. In another version, he was inspired by a tarot-obsessed grandmother. Take your pick. What is undeniably true is that, by his teens, Blaine was spending more time honing his magic skills than doing his homework. ‘It was like an addiction, an obsessive compulsive disorder.’
Filed under: Abandonment, Birth Order, Movies About Growing Up in Divorce, Possible Personality Traits of Children of D., money
Frozen River, a Sundance Film Festival Grand Prize Winner, is an incredible movie about two women who come together as single mothers during the Hellish week after one is left by her gambler husband who has left his family in dire straights. They meet as Ray (abandonned wife) is trying to locate her husband at the local Casino. Lila is the other woman, a Mohawk who is wondering around pretty much an empty grief stricken shell because her husband died and her baby was taken away by his Grandmother (allowed in Mohawk society). The women meet as Lila steals Ray’s husbands’ car which is hardly a typical introduction for friendship but manages to transform into that. Lila has been working with smugglers to transport illegal aliens across the Canadian/New York border. She tricks Ray into working with her.
The story is mostly about the two Women and is set into a social back drop of poverty, addiction, racism, conflicting cultures, smuggling, illegal immigration. That’s a full load already and pretty amazing since the story centers mostly around the characters’ personal problems.
Ray’s two children, a 15 year old son and a 5 year old are very sensitivitely portrayed. The oldest son is given huge amounts of responsibility for someone his age, typical of Children of D, as he takes care of his younger brother and rather woefully tries to come up with the money lost by his Father. His brother is too young to pay much attention. You don’t see these boys out with their buddies. They hang out together and with the TV. If you live constantly with the anxiety and threat of loss of a parent or your house you are less likely to be able to go out and play.
Repression of Rage and Desperation are constantly seething below the surface of this movie and toward the end dissolve into a really wonderful redemption for all characters. I’m no movie critic but the acting seems to be awesome all around and I suspect that the Direction is stunning.
Really great movie.
Link to LA Times review:
http://www.calendarlive.com/movies/reviews/cl-et-river1-2008aug01,0,2791629.story
rozen River, a Sundance Film Festival Grand Prize Winner, is an incredible movie about two women who come together as single mothers during the Hellish week after one is left by her gambler husband who has left his family in dire straights. They meet as Ray (abandonned wife) is trying to locate her husband at the local Casino. Lila is the other woman, a Mohawk who is wondering around pretty much an empty grief stricken shell because her husband died and her baby was taken away by his Grandmother (allowed in Mohawk society). The women meet as Lila steals Ray’s husbands’ car which is hardly a typical introduction for friendship but manages to transform into that. Lila has been working with smugglers to transport illegal aliens across the Canadian/New York border. She tricks Ray into working with her.
The story is mostly about the two Women and is set into a social back drop of poverty, addiction, racism, conflicting cultures, smuggling, illegal immigration. That’s a full load already and pretty amazing since the story centers mostly around the characters’ personal problems.
Ray’s two children, a 15 year old son and a 5 year old are very sensitivitely portrayed. The oldest son is given huge amounts of responsibility for someone his age, typical of Children of D, as he takes care of his younger brother and rather woefully tries to come up with the money lost by his Father. His brother is too young to pay much attention. You don’t see these boys out with their buddies. They hang out together and with the TV. If you live constantly with the anxiety and threat of loss of a parent or your house you are less likely to be able to go out and play.
Repression of Rage and Desperation are constantly seething below the surface of this movie and toward the end dissolve into a really wonderful redemption for all characters. I’m no movie critic but the acting seems to be awesome all around and I suspect that the Direction is stunning.
Really great movie.
Link to LA Times review:
http://www.calendarlive.com/movies/reviews/cl-et-river1-2008aug01,0,2791629.story
A huge leap in Divorce Rates in the 1970s means that people who grew up in that batch are now in their 30s and 40s.
By coincidence, studies have shown that these kids are unhappier than previous generations.
They’re also a lot richer. Financial consultants say that people who come to them looking for advice on how to deal with gobs of money are no longer Trust Fund kids but people who have made the money on their own.
I heard a financial advisor say this on the radio while I was driving (NPR?) and don’t recall whether he said what careers are prominent in these wealthy people’s lives. I assume it was the Tech Industry which means that a lot of the money has gone to Males rather than Females. I’ve also discussed before that I think that High Tech and the rise of the Cool Dork in society could possibly be spawned from the split families.
Are the sad people of this generation the ones who have watched others their age living in the money? Or are they the rich ones? Since money is the major indicator of success in American culture at least this is a huge indicator of social happiness, whether the spiritual types want to admit it or not. They certainly are free at this young age to run off and do as they please with the rest of their lives.
Ease of long distance transportation could be a factor as kids are no longer stuck in their small towns with no opportunity for growth. If they come from Divorce they would also have had no family to hold them back. (They also don’t have family to fall back on).
Children of D are certainly more aware of finances at an early age from watching all the negotiating, and fighting, between their parents. So perhaps it was easy for them to accumulate more at an early age. They have been raised as Tax Deductions whose financial value runs out at Age 18.
So much for wondering. Psychologists don’t recognize unhappiness as a signature for Children of D. because they’re such such malcontents themselves. And most grew up in Intact families, no doubt as the whiners of their families.
The Sunday San Jose Mercury News was just brimming today with interesting articles to link to. The link below discusses talking with parents about their finances and last wishes. People who grew up in split homes are likely to have grown up observing really intense negotiations over finances so this is either easier to do with their parents because it’s familiar behavior, or it will bring up long lost stress over having watched the fighting.
Just wait until the parents get old, sick and infirm. You’ve got two sets of them to care for. Each set doesn’t acknowledge that the other set exists. Talk about a lonely existence and feelings of being used. After all, if you grew up in a divorced family you already know that you received less parenting than people who didn’t.
Now you’ve also got their Spouses to fight with over who gets what. This is already a taboo subject, very difficult to discuss. People don’t want to discuss their Death. The don’t want to discuss their stuff and their money. They’ve already spent an entire Divorce or two fighting over that. The step-parents will accuse the kids of being selfish if they bring the subject up. And just try having to face doing it twice!!! If the parents are remarried the kids at least will have less responsibility for their care.
Parents don’t understand that how they write their Wills and what they leave to their Children is their last statement to them and ultimately to the world. The kids won’t talk about being disinherited but it is an extremely humiliating and cold statement for a parent to make to his/her kid.
Someone called up my brother and I to ask about our Father. My brother’s response was “I don’t have anything to share about him. He didn’t even leave me a pencil. Forget about him.” (And then he gave a very nice statement). My Father’s career will be almost forgotten. His papers, which have probably become collectible, were all left to his wife who no doubt threw everything out that she couldn’t get some money out of.
The article is called: “Talk with parents about their finances, last wishes.” by Pamela Yip. http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_9868273
Okay. Now I get it. A Materialistic Society will do anything to make a Sale. The Media won’t discuss divorce because they’re beholden to Big Businss and Big Business is booming because Split Families are good for the Economy.
Women in the workplace adds income to the family. So more spending money. I grew up around families where the Father worked and the Mother stayed at home and everybody was frugal. Nobody spent like they do today. People didn’t own all this crap.
But, even better, when Families split they spend twice as much all over again. Two pink and purple comforters, two pink and purple toothbrushes for the girls. One at Mommy’s. One at Daddy’s. Two black and orange comforters, two black and orange toothbrushes for the boys. Twice the stash. Industry loves Split Families!
Found a book that discusses this called Cycles: How We Will Live, Work and Buy by Maddy Dychtwald.
From the section called “Blended Families” p. 120:
With the divorce rate hovering at around 50 percent remarriage involving the blending of families is a growing reality in the cyclic life. One-third of all Americans belong to stepfamilies. Everyone, for instance, knows someone who has more than one set of children from more than one marriage.
************
Buying Implications
Blended families are a new consumer target, ripe with duplicate buying implications. Consider a blended family in which a teenage daughter comes to live with her new baby stepbrother, dad, and stepmom. This arrangement might be for weekends only, for an extended period of time, or as part of a joint custody arrangement. In any case, she’ll need her own phone, a computer with modem hookup, bedspread, pillows, furniture, makeup and hair accessories, clothes, coats, shoes, and luggage. She’ll have to have a similar setup at the home of her mother. She may even need a special pet that makes each house feel like home. The baby, in turn, needs everything from crib to formula. If the example features a pair of younger children, figure in sports equipment, a basketball hoop and bicycle, ballet clothes, handheld games, and videos. Make the example child a little older and you can throw in a car, and the insurance that goes with it. Don’t forget medical insurance and the convenient network of pediatricians, dentists, and orthodontists that works for everyone. And, in all likelihood, when the family blends, it will make an overt effort at a fresh start. That means new dishes and silverware, artwork, furniture, books, and plants.
It also menas potential conflicts and accommodations over holidays and LifeCycle punctuation points such as birthdays, graduations, and weddings….
(we won’t go there today, buy the book if you need examples of how stressful these situations are)
A question that often arises is who pays for college education in a blended family? When families blend, the need for financial advice and planning increases significantly, requiring the cooperation of sometimes-hostile parties. A good financial planner (who doubles as a psychologist at times) can help blended families better prepare for the financial burden of private schools, summer camps, supplemental education needs, and indispensible and often pricey college educations.
It’s still the Economy, Stupid!!!!
And who’s going to Colleges? Didn’t Judith Wallerstein already determine that children from divorce are way more likely to drop out of college? And she was studying kids from Marin, one of the most wealthy spots on the planet (supposedly).
If Barack Obama becomes President there’s no chance in Hell white kids will ever be able to compete for scholarships. It’s assumed that we’re all Ivy Leaguers already because that’s all that Obama has ever known. He doesn’t even know that half of the country is from single parent homes, doesn’t matter what the race. But listen to that narrow minded Father’s Day speech he just gave the country. Supposedly only Black Fathers dissappear…. Hmph. That speech really took a lot of nerve.
Filed under: Abandonment, Bad Children of Divorce, Mentally Ill parents, Movies About Growing Up in Divorce, Parents and their Dates, Possible Personality Traits of Children of D., Suicide, Violence, money
This movie, Savage Grace, completely destroyed my week-end. It’s the most miserable story in the world. Julianne Moore plays a rich socialite nymphomaniac who is murdered by her son. It’s based on the life of a woman called Barbara Baekeland and I don’t know how much of it is true. Barbara Baekeland married and was dumped by an heir to a Plastics fortune. She developed an abnormally close relationship with her son which can probably qualify in modern terms as Parental Alienation Syndrome, along with Incest and just plain old creep out. I sort of wonder if Incest (between parent and child at any rate) is sometimes connected with Parental Alienation Syndrome.
The Son, Antony Baekeland, was Gay and his Mother seduced him in order to try to convert him to normal, not that she’d have a clue what that was. The Father left Anthony to take care of his Mother alone as she descended into depressions and eventually a suicide attempt. There is a really great line in the movie where Anthony is writing to his father telling him that his only inheritance was taking care of his mother. Really interesting line in a family where inheritance and money seem to have caused so much trouble. The Father apparently did nothing to help his Son, typical behavior.
According to what I read on the Internet (sorry forget to get any links) Tony (Antony) was released from jail eventually and went to live with his Mother’s Mother. After a week he stabbed her. So, he was permanently destroyed. He eventually committed suicide in jail.
I have no idea how closely the movie follows what people know about the real story but I’ve found that movies are highly fictionalized. I don’t know if I recommend this to anyone who grew up in a difficult Divorce or suffered Incest or Suicides. Unlike the movie “About A Boy” which is partly about a boy witnessing his Mother’s suicide attempt, there’s no redemption to this story, made all the worse because it’s based on real life. Some of the reviews that I’ve read say that they don’t even believe it could be a real story, har har. The movie is based on a book by the same title.
