Filed under: Addiction - Parents, Babies, Custody, Extended Family, filicide, Horror, multiple households, Murder, Parents never married, Paternity, Uncategorized, Violence
After about 3 years’ investigation law enforcement arrested 4 family members for the 2015 murders of 8 family members in Ohio. At the time it seemed obvious that the murders were drug related as pot farms were found at three of the four homes where victims were found.
Daily Beast article here.
Instead, guess what? It was a custody battle. The lives of three of the children living in the homes were spared. Their parents and grandparents were murdered execution style while they slept. The alleged murderers are from the Wagner clan: George “Billy” Wagner III, Angela Wagner, George Wagner IV, Edward “Jake” Wagner. They had been planned for months and then moved to Alaska after the murders. Two grandmothers were arrested as accomplices.
Jake was an ex-boyfriend of Hanna Roden. They shared a 3 year old daughter. Hanna had just given birth to a daughter 5 days before and at age 19 was one of the victims. Jake thought he was also the newborn’s father.
Remember the lyrics “You only hurt the ones you love….” Family Court is the most violent court there is. Most mass murders are family related. Apparently potheads aren’t as non violent as they are made out to be. And there isn’t as much publicity about family problems as there are about drug dealing because the press has kept pretty silent.
From the article:
“According to Governor Mike DeWine (article says DeWine is Attorny General but I don’t think that’s correct). … “‘This is just the most bizarre story I’ve ever seen in being involved in law enforcement,’ …. adding that the defendants had an “obsession” with custody and controlling children connected to the victims.”
“In April 2016, eight members of the Rhoden family—ranging in age from 16 to 44—were found shot and killed in their beds in four different homes. Three of those houses had large marijuana farms, authorities said.”
Filed under: Addiction - Parents, Astrology stuff, Child of Divorce as Parent, creativity, Custody, Death of a Parent, Exemplary Children of Divorce, multiple households
Yay for today’s USA Weekend Magazine issue (Aug. 10-12-2012)! In an article meant to salute the 35th Anniversary of her Father’s death, the magazine interviewed his only child. Author Alanna Nash asked the Divorce question!
From page 10:
Her childhood after her parents divorced: “In Memphis, my father let me run wild. I’d be up all hours of the night and eat french fries and chocolate cake fro breakfast, lunch and dinner. Then I’d go home to Beverly Hills to a very regimented mother and have a normal schedule. It was very confusing.”
Lisa Marie was born in 1968. Her parents divorced in 1972 so she would have been around 4 years old at the time. Her Father died from his drug addiction in 1977 when he was 42 years old. Lisa Marie would have been 9 years old. It looks like the Nodal Axis and the Asteroids would be a big trigger and influence in her life cycles. Natal North Node is in Aries squaring natal Venus in Capricorn.
Lisa Marie has been married four times and has two children from her first husband and twins from her fourth and current husband. She remains close with her first husband who lives in the guest house of her home and home schools their children.
Filed under: multiple households, separate households, teenagers, Total Weirdness, Violence
It seems that Florid is extra hard on Children of Divorce. Kids from divorced families are often wandering around, trying to escape tensions at home. It seems that the Florida community can’t handle this.
A while back, I wrote a post about the high school senior, Taylor Weinman, who was stalked by the police for more than a month and then arrested and held by house arrest for more than a year. Taylor was skateboarding around the neighborhood in the middle of the night, back and forth from his mother and father’s houses, during a time when people’s cats were being mauled. The media convicted and humiliated Tyler. Everyone called him the Cat Murderer.
A reader left a message on the blog entry I wrote giving an update on Tyler’s criminal status. Turns out a forensics expert determined that stray dogs were responsible for the cat killings. Tyler was exonerated of the crimes. He was arrested right before his high school graduation and missed a couple of keys years in there. Last report I read he was planning to go to College. Hope he made it and is doing well.
Here’s another story even more tragic. Trayvon Martin was 17 years old. I believe he lived with his Mother in Miami but had just been expelled from high school for truancy for 5 days. He was staying at his Father’s girlfriends’ house in Sanford, Florida. Trayvon wandered out to the store to buy some candy and drinks. He was talking to his girlfriend on his phone when he noticed that some guy was following him. Trayvon was African American and it turns out that there had been a bunch of robberies in the neighborhood and people suspected some Black boys of committing the crime. So, a guy named George Zimmerman, who works as a security guard for the gated community where Martin’s Father’s girlfriend lives, saw Trayvon, called the cops, and then decided to pursue the kid on his own. We don’t know what happened beyond that. After the last 3 weeks or so of media frenzy and stoning, the police now say that Trayvon had attacked Zimmerman for following him but that he’s considered the aggressor in this case. Trayvon was shot in the chest and killed. George Zimmerman says that he was fearing for his life and has not been arrested.
Again we have an unbelievable media frenzy convicting everyone. The African American community is in an uproar over the racial undertone of the problem. Meanwhile, they are insisting that George Zimmerman is White when Zimmerman insists he’s Hispanic. People, even clergymen, are wearing hoodies in defense of what they feel is the main reason that Zimmerman attacked Trayvon. I’m not sure if there’s anyway that Trayvon could have known that Zimmerman was a security guard, if he had a uniform on or what. I haven’t been able to find that information. If Zimmerman was just driving around the neighborhood I can certainly see that there’s a big problem here.
With regards to growing up in Divorce I guess it would be great for people to develop awareness that strange kids will show up in the neighborhood. These kids and their parents should maybe be very aware that if there are problems in the neighborhood that they have to be more aware than the average population about anything they do that isn’t typical. Teenagers in stepfamilies may spend a lot more time out of the house because they feel uncomfortable. If they live with a single parent they may get out of the house to get out of their parents’ hair because they don’t want to be a burden. They may just not be as watched and parented as kids from intact families.
Strangers need to be aware that it’s a good sign if these kids are outside taking breathers. Often their lives are extremely stressful. They may only live in the neighborhood part time and may receive a lot of suspicious glances. It seems that Trayvon’s Mother lives in one place, and he was staying at his Father’s girlfriends’ house. His Father may live at that last house or may have his own house. That would make for 3 neighborhoods. And a kid who might look like he doesn’t belong anywhere and who looks more suspicious because of that.
Trayvon Martin’s Mother is now merchandising slogans associated with the uproar. In a Time interview with the parents information about Trayvon’s past is revealed. The parents’ divorce is discussed:
After his parents divorced — an amicable parting — Trayvon served as a liaison between them, “sending little messages back and forth between us,” says Martin. Fulton, who works as a government programs manager, says, “Trayvon was a mama’s boy. He would give me a kiss in the morning. He would check on us in the evening before I went to bed.” When he talked about wanting to attend Florida A&M University in Tallahassee, he blushed when Fulton kiddingly replied, “What, and just leave me at home?”
Read more: http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2110066,00.html#ixzz1qGQUqPMqead more: http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2110066,00.html#ixzz1qGQUqPMq
It looks like Trayvon played football at his high school. He looks like an incredibly nice kid. He actually looks a lot like President Obama and Obama made a comment in that regard. –Had to look up the astrology to see if there was some kind of planetary connection and it’s amazing. A person’s physical appearance is ruled by the sign that was rising when they were born. Obama’s got an Aquarius Rising. Trayvon’s natal Sun is in conjunction with Obama’s rising sign within just a few degrees.
Rest in Peace, Trayvon.
Filed under: Books, Favoritism by Parents, Inheritance & Wills, moving, multiple households, Parents and their Dates, Personality Types Most Likely to Divorce, Stepfamilies, Uncategorized
Bad mood. Walking through library. Books on carts that need to be shelved. I see the word “Parasite” and immediately think of my step-family.
The Art of Being a Parasite by Claude Combes.
Reading on I find that this is probably the best study on understanding the politics of blended families. Within these families there are Winners and Losers. You win not by working hard and building a following and doing chores and finishing homework and setting the table, but by discerning where the richness is and just moving in on it with a fantasitic degree of ruthlessness. Whichever bloodline can gang up on and humiliate the other one wins. There’s the Conqueror family and the Conquered family. The Step-Mother always knows she’s right
(isn’t that just so bizarre how they all say that? It must be how women get their rocks off, maybe the battle for the husband is the lure, destroying another woman’s kids is the ultimate sexual turn-on)
Wondrous. Remember, your family loves you and will always be there for you? Stranger Danger applies to everyone except Mommy and Daddy’s dates? Here’s another crap fact about growing up in Divorce.
Chapter 8 Parasites in Time and Space
The Art of Being a Parasite by Claude Combes
From this same Chapter is an explanation of what types of hosts are most likely to attract parasites. The author reminds us that these do not always apply, so you still have to watch your back even if you’re all clear in these departments. The author is using Fish and Sealife as an example but I think the ideas can pretty easily transfer over to Host and Parasite Family Structures.
So, you may be more likely to attract and have your blood/home/parent/security/inheritance siphoned if:
1. You spend a lot of time in many different places (large area range v. small area range).
2. You are extroverted and spend a lot of time within a large community. Writer calls this “gregarious.” Parasites are less likely to cling to solitary fish.
3. You live in the depths like a mollusc. Don’t cling to rocks. Rolling stones gather no moss.
4. You are migrating. I see this a lot in California which has a Divorce rate so high the CDC doesn’t bother to include it in its statistics. People come out to California as a couple and almost always split up.
5. Writer calls this one: “Species richness of the phylum.” Wow, can’t say I understand the jargon. I guess this means that you are more likely to attract a parasite from someone you are similar to because parasites enjoy a particular diet. If you hang out with people who you are like you are more likely to pick up a parasite because parasites like to feed off of hosts which are similar. If you are wealthy and you hang out with wealthy people you already know that you will attract parasites. Makes sense.
6. Size. Large hosts attract more parasites because there is more area to attach to. Well, I became anorexic, so don’t know if this is very true on a physical level. The parasitic step-host family kept siphoning. I did learn that it’s not worth being successful because you have to always be on guard about the crap that shows up on your doorstep looking for dinner.
From pages 209-210, Aging Anorexias from Divorce know that even if you stopped eating as a result of your parents’ divorce that the Host family with keep right on chomping away. There’s gristle on your bones, after all, marrow inside for making soup, and compost to be made with what is left. Since food becomes scarce growing up in divorce, everyone for himself. And regular meals become an emotional burden of trying not to ask each other how they’re doing because that’s going to lead to long stories about greed, betrayal, rejection, lawyer and shrink visits, money and asshole boyfriends who disappear at Christmas. Plus, all those “I have it worse than you ever will” comments.
“Parasites “circulate” in the ecosystem. Some follow simple routes and others complex ones through life cycles in which unrelated hosts follow one another. One interesting and still poorly studied aspect of parasitology consists of reconstructing such routes in order to acquire key knowledge about the functioning of the ecosystem itself. The strategy is, if you tell me who parasitizes you, I will tell you whom you eat.”
Haven’t read the entire book, of course. But, it looks as if the author, Claude Combes, likes parasites. They keep the whole eco-system moving. They toss your half baked family into your step-mother’s complaining arms. Is this really how the human species evolves? Sounds a little bit like the bubonic plague to me.
Filed under: Astrology stuff, camp, Exemplary Children of Divorce, multiple households, Physical Abuse, poverty, sexual abuse
Today Yahoo carries an article about an upcoming 60 Minutes interview with Senator Scott Brown who talks about being sexually molested by a Camp Counselor. The article barely touches on the fact that Brown was molested by a Step-Father as well because, of course, growing up in Divorce and in blended families is never, ever discussed from a Child’s point of view. Anyway, the molestation was never consummated and the counselor threatened to kill Brown if he said anything. So, this is how it goes. Brown posed almost nude for Cosmopolitan Magazine while he was in law school. Often children who are molested, and women who are raped, will become promiscuous, not that Brown is promiscuous.
Brown talks about how Camp Counselors will take advantage of children who are from disadvantaged homes. Guess they know who to prey on. I’ve already discussed in previous posts that I’ve noticed (just observational, no statistics so hopefully there’s nothing to this) that women from divorce seem to show up in the news as victims of husband/partner abuse & homicide.
Brown’s entry on Wikipedia is more enlightening. And, wow, if you can grow up in the situation that Brown grew up in and still manage to become a Senator, I guess parents really do have the right to toss out all those parenting manuals. The human spirit is resilient (some of the time).
Brown’s parents divorced when he was around one year old. That’s the Solar Return, maybe Mercury and Venus. Astro Notes: N. Sun 20 Virgo; N. Moon Cap or Sag; n.Mercury 15 Virgo; n. Venus 2 Virgo. By 1st Birthday (Solar Return) had had both Mercury and Venus Returns already, (same as Marilyn Monroe). Mercury 1 Libra; Venus 13 Libra.
Brown’s parents have each remarried three times. Great financial difficulties in families, working Mother on welfare for a time. Brown bounced between different relatives’ households. I don’t know if he has siblings. Brown is married and has two children.
60 Minutes, this upcoming Sunday. I’ll watch it. Brown is promoting his memoir which has just been published.
Filed under: Birth Order, creativity, Exemplary Children of Divorce, Fiction about Divorce, Long Term Fallout, multiple households, Parents and their Dates, Relationship with Father, sex, siblings, Suicide
Heard a partial short story reading on NPR while driving tonight. “Safari” by Jennifer Egan. As happens while driving the car I usually haven’t got a clue what I’m listening to and for some reason it’s always really interesting that way. Egan was interviewed after the reading and explained parts of the story which have to do with “unstable family situations.” She discussed her own childhood and her parents’ divorce. So I had to come home to see if the story is available on the Internet. Turns out there’s an editor at The New Yorker who doesn’t mind publishing stories about Children of Divorce:
The story is about a “family” going on a Safari vacation together for three weeks. Dad is twice divorced and has brought along his new girlfriend. Two of his children are there. All the characters are weaving in and out of understanding of what their relationships with each other are. The story is told from the fractured points of view of each character and with a fractured sense of timing, a sort of whirlwind of who, what, when, why where, which expresses the unstable situation. Relationships, Sex, self understanding, grief, boredom are all told by characters at completely different places in their lives and without any cohesive tribal understanding of the events. In the background, meanwhile, there is the structured scheduling of the trip and on another level the lives of each character past, present and future is told with a sort of innocent but frightening frankness. I think that this is sort of the attitude that Children of Divorce take on in life in order to try to make sense of it all. There was no sense of emotion, the characters continue with their lives trying to follow along the way they have followed the scheduling of this trip. Event after event is told with a sort of inability to really feel what is going on. In the end there is this matter of factness about how life unfolds along with a great sense of emotional loss. (Sorry went on a little too long here, but I really liked the story)
Jennifer Egan’s parents divorced when she was around 2 years old. Her Father was an alcoholic who rehabed in his 40s. She was her parents’ only child together and was the oldest in her new family that her Mother created with her Step Father. Egan was born in the Midwest. Moved to San Francisco when she was 7 years old. She is married and I believe has two sons and lives on the East Coast. I can’t vouch for the accuracy of any of these details.
Filed under: Blame, Books, Denial, Feminist Attitude, Guilt, Happiness, moving, multiple households, transportation
I’m trying to read what is considered a classic book on child rearing, the name of which I can’t really remember, something on Nurturing? It’s written by a woman who says that kids will turn out the way they turn out whether they have good parenting or not. It tests the Nature v. Nurture theories in order to let the parents off the hook. Needless to say it’s been a bestseller.
The book is highly praised by Malcolm Gladwell and Stephen Pinker so it has to be good. And it’s fun to read, the writer lists all kinds of interesting studies and has a strong voice/attitude. And then I start to get hot-headed about the stupid Children of D comments. Watching the dance around talking about growing up in a split household is so unbelievably unbelievable. The writer, can’t remember her name, will get it at some point, talks about a lot of the same studies that Paul Ekman talked about in his book, but from the point of view of the modern woman who is free to do as she pleases in life in order to pursue her happiness. She does discuss Divorce, about maybe 30 pages worth in a book that’s about 400 pages long. In those pages there is the stupid argument about the study that says that kids who grow up in Divorce are more screwed up than the kids who suffer the death of a parent. She, the writer, rebutts that idea saying it would surely be a whole lot worse to have had a parent who died of AIDS than to have have divorced parents. What is the ratio of kids who had a parent who died of AIDS to the kids who are growing up in Divorce? I’ve never met someone whose parent died of AIDS so I really can’t say. So, a lot of the arguments are unbelievably immature and silly. A kid from a divorced family whose parent dies of AIDS has to go through the whole process by himself without the support of a healthy family to share the experience with. Now, there’s something to feel bad about.
The writer says these things sort of in the same obnoxious tone that I say stupid things so it doesn’t bother me all that much (but I will point out that they are stupid arguments).
What does bother me is that all the arguments about how Divorce isn’t a difficult situation for a kid to grow up are stuck in the Chapter on Dysfunctional Families.
For one, when you are growing up in Divorce you are not necessarily growing up in a dysfunctional family. You might be growing up in two dysfunctional families. You might be growing up in two functional families but you are strangers with half of the members in each and don’t really feel like you belong anywhere. It is highly likely that you are growing up in one normal family and one dysfunctional family, depending on which parent enters a 12 step program (or not, their preference). And the members of the normal family will constantly discuss how abnormal the member of your dysfunctional family are, but they acknowledge that they can do nothing to help you with that problem which makes you totally hate functional people who are generally very self-involved and concerned about their own self-preservation. And, anyway, the only people who really view themselves as being functional are the shrinks, of course, and we all know how far from reality that is.
So, at any rate, the writer of the book on nurturing, or how we don’t need nurturing, says that one of the real problems for children, the thing that really does cause stress for a child is moving around a lot. It turns out that the writer’s family moved around a lot and she’s set up the entire tone of the book around her own experience and needs. She doesn’t discuss packing suitcases or traveling on airplanes alone so I don’t know how much she really did move around as a child. I mean, by some kids’ standards, she probably had a pretty stable environment. I mean, a lot can happen inside the silverware drawer in one parent’s house during the week that you are at the other parent’s house.
So, folks, there are studies out there that say that kids who move around a lot during childhood are more stressed out than kids who don’t move around a lot. Does this sound like something that many kids from divorce go through? Why can’t the writer and her buds make this mental leap? How difficult is it really to connect the dots here? I know, I know, talking about how divorce wrecks the kids is a marketer’s nightmare.
You know, it really doesn’t matter as long as the CDC refuses to add California to their Divorce Statistics. How can you claim to have any statistics at all about Divorce in the U.S. if you don’t include the most populated state, the State where everyone moves to and divorces a year later in order to find themselves? The housing in California is so expensive and tight that many kids from Divorce live in the closet in their Mothers’ apartments for the first two years after the divorce. Is this cozy? Why yes, it must be. That’s why Mommy’s going to school to become a shrink. So she can help others to not feel guilty about making their kids live in the closet too and then if everyone’s doing it it must be right. Right?
Spoiled Children of Divorce 