FF#1 Kristy's Big News Chapters 1-9

[awishfuldreamer]

So I sat down recently and had one of those out-of-the-blue remembrances: “Oh, crap! I promised I would snark Kristy’s Big News like a year ago!” So I sat down and saw that part of the doc was still in my computer and I had just never finished. So here we go! I have always wanted to snark Kristy’s father, one of my most hated characters. And better

Comments

[metamorphstorm]

With the divorce rate at 50%, I think a lot of us can relate to Kristy’s family situation. I know I can. My father left when I was three, leaving my mom with four kids, just like Kristy’s family. I’ll be 29 soon, so it’ll be 26 years without any contact from him at all. He was supposed to pay (I think) $50 per child, the lowest amount the judge would go, and the judge seemed embarrassed about doing that, and my father wouldn’t even pay that. The government forced $8.20 out of him every couple of months. Needless to say, we didn’t eat well . . . before my mom remarried to the best stepfather in the world. Things were much better after that. What gets me is that my little sister (who has also, obviously, never met or heard from our father) takes comfort in the knowledge that even though our awesome stepfather has since passed away, she still has a “real father” out there somewhere. I only refer to my biological father as a father (never a Dad, a title that someone else earned) or by his first name, something I don’t actually do with adults I like/love/respect. I think a combination of things involving my father and Dad have led to my being a bit of an outcast. Not that I mind.

I especially relate to Kristy’s oldest brother taking care of the family; my oldest brother did, too. I’ve always adored Charlie as a character because of it. He took on an adult’s/father’s responsibilities as a kid, just like my own brother. It’s sad that it’s ever necessary for a kid to feel he/she has to do that, but amazing that they can.

I don’t know WHAT to feel on the topic of David Michael’s being ignored by his father. I kind of know what it feels like, in the sense that my father left when I was too young to really get it, and so was he. (I cried for three straight days and didn’t like any of the other members of my family to go anywhere without me for a while, but then I was over it.) The thing is that books like these kind of dramatize it all, like we’re supposed to believe that David Michael can remember his father and feel enough sadness over being abandoned to sympathize with him, and I never did. I feel WAY worse for Charlie, Sam, and Kristy, because I think the older the kid is, the worse it is for them. They knew the person who left them. They understand more and feel worse because of it. I’m just sitting here like . . . whatever, kid, you were a baby, you don’t remember him, so you don’t feel sad and I don’t feel sorry for you, so stop whining about it. And not being invited to do things with the father you don’t know is NOT painful, at all. If you don’t remember someone, you don’t miss out. You don’t even know they *should* (in the most technical sense) be at your birthday party, and you’re not sad that they’re not, ’cause . . . cake! Presents! Toys! Balloons! Yay!

[metamorphstorm]

Maybe I’m just more heartless/feelingless than most, but I strongly believe that kids who act sad about missing a parent who left when they were a year and a half old (like my sister) are just looking for sympathy and attention. I truly don’t believe they have any memories, and related to that, feelings, about people they can’t remember. I can get missing someone in an abstract way, like hearing cool stories about my grandparents and wishing I’d gotten to meet them/know them better, or thinking I liked the stepbrother I met when I was five and kind of wanting to see him again . . . but not in a “Waaa, I’m so sad and alone, pity me, notice me!” way.

Mary Anne was kind of interesting/annoying for the same reason. I can understand that seeing her friends make Mother’s Day cards and hearing about their plans with their moms hurt and made her feel she was missing out . . . but then she whines on and on about it, like she remembers enough to grieve. Which I doubt, because I was older when my father left than she was when her mother died, and I have a great memory and still don’t have more than three very vague memories of my father. She calls herself a half-orphan in one book, which grates on me - don’t use your mom’s death as a way to get MORE pity, you little brat. You can’t be a half-orphan, just like you can’t be half-pregnant. You either are or you aren’t. And you’re not an orphan. Whine about your big hard losses to people like Kristy or Abby, Mary Anne, I dare you. They know pain. You don’t.

Anyway . . . someone wrote a fanfiction in which Patrick knows David Michael isn’t his son, and since Elizabeth also knows it, she names the baby after members of Patrick’s family, figuring that kind of makes up for it and/or will keep Patrick around. It’s the only story that can make me feel any sympathy at all towards this absolutely worthless waste of oxygen. lol

Loving the snark so far! :)