Parental Times – The Early Years

I have a rather checkered childhood of foster homes and eventually an adoption to a good solid middle class post World War II family in a small Los Angeles suburban city.
As most of you might think; adopting families really want children and really want to instill in them their value systems and while much of that might be true there is a darker side to the adoption picture.
Many of the families that “pass” the adoption test just weren’t meant to be adopting parents. I do not mean this in an arbitrary manner; it is just that they carry baggage that shouldn’t be put on a child.
While birthing a child changes the dynamic of the relationship; there needs to be better testing of potential adopting parents in order for the children to be placed in solid, well adjusted families.
In the little that I have found out about the adoption process of the 1950s it has become painfully clear to me that it really wasn’t that hard to get a child if you had a marriage, house and a job. While investigation took place on the part of child services it was done with people that the adopting parents referred to the agency. I am not sure how impartial those referrals would be to an agency and maybe there have been adoptions not made because of referrals. But in my case, it followed normal channels.
Adopting me was no bed of roses after four and one half years of foster homes and being moved around so I was fairly disenchanted by the time I was adopted. I believe I would have tried the patience of any well intentioned mother and father but I was a winnable case if the effort was put into it.
Since I knew my name, Robert Richard Bevan, I was aware when my name was changed to the one I have today. In retrospect changing my middle name after so long was not a positive thing in my life. Since I used my entire name when I gave it to anyone it must have been an important part of my identity and this was lost on my parents. Coupled with the fact that my middle name is not a family name or a name of any importance even to close friends of the family; I am still puzzled why it needed to be changed.
During my teen years I mentioned to my father that I was going to change my middle name when I was old enough in which he replied, “If you do I will sue you for all of the money that I have spent on raising you”. I always thought that was an unusual response since I was not thinking about changing my last name.
I have always been proud of the Spalding last name and I have worked hard over the years to do nothing that would bring shame to it, it is a good name and Ray Spalding was a good man and deserves all of us who have the name to treat it with respect.
But I digress…
As a child you want to trust your parents and when a base of trust cannot be built early in the relationship then problems will follow. Such was the problem with my mom. She really never gave me much of an indication that she ever wanted to have children in her life. She was 13 when her sister was born and that led to an alienation from the family and I feel that she always felt cheated out of her adulthood by having to take raise me. Now I believe she loved me; I just don’t think that I fit into her plans.
If one part of the parenting model is not full into the process the child rearing process will break down and the child will feel emotionally abandoned as I did.
Did I think my parents loved me? Yes
Did I know my parents loved me? No
Further postings will discuss different aspects of relationships that I had with my parents but suffice it to say that years later, many years later, I still feel abandoned in the love portion of the relationship that I had with these two people. These were good people but they should not have been parents to me or any other child and while I thank them for what they gave to me I still mourn the fact that they could not love me as I needed to be loved.