To Achieck (and all)

I was just reading your post way down below where you talked about the kids visiting their dad, and how his kids living under him in the family have no real life of their own.

Here's a related story.

Remember Emmanuel or "ex-shiner" who wrote a few months ago how he was searching for his sister and his "flesh" dad. This search had been going on for years.

Emmanuel's mom had not seen her daughter for 20 years. The dad had more or less kidnapped his daughter when she was only 2 and disappeared.

The family cooperated in this situation, according to the letters about spliting the kids in the case of a separation. Anyway this guy was a marginal even in the family and was pretty much an "independant" type. He moved from country to country and ended up in Australia with the daughter.

All her life she had heard that her mother had abandoned her and had never even tried to find out where she was.

Finally she wanted to get married and needed her birth cirtificate. The dad said he had lost it. On the advice of a friend she went to her dad's house when he wasn't home and rummaged through his papers. Sure enough she found her birth cirtificate. She found out for the first time that she was born in France, she also discovered her true name and the name of her mother.

At about this time a coworker of her fiance was receiving guests from France in his home. When he heard the story about her finding her name he offered to introduce these guests to her.

She gave them what little information she had and they promised to try to find out more when they went back to France.

By a miracle on the second call they made they fell upon the girl's grandparents.

To make a long story short she is now in France for an extended visit with her mother and Emmanuel. She may actually move there for good.
She is very much aware that her father lied to her for more than 20 years. And she hates the family.

I'd call all that a victory.