Not many guys get a chance to get out of child support. Here in New York state, you’re on the hook for child support until said child reaches the age of 21. Your only hope to get out of it is for the child to die, or for the child’s stepfather wanting to adopt her. Of course, there’s always the chance of being able to give up your unwanted child for adoption. That’s what happened to me.
It was early 2004 when I found out I was going to be a father. I never wanted anything to do with that child and the situation only happened because of my carelessness. Fortunately, I didn’t have to put up with my daughter for very long. Her mother and I named her Kaitlyn and she was born in late 2004.
I do not remember her exact date of birth.
By the time early 2006 rolled around, I’d had enough of the child. Her constant whining, crying and demanding attention got to me. More often than not, I would get up in the morning and change and feed her.
I would then put her back in her crib and that’s where she stayed for most, if not all, the day. I simply didn’t want to deal with her, so I did the absolute bare minimum, a theme that has been a constant throughout my life.
I never really cared about her. There were plenty of times where she was left crying in her crib while I put headphones on and tended to matters on my computer. Mean? Maybe, but I satisfied my legal requirements: she was fed, she was bottled, she was changed.
At one point, it became a matter of wishing that she’d just die. I remember one occasion where she was toddling around the room and somehow got tangled up in telephone wires. I did nothing to stop her, but I did watch as her face turned red and contorted into a pained appearance.
I wanted to just sit and watch, but I knew I would face legal consequences for doing so, so I walked over, untangled her, sat her on the couch and went back to what I was doing. Again, I satisfied a legal requirement, not a desire to help.
The truth is this: CPS did come along and take her away for various reasons. But since those reasons involve my wife, I will respect her privacy and not go into details. That was the best thing that I could have ever asked for me. Christmas came early. But, no, her mother just had to try to get her back, forcing me to become involved. In the end, though, I prevailed: I got her taken away once and for all!
Finally, the opportunity to give her up for adoption presented itself and you best believe that I jumped at that opportunity.
Rather than go through a series of steps that would have been necessary to even think about getting the child back, I presented a factual situation to my wife: she could either stay and fail by herself or she could follow to New Jersey and start and build a new life. She chose the latter, though I was ready to follow through if she’d chosen the former.
After notifying our lawyer that this was our next move, she got us on the docket two days later. Finally, in May of 2007, her biological mother and I went to court and signed away our rights. It was one of the best decisions that I ever made in my entire life.
After being pretty much forced to attend a so-called “farewell visit” that I didn’t want anything to do with, it was finally over. I haven’t seen the child since. I haven’t regretted it since.
Her name is no longer Kaitlyn and she was almost immediately adopted by members of the Caruth family in Syracuse. Lest anyone think I’m wrong for posting their name, it’s all publicly available information, including newspaper articles, address lookups and voter registration records.
At the time, two decades ago, the adoptive father was in charge of parking at a local educational institution and the adoptive mother was a homemaker. Yeah, that joke writes itself.
What is she doing now? What is the Caruth family doing now? I really don’t know. I sure as hell don’t care. They could have moved to Albany for all I know!
If I wanted to, I could find out what they’re up to very quickly, but the fact of the matter is that I didn’t want her then and I sure as hell don’t want to know her now.
Every year, her biological mother (my current wife of 21+ years) gets a package in the mail with photographs and a brief report on what she’s doing in life.
But here’s the thing: that requirement went away on the child’s 18th birthday. As recently as this year, the adoptive mother still insists upon sending that packet. It’s annoying, because I have to go to the post office and fetch the package.
I can honestly tell you that I don’t know what she looks like, nor do I know or care what she’s up to. The one and only thing I know about her is that she was a highly successful student at a prominent Syracuse private school, and that was only because an anonymous coward emailed me that information. By the time I knew what I was looking at, it was too late.
I am not posting that school’s name and there are several such schools in Syracuse or in the immediate area, even though she made her school’s name public by way of posing a picture of herself and a buttload of other students. I can assure you that I did not voluntarily seek out anything to do with her. She could be dead from a car accident by now and I wouldn’t know or care.
The choice of wilful ignorance was taken away from me because someone sent both her birth mother and myself this link to a story published on the internet for all to see, so it’s fair game for me to post. I wish they’d not sent me that and I wish I hadn’t looked. If I had advanced warning, I would have deleted the email without reading it.
Looking at the picture, I don’t recognize her at all. She could be any one of the girls. Judging by the order of students, I can hazard a guess, but I know nothing of what she looked like back then and I certainly know nothing of her now.
And I enjoy that ignorance!
So, yeah, technically speaking, I saw her, but since I don’t recognize which one she was, then as far as I’m concerned, I haven’t seen her since 2007. And believe me, I intend to continue that streak.
That’s it. That’s all I know. I have no other information about her, including her birthday. No, I do not remember her date of birth. That’s how little I care about her. I’m assuming that she’s in college, but I don’t know or care which one. And even if I did, I wouldn’t post the information. There would be no point and that would be playing dirty.
What scares me, though, is this: New York State has an Adoption Information Registry. As an adopted child, she apparently has the right to seek out information about myself or her birth mother. Assuming that she’d even want to know that information, she is not entitled to know anything about us. But, you can’t fight it. Not in this state, sadly.
She’s not entitled to know anything about me. I even made sure that any photographs they had of me were destroyed. She has rights to nothing.
As for those packages, I’ve never once opened any of them. Never have I looked at those specific photographs and I’ve never once read her stories. What this means is this: I could walk right past her on the streets of Albany and never know or care about it.
She could be a famous musical artist by now, and again, I wouldn’t know it! She could be an actress for all I know. And, as you might guess, I wouldn’t care. I don’t want a thing from her or her family and I have nothing that she could possibly need or want. Not that I’d hand it over.
No, I remain blissfully ignorant as pertains to confirming what she looks like and as pertains to know anything about what she has done or is doing. I suppose that most biological parents in my position would want to know, but that is not my position on the matter. I know nothing about her, folks.
Well, I know what school she went to in the distant past, but that was forced upon me by a cowardly, anonymous malcontent who thought he or she was doing me a solid. If I’d had a heads up, I would have ignored it, but unfortunately, I know what I know. But apart from that, I know nothing! Absolutely nothing!
And I strongly prefer it that way!
I will be honest and say that, a few months ago, when I was diagnosed with colon cancer (a diagnosis that later turned out to be mistaken), I flirted with the idea of possibly reaching out to see if she had any desire to meet her biological parents before I died.
After all, that would have been my one and only shot, based upon the information that was available to me at the time. Then again, the sort of bowel obstruction that I have is nearly always fatal, so maybe it would have been a good idea to reach out.
But I quickly abandoned that idea. I suppose that, in theory, there’s time left to reach out, but that would annoy everyone involved and that might constitute harassment.
So, again, here I am flirting with the possibility, whether small or big, of actually dying, and my position remains unchanged: If I do die because of this, then I will die happy knowing that I didn’t waste my time meeting her.
You see, and this might be a big surprise here, it turns out that I don’t really care enough about her to see her again, and that’s assuming that she’d even want to meet in the first place. That is to say, I don’t care about her at all. Not even a little. My prior acts prove that, right?
Why waste my time and, for that matter, hers, by reaching out for a meeting I don’t really want in the first place? A meeting that she almost certainly doesn’t want? After all, she and her adoptive parents have had the power to reach out for over two decades. I forget her exact birthday, after all. That should speak volumes.
They have our mailing address. I am easily found on Facebook. They can contact me through this website. They can look up the WHOIS information for this domain. They had and have various ways, none of which they should avail themselves of.
It seems that the lack of desire to meet is in fact mutual, and for that, I am grateful. The only way they’d know about my health situation would be for them to visit this website. But why would they?
The adoptive parents know all about this site’s URL, but why, after two decades, would the child in question even want to visit, knowing how much hatred that I had and have for her?
Over the past few months, conveniently right after I announced my ultimate mistaken diagnosis, I have gotten constant visits from IP addresses in Syracuse, whereas normally I got none. Could that be them? I would strongly prefer that they stay away, but of course I am powerless to stop them. It is the internet, after all.
I’m mildly curious to see who would be visiting me from Syracuse of all places, but not enough to actually do anything about it. What’s odd is that my cancer story was covered by a media outlet in Syracuse, despite the fact that I was running for mayor of Albany, not Syracuse.
Now, what would I do if she or her adoptive parents tried to seek us out? I can’t stop her from hunting my wife down, but if they try contacting me online or in real life, then there will be serious and immediate legal ramifications.
I am leaving them alone, so I expect them to leave me alone. I don’t care if she’s dying, as am I, and this is our only chance to meet as adults. It’s not going to happen!
If I hear even a peep from the child or the adoptives, then I can assure you that an Order of Protection will be associated with this matter. I will press charges for harassment. I’m sure the kid wouldn’t want that on her record, so there’s her incentive to leave me alone.
What if my biological daughter wants to meet me? I highly doubt that that’s the case, but if it is the case, then I don’t care. There is no valid reason for us to meet. Even in a situation where I’m needed, the answer would be no.
By implying that I’d ever be needed in the slightest, I mean if she ever needed bone marrow or other medical things like that where I could, biologically speaking, help out, I would absolutely refuse and just let nature take its course. I owe her nothing and she owes me nothing.
The one thing that she will never know is that she has a biological sister. My daughter, the one whom I actually raised, wanted and acknowledge, thinks she’s an only biological child and I aim to keep her ignorant of knowledge to the contrary.
Looking back on it, I regret nothing. I never wanted her and I was so glad when the judge finalized the removal of my parental rights. It is absolutely possible to get out of child support payments, and I accomplished just that!