generations of stepfathers

Dania’s life dramatically after losing her father during the Vietnam War – as her mother’s life did when she lost her father during WWll – and she doesn't want her little grand-daughter to suffer the same fate of being raised by a stepfather and always wondering about what her life may have been like had her father not died in some stupid war.

"My son is only 22, the same age as many of the dead soldiers we watch every day at the end of the PBS News Hour on television," says Dania. "It breaks our hearts to watch this slide show of the young, fresh faces of boys once full of hope -- now dead -- and it should be mandatory watching for everyone responsible for this carnage, those in the White House and the Pentagon and every boardroom in the nation."

"My grand-daughter is the same age I was when my father got drafted," explains Dania, "and if my son gets drafted and he dies in some stupid civil war between Sunnis and Sh'ites in Iraq that has nothing to do with us then another generation of my family -- and millions of other families -- is going to grow up with stepfathers replacing their own fathers."

"I'm not saying that all stepfathers are bad -- mine wasn't," says Dania, "but I don't believe any stepfather can have the same sort of connection with children as real fathers can."

"My mom went on to marry someone else and had three more children," says Dania. "She tried hard to keep the memory of my father alive for me, but the pressures of a new marriage and new children made it an impossible task."

"My stepfather objected to pictures of my dad in my bedroom," says Dania. "He didn't like the idea of 'ghosts' in his house and made me keep all of my dad's stuff in a box which I kept under my bed. He definitely treated me differently to my half-brothers and sisters (his own kids)."

"If my son were required to defend his country from invaders, he'd be the first to volunteer," says Dania, "but he's as angry as I am over the terrible loss of young life in Bush's war for oil and world power in some God-forsaken place a long way from home, and if a draft were to come in he'd head for the hills rather than become a military slave."

“It is bad enough that many children lose their natural fathers due to unavoidable accidents," says Dania, “and we really don’t want to perpetuate this totally avoidable generational step-fathering through stupid wars.”

“Children need their natural fathers, not some guy who merely tolerates them because he’s in a relationship with their mother.”

Read more by Dania:

wars and fatherless grandchildren

my stepdad nearly drowned!

When Amelia's stepfather had a state of the art swimming pool built in their back yard - with diving board, spa and fountain -she was thrilled to bits.

"Mom had been taking me to swimming lessons since I was a baby," explains Amelia, "and more than anything else I loved to swim."

"I was eleven when mom remarried and the pool was built, I suppose, to make me like my stepdad," says Amelia, "and the trick sort of worked!"

"To celebrate its completion mom allowed me to have a swimming party with all of my friends over. I became the most popular girl in the class!"

"Mom loved swimming as much as I did," says Amelia, "and she spent as much time playing around in the pool as she could. She particularly liked diving and the pool had been designed especially deep at the far end where the diving board was."

"My stepdad used to join us at weekends for ball games in the pool - and he loved the spa," says Amelia, "but neither mom nor I noticed that he never did laps of the pool like we did or got into diving."

"One weekend my stepdad was in the pool alone - sunbathing on a airbed - and fell off it into the deep end."

"Mom was sunbathing on the deck and didn't pay any attention until he started thrashing around in the water and then she screamed out that he was drowning and I came running."

"Mom had jumped into the deep end and was trying to drag him down to the shallows but he was pulling her under by the time I got there."

"I stood there in shock for a second watching my mom and stepdad drown," says Amelia, "and then I jumped in, went under the water behind them to avoid my stepdad pulling me down, too, and then I pushed his back and swam as hard as I could towards the shallows."

"I don't know how we made it with my stepdad thrashing around - grabbing at anything he could get hold of," says Amelia, "but finally we arrived at the shallows and I pulled him up to get some air."

"He was still thrashing around, pulling us, and generally going berserk," says Amelia. "I had never seen my stepdad behave so strangely and neither had my mom."

"My mom was very angry. She shook my stepdad hard and swore at him for nearly drowning me and her."

"He looked sheepish and said he was sorry - and then admitted that he couldn't swim!"

"This made my mom angrier than ever. She screamed at him for not telling her, and being eleven years old I couldn't believe that any adult couldn't swim - especially one who had a swimming pool built in the back yard!"

"After that mom forbade my stepdad to go anywhere near the pool until he agreed to take swimming lessons. He refused - I guess he was too proud to admit a weakness - and then she wouldn't even allow him to paddle."

"It's true that he nearly drowned her - she had been under water longer than I had - and seeing how he panicked like a raving lunatic rather than trying to float I didn't blame her for making sure something like that never happened again."

"Since then mom and I have been in a sort of conspiracy against him," explains Amelia. "She's scared about my leaving home one day and being left alone with him."

"Hey, it was my mom's decision to marry the man and that he turned out to be a dud is something she's got to live with," says Amelia, "I've got a real dad I like spending time with and as far as I'm concerned that other guy is no relation to me whatsoever!"