Re: Burning Pain

Scottie Bowman (rbowman@indigo.ie)
Thu, 11 Nov 1999 10:06:00 +0000 

    Jason,
    
    I'm damned sure there are many, many loving 
    step parents who have made all the difference 
    in this wide world to their adopted children.  
    And there must be SOME children who are glad 
    their parents separated.  (Though, at a purely
    anecdotal level I can't think of any that I've
    known personally .)

    And I wouldn't believe any statistics that claimed 
    to pay proper attention to the innumerable
    variables operating in each individual family.

    However, coincidentally, & never forgetting 
    the crudeness inherent in all these reports, it 
    so happens that this very week the Children's
    Society of Great Britain published their survey 
    of the more than 100,000 children who run away
    from home each year in these islands.  The rate
    where one parent was not the biological parent
    was THREE times greater than in traditional families.

    For what that may be worth - & bearing in mind 
    again, as I say, the enormous differences that will 
    exist between one particular family & another.

    Scottie B.c