Dirty Blood
Children come in to this world by no choice but by the mother that carries them.
For me I came into this world with no understanding of why was I a child of adoption.
Did I do something wrong?
Was I a mistake?
The only book I clung onto as kid that explained these answer was a book Called ‘Why was I adopted?’ by Carole Livingstone
Living life as an adopted child wasn’t easy. Yes I did have amazing parents and was given everything that my parents could give, underneath there were some sad and emotional times that I had no answer for.
I grew up in a family where Adoption was accepted by most of the family. I guess my only angers lies with my mum’s parents. My dad’s parents had already passed long before I came into this world.
My Mums mother Margaret. I never had so much dislike for a Human. It started when I was little and eventually grew into something I can’t explain.
‘Don’t put your hand in the biscuit jar’.. She would say to me in this most annoying loud galah voice.
‘Don’t sit or touch anything’,..why is your Daughter so ungrateful’? I could go on and on.
These are some of thing I would here from the women that was suppose to me my grandmother. The one person I thought my mum could rely on and have support from especially when she couldn’t have children. Oh no not this women, Margaret was a unit on her own. Selfish, cold hearted and just not a nice lady.
I HATED her.. I remember at the age of 10 I would hang in the park across the road from her flat as I didn’t want to go near her. I actually have a memory of my Dad and I carving into a large tree trunk with his pocket knife our initials and a Love heart around it. Still to this day 20 years on that tree still stands and has aged still baring our days in that park.
Most grand kids hung with their Nan and pop doing amazing things like cooking and sleep over’s, not me.. the moment mum said were going to Parks (where she lived) I would carry on like a bitch. I hated going there, I hated the smell of her, I hated hearing her voice.
Even thinking about her now I have so much anger and frustration.
I was Dirty blood.
I remember one Christmas age about 10, she was handing out her gifts to the grand children, mind you I think at the time there was like 12 of us and I remember saying..”I don’t want your gift this year Margaret, I have enough hankies’.
This is pretty much what I received every year off her while I watched other grandchildren received awesome gifts. Anyway you can imagine the response. It was hard at that age watching my cousins get Barbies and all sorts of things while Soap and hankies was my gift year after year after year.
Yes there was a grandfather. Frank was his name. He never spoke to me or did anything. I guess he was so over ruled by this woman he just did as he was told. Not much to tell really but at the age of 80 something he died.
My mum did everything she could to try to ignore what was going on as a child. Mum eventually supported my frustration and stopped forcing me to go and visit Margaret and Frank. Mum never questioned my dislike and never forced any contact with them through my later years.
Mum knew..
I can’t imagine what that must have been like for mum. How can you cherish an adoption opportunity and have it totally rejected by her own parents. All the emotions that mum buried inside her for all those years. Surely there must have been something burning inside her to tell them off.
Nope.. she’s the peace keeper in the family.
In the same family there were other adopted cousins in the family that was also treated like Dirty blood. Still to this day we laugh about it and just shake our heads to that strange woman.
Margaret and Frank where never invited to our wedding nor welcome in my house. I just could not bring myself to let her in my home. I could honestly count on my hands the amount of times I actually said hello to her. Mind you sometimes I ran into her and didn’t say anything at all.
Over the years I never spoke to her. Barely said Hello and I never visited her. She died in her 80’s and I didn’t even go to her Funeral. At first I hated mum taking Chloe to visit her. Why should this woman have the privilege of watching my daughter blossom and have her talk to her like Clean blood. Not sure why I let her I guess it was more for my mum’s sake.
I guess it was a weird feeling knowing my mum ached inside as she watched both her Father and mother eventually die of Cancer and whatever Margaret Died of..
I was there for mum and I always asked the question of how she was feeling, NOT how was your mother or father. I didn’t care.
The times when mum was told that her parent had passed was hard for her. I comforted her and hugged her close just because I know what it’s like to lose a parent. Inside of me was a very bad soul saying .. Thank GOD he finally took them.
As I said before there is more about mums parents that isn’t for this Blog.
School yard bully was slight for me. I was a sporty, outgoing popular kid at school. I was never bullied in high school. For those of you that knew me I would of smacked your face in at the time..
Hahaha I have slowed down now. However there were moments in School I do remember a particular teacher talking to the class about Adoption. Not even sure why..
But this teacher was adamant that you buy babies. So I was bought!. How could you put a price on a baby? I never forget the day I got so angry at her and I threw a chair at her. When I was marched into the principal’s office he then explained to her that I was adopted and I am sure that Natasha would know about the processes for Australian law. That teacher was never the same again with me. I guess she too had a thing for Dirty Blood.
From that day, kids had something to throw at me. Taunts of: $1 sale, how much where you sold for?, Was it to pay for your mums white powder?, or her cab ride home from the pub where she met your dad, or to pay back her Doctor for birthing you, your mums so fat she could have babies that’s why she bought you, so on so on
This went on and on over 12 months. Yes it did hurt my feelings. Sometimes I cried in the toilets when I was alone or on my way home after I got off the bus. I never led on to my parents what the kids where saying at School. But they did know about me throwing the chair.
I loved my parents. I was born and raised to not look at the physical features of a person but the story that person holds on the inside.
Gosh we were only 13ish for god sake. How can these Kids really understand what they were saying? It was times like that I had anger for being a Child of Dirty Blood let’s call it. I really couldn’t answer them. What if really my mum did pay for me and she never told me. How much am I worth?
If my birth mother wanted me back what would my mum sell me for.. could this really happen?
Mum is it true???
As I still clung to my book ‘why was I adopted’ was my only refuge at that stage until I get my answers from my birth mother myself.
You named me Sheree 
Here here Tash,
I still remember the hankies and soap lol how I hated them!!!!!!!!!!!!
Hi Tash,
I love a good work of fiction and this one hasn’t let me down. It’s a pity your life has been so self absorbed otherwise you may have gotten to know the wonderful people who where in fact your Grandparents.
You talk about how your hand was in the biscuit jar, what the hell. None of your cousins would have the hide to do such a thing and you wonder why she went off on you.
We as children wouldn’t have dared and thats how most of us brought up our children. With proper manners and asking for things not demanding them. You were not a very nice child and of course that shows in the work of fiction that you wrote. You really do have a perverse view of how things where as you grew up.
You sitting back with a soap in a hankie while the other children opened “Awesome” gifts. What planet do you come from. All the cousins got the same as you for Christmas or are you defining the different patterns on the hankies as “Awesome”.
Can you name one other of your cousins who went for sleep overs at their Nans etc. No she treated you all the same, with the exception of one. Craig. In her eyes he was special and since I am now in the same situation with one of my grandchildren I can fully understand why. She considered Craig not as her grandchild but as her child, the same way I feel about Paul’s little boy Nathan. Not for any other reason but for the fact that we have a special bond.
Your daughter is fortunate to have your Mum as her grandmother, she loves her to death.
However not all Grandmothers and Fathers have that bond. They love their Grandchildren and would be devistated if anything happened to them but that love is totally different from the love you hold for your own children.
My Mother fufilled her role as a Grandmother but better than that she was an exceptional women. One I loved with all my heart. She was intellignet, artistic, smart as a tack but she was no bodies fool, she could read people and what she read from you from an early age, was never going to be a fairy tale. She was not one to gush over others, she only told me she loved me once but that once will last me a life time.
You really should never judge another person untill you have walked a mile in their shoes. You however would flop around in her shoes because you could never fill them. Did you ever think what made her the person she was, what she endured in her life. The hearache and pain she suffered in her life.
Yes you may be adopted and I can’t imagine how that feels but you where exceptionally lucky to find a loving home where you were cared for.
My Mother had a hard life, a black woman born in a white world. Although by the time she was born times where changing but discrimination still exists today and for her she lived through a horrible time in history.
I never understood just how hard it was for her growing up, until I became a parent, why she never came to my school or did tuckshop. It wasn’t because she wasn’t interested it was because she didn’t want me to suffer.
Both my Mother and my Father had great qualities and where brought up the right way, they never went out of their way to hurt people, I never heard my Father talk badly about anyone. You wonder why my father did as he was told as you so lovingly put it. it was because unlike you he had an undying love for my Mother. Something you would have a hard time grasping.
However saying that don’t think for a moment my Father was any knid of slave to my mother, he only ever raised his voice when he had too and for the most part was happy going along with things she wanted. I have never been under any illusion that my father was a strong man. when he was against something he stood up for what he wanted and generally won. He had to be strong, in fact strong enough a man to let here have her way most of the time. She pushed him and he was strong enough not to push back, its not that he didn’t care, in fact it was because he cared so much for her he let her have her own way. My Dad was no fool.
So you see your wrong, you think you know what kind of people they where but you didn’t. You never took the time and you missed out on really knowing two truely exceptional people.
My parents brought me up to have the values that they possessed, they never told me I couldn’t do anything or that I wasn’t capable of being anything I wanted to be. They both gave up so much in their lives so that we could have things and they did it because they loved everyone of us.
I learned a great many things from my mother and my father. Compassion, strength, honesty, the value of the truth and a lot more. I loved the fact my mother was a strong person, who didn’t bend her will just because that was the popular thing to do. She had great strength and people say I am just like my mum, they mean this as an insult but if I was half the women she was, I would be so proud.
A person is not defined by what happens to them in life but how they handle themselves and are true to their beliefs.
I will always be thankful for being born to these people. They might not have understood me or why I did the things I did while growing up but they never told me they hated me or that I wasn’t wanted.
I know that most of my family don’t see my Mother the way I do. That is also unfortunate for them as they also missed out on knowing a wonderful women.
So next time before you start talking about people you really don’t know anything about, think twice, they are loved by someone somewhere wether you believe it or not.
I have never had a need to be excepted by others, I know who I am and I like “me”. I don’t go out of my way to hurt others or try to impart my views on other people, I rarely feel the need to explain myself to others. I don’t expect your opinion of me will change by reading this, you never held me in great esteem anyway. I do expect my family to oppose my opinions as well, this matters little as I have learnt that I only value the opinions of people I look up to and have a vested interest in my wellbeing. I take little stock in entering into gossip or the backstabbing that has gone on in my family for as long as I remember. You just know if your the one thats absent at one of the family gatherings your the one they are going to be running down. This family loves to operate on drama, I don’t buy into it anymore.
Hopefully you can understand some of what I have said, however my aim is not to sway your opinion of my parents as it matters little to probably anyone but me, well in fact I know that isn’t true, me and several other family memebers. Writing this was good therapy for me, so thanks.
In loving memory of my Mum and Dad.
Thanks Wendy for your thoughts. I value them and it’s great to see what other people see in their perspective. It’s normal to defend the ones we love and not always know all sides to every story. Unfortunately there are things that you do not know.
Not once did I ever assume that she didn’t raise her children right, or that she did teach you good values and compassion etc, It’s a shame you mentioned that. It’s really a reaction from you not really thinking about the big picture of the advent or the mental interpretation for this blog.
This is how I saw it.
Nor did I mention about how hard she may have had it. She didn’t have it tough as others. Some ones story is always worse off.
I think Wendy you missed the point in this blog. This is purely a perspective on how I saw things as a 10-12 year old. But as stated I value your opinion on how you saw your mother. This reaction was expected.
No I wasn’t the best behaved Child. I don’t know a well behaved child to this day. Nor that I am spoilt.
Please define Spoilt?
No different to the Children raised in middle class today. Yes I was lucky to have everything I wanted but that doesn’t make me spoilt. Nor did I ever stamp my feet and carry on until I received whatever makes a child Spoilt. My parents gave me everything as I was only one child. They could do that. People who have more than one child Chooses to do so which in a result can limit what Children receives growing up. This is a reason why I only have one.
I am determined and driven individual which I have been all my life.
I am not a person to have to be accepted by others. The people that are in my life are in it because they accept me for who I am. I am an up front honest person that doesn’t ‘back stab’ as you call it. I tell it how I see it… and from that I like ‘me’ too.
I’m not sure that you have noticed either but I am one of the absent ones of the family gatherings. I choose not to go. That however doesn’t make me a bad person but makes me an honest person. People can back stab me all they like but that’s a reflection on how truly unhappy with themselves they are to have to worry about other people before themselves or how empty their lives are to have to engage in the gossip.