[ A wise person, sure, or someone who's been burned enough times to understand that when people tell you who they are, you should believe them. She's never known anyone who felt better off for meeting their father when said father had willingly walked away in the first place.
She arches her eyebrows. ] Oh, it's real important to the mom that she proves who the father is. Can't get blood from a stone, and you can't get child support payments from a man without proof it's his kid. But people who go on Maury and Springer and whatever else, their kids are almost always babies. Maybe toddlers. When you fast-forward fifteen years, will those kids still want to meet their dad? Knowin' that he fought so hard to not be their dad? I don't know that I'd feel inclined to push for a relationship.
[ With a sigh, she tilts her head to one side. ] I suppose there's some value in like, knowin' about diseases or whatever, that they may have passed on. But I don't know about siblings. I never had any, at least not unless my daddy was real good at hidin' 'em. I had lots of cousins, but no brothers or sisters. In this case, though... I mean, what would you do if you do go hunt down your birth mothers, and you find out that you do have siblings, but they've spent their whole lives poor and miserable, while you've been livin' it up in the lap of luxury? Wouldn't you feel shitty for somethin' that ain't your fault and you can't change?
[ There's nothing that ruins relationships faster than jealousy, and when there's no relationship there to start with, well. Julie can't say how she would feel if she were suddenly to find that she had a sibling who grew up with the life she'd always wanted. She thinks she'd be angry. Resentful. ]
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She arches her eyebrows. ] Oh, it's real important to the mom that she proves who the father is. Can't get blood from a stone, and you can't get child support payments from a man without proof it's his kid. But people who go on Maury and Springer and whatever else, their kids are almost always babies. Maybe toddlers. When you fast-forward fifteen years, will those kids still want to meet their dad? Knowin' that he fought so hard to not be their dad? I don't know that I'd feel inclined to push for a relationship.
[ With a sigh, she tilts her head to one side. ] I suppose there's some value in like, knowin' about diseases or whatever, that they may have passed on. But I don't know about siblings. I never had any, at least not unless my daddy was real good at hidin' 'em. I had lots of cousins, but no brothers or sisters. In this case, though... I mean, what would you do if you do go hunt down your birth mothers, and you find out that you do have siblings, but they've spent their whole lives poor and miserable, while you've been livin' it up in the lap of luxury? Wouldn't you feel shitty for somethin' that ain't your fault and you can't change?
[ There's nothing that ruins relationships faster than jealousy, and when there's no relationship there to start with, well. Julie can't say how she would feel if she were suddenly to find that she had a sibling who grew up with the life she'd always wanted. She thinks she'd be angry. Resentful. ]