Originally published at: Woman missing for 51 years found in Texas | Boing Boing
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Missing for 50 years while living in the same city, completely wild. You have to wonder if they ever crossed paths earlier in life, unaware.
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So far, no information has been released about her kidnapper.
Left the answer to the question that everyone is obviously going to be asking until the very end of the article.
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I’m glad both parents were still alive for the reunion. A heavy burden has been lifted from both, no doubt.
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I used to lay awake at night as a kid thinking about the scene in this song where Fievel and Tanya have a close passing when one walks over a bridge the other is walking under.
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Doesn’t strike me as that odd, in a decent sized city; I’ve lived in the same small-ish town my whole life, I was born here 68 years ago, yet I can walk into town every weekend and never see a single person I know! It had a population of around 19,000 when I was a nipper, it’s up around 52,000 now, and still growing, with lots of new people coming in, due to its position on the road and rail networks, which makes it pretty easy to get to major cities, like Bath, Bristol, London, Birmingham, Cardiff, etc.
If I rarely ever see anyone I know, then a city of a couple of hundred thousand people is going to hide someone pretty well.
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what a head trip. Especially if the adoptive/abductive mother was a good mother that she loved/felt close to.
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Of course just because a child loves the person who raised them doesn’t mean that said person was actually a good parent or that the relationship was a healthy one.
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Unfortunately it wasn’t too good
What hurts Alta the most is that Melissa said she never felt loved by the woman who raised her.
“It was abusive, and I ran away at 15 years old. I went to the streets,” Melissa said.
On a happier note, that article ends with this:
Melissa said she wants to remarry her current husband so her father can walk her down the aisle, and her family can be at her wedding.
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Adoptive? Adoptive? Why is that word there at all? This was a straight up kidnapping. Don’t try to give it even a hint of legitimacy my using that word to describe the person who took her from her real family.
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I’m not trying to give anything a hit of legitimacy. Look she abducted the child that is a description, then she raised the child as her own. That’s where adoptive runs in to it. You want every adoption to be a loving, natural consensual situation. I applaud that, however as demonstrated here the world doesn’t always work that way and unfortunately the word applies here, for 50 years or so this woman believed the abductor was her mom.
No, it does not. There is no aspect of this that relates at all to adoption. None. Her raising the kidnapping victim or the kidnapping victim thinking the kidnapper was her mother has no bearing. This was a crime, the woman was the victim of the crime, and the abductor was the criminal. Nothing at all to do with adoption occurred here and there’s no reason to mention it.
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Once again. I’m not saying it wasn’t a crime. That’s completely orthogonal to the fact that the woman raised the child as her own. She presented to the world that the child was hers, and the child believed the woman was her mother. Do you dispute these facts? I mean if that’s not the case, then yes you are right.
Just b/c it was wrong doesn’t change the reality.
Stealing a baby != adopting a baby in any way shape or form.
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stealing a baby has nothing to do with it. Raising it as your own does. 2 completely separate concepts.
It has everything to do with the story under discussion. Note the following – the part bolded for your benefit does not read “Adopted”.
Abducted by a babysitter at 22 months old
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Absolutely. The baby was stolen and then raised as the woman’s own.
Without the consent of the child or her biological parents and without the approval of child welfare authorities.
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No, I don’t dispute these facts. What I dispute is any use of the word “adoption” in regards to any of this, because none of the facts you have listed have anything at all to do with adoption.
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