Stephen King's father left the family when Stephen was 2 and never came back.

[raccoon]

If something similar happened to you and money was no problem, would you hire a PI to look for him, if only out of curiosity?

[Heidi]

1. No, I didn't, and won't.

My biological father abandoned me when I was six months old; my biological mother was at that time five months or so pregnant with my little sister. He didn't abandon us, though, until he had beaten, kicked and bludgeoned my biological mother in an attempt to make her miscarry my little sister, who is 11 months and two weeks younger than me.

I have the money, but I don't have the interest.

[raccoon]

3. I don't blame you. nt

[Heidi]

4. That whole situation is my Achilles' heel. I want to be a forgiving person,

and I very much try to live my life by the phrase below in italics. I truly hope something in my biological father's heart and mind has changed and softened; at the same time, though, I hope he's become a strong enough person that he doesn't need me to apologize for him or validate him, as he did enough damage during the first year of my life and my sister's life that this would not be logical or a reasonable expectation. I wish him no harm, but I would not seek him out, if that makes any sense. Perhaps I'm wrong-headed in this instance; that's certainly a possibility.

May I be a bridge, a boat, and a ship For all who wish to cross the waters. May I be an island for those who seek a rest And a lamp for those desiring light.

[Phillycat]

7. If he had changed, he would have contacted you already.

That's the same reason I don't contact my biological father. I know he's the same piece of shit he was when I was six months old. Otherwise, he would have gotten in touch with me. I'm his only kid. :shrug:

[Heidi]

8. His family tried to establish contact with me.

On my 32nd birthday, his mother and sister placed statewide classified advertisements in more than 150 newspapers in the state in which I lived, complete with my full birth and adopted names, date of birth, place of birth, etc. But it was their doing, not his. My attorney very kindly explained my position to them: they were all there when he was beating the livin' bejesus out of my natural mother and my baby sister, yet they did nothing to stop it, nor anything to help my sister and me when we were homeless wards of the state at six and five years old. I wish I were more forgiving. That would, in my mindset, be the right way to be. But I'm not that evolved, and I'm not sure I ever will be. :shrug:

[Lars39]

14. You've got healthy boundaries.

:hug:

[Mutley]

15. ...

:hug:

[amitten]

9. I can't tell you how sorry I am for that.

That man was not well. I'm sorry for your family that such a thing happened to you.

I hope you have all found ways to heal after such a trauma. :grouphug:

[AlCzervik]

2. i wouldn't.

[Sugar Smack]

5. Never.

[graywarrior]

6. Yes, so I could write a horror story about him.

[JoePhilly]

20. Maybe dad read one of little Stephen's horror based finger painting ...

:sarcasm:

[MissMillie]

10. the same thing did happen to my kid

but I hunted the guy down and got child support....until he died, then we got his SSI survivor benefits.

Did we try to contact him? No.

[Rabrrrrrr]

11. If only to send this note: "I'm filthy fucking rich now, and you ain't getting any of it, shitbag!"

(that is, if I were Stephen King - clearly, I am not filthy fucking rich).

[BlueIris]

12. Nope. The price a person pays for abandoning me is no further access to me.

No exceptions.

[raccoon]

13. Agree with you there. nt

[Mutley]

16. No, I wouldn't.

[Fenris]

17. My answer to this question is complicated.

Had I the money, I would buy a mid-30s Lincoln limousine and hire a Sikh driver. Then I would be outfitted in the finest suit I could find, complete with a topcoat and top hat, and a diamond-handled cane and a monocle. I would drive to my biological father's apartment building - likely to be in some bowery slum - and wait for him to return from either the OTB parlor or the liquor store. Then I would have Singh drive me up to the entrance, honk with the a-woooo-gah horn, and open the door for me. I would walk up to my father, and tell him, "I say, father, it has been a long time since you impregnated mother an callously left us to starve. Lucky for you I inherited most of mothers genes and have built myself a top-rate shirtwaist manufactory. And you will never see a penny of the profits!"

Then I would hit him on the side of the head with my cane and yell "Onward Singh! Tally-ho!" as I get back into the limousine and drive away. And my father, stunned and nearing unconsciousness, would wonder what in the Hell just happened.

[Bucky]

23. Sweet, sweet revenge. Well played, sir.

[Lyric]

18. It happened to me and my son.

Except in our case, he left before our son was even born. The sick, sad part is that I know *where* he is--I just can't touch him. He inherited a load of cash from his wealthy grandparents' trust fund and left the country to go live the good life in Australia with some SCA-obsessed woman he met on the internet. I haven't spoken a word to him in the time he's been gone, and he's never shown the slightest interest in the child he swore to me that he "wanted" during the "trying to get pregnant" stage. In fact, he told his family and friends that Brendan "wasn't his" (how predictable) and that I'm just some gold-digging whore, thus ensuring that none of *them* have any interest in Brendan either. His justification for this (or so I've heard) is that "If the kid was really mine, she'd have sued me for child support by now." The problem is that with him in freaking Australia, and me here living in poverty, struggling to get through college, I don't have the money to retain an international attorney to even establish paternity, much less obtain and enforce an international child support order.

That is a wound that will NEVER heal. If not for ThinkBlue1966 and the deep love and commitment she's shown for Brendan and I, I'd probably be a bitter, loveless, deeply angry person. As it is, I've given up, and I just refrain from thinking about it too much. If I think about it, the rage and hurt can be absolutely overwhelming, to the point that I just want to scream with the injustice and outrage of it all.

If THAT is what "money" can change a person into, I'll be glad to never make it out of the middle class.

[Lisa]

19. awful ... especially that he poisoned other people against your son ...

Unfortunately I would not be surprised if he comes sniffing around in a few years, trying to "get in touch" with Brendan (this happened to a friend of mine, when her ex suddenly decided that he DID want to "be a father" after all). I'm sorry that this kind of thing seems to hurt the nicest people, who care the most, so much more than those who are completely self-centred. It's not fair.

I hope that you can get your degree soon and rebuild, for you and your kid.

[Lyric]

21. I don't think we'll ever see him again.

I'd be willing to let him see Brendan, because I believe that every child deserves to know his or her parents (so long as the parents aren't abusive/criminally neglectful). I wouldn't be one of those women who uses my kid to "punish" the Dad, you know? However, I *would* expect to be paid the child support he owes me for the past 7 years, as well as in the future--and he has the money to pay it, he just chooses not to. That alone is probably the biggest reason why we'll never see him again.

[Sugar Smack]

25. OK, that's just sick.

I'm remembering this forever now.:hug:

[raccoon]

27. Sorry that happened to you, Oktoberain. :hug: nt

[Bucky]

22. Wow. Stephen King must have been a really horrible child to cause that.

[JVS]

24. terrible twos

[Sugar Smack]

26. Have you read "On Writing"

and wasn't that a dynamite book?:D

[raccoon]

28. Long time ago. I can't remember much of it now, though. nt

[bertha katzenengel]

29. Oh, HELL no.

I'm not going to waste my energy on the mother fucker.

It's hard enough to waste energy on my own asshole father, who left when i was two but stayed around for birthdays & christmas. :banghead: Asshole.

[NewJeffCT]

30. I might, out of curiousity

Just to see what happened. I would not contact him at all, though, or do anything to him.

[Gormy Cuss]

31. Yes, out of curiosity.

As others have noted it's sometimes helpful to know a bit more about the person, although before taking on such a search it would be important to understand the emotional upheaval that discovery could cause.
It's not something that I would have done in my 20s but at King's age I would probably look for some answers.

[Downtown Hound]

32. In Danse Macabre Stephen King mentions that he might have seen his dad

on TV when he was older, fighting as a mercenary in Zaire. If true, then he'd probably be too far off onto his own Heart of Darkness trip to have any positive contact with him, and I would have no desire to talk to him.

And then if it wasn't true, I think it would really depend on the memories I had of him. Many of King's stories feature parents that are abusive and/or obsessive. The Shining was King's third book. It was about an alcoholic writer struggling with memories of an abusive, alcoholic father. It took King years to admit that the character in the book was really him. Granted, just because King wrote a book that featured those things doesn't necessarily mean his father was like that, but the fact that he did just go out one night to the store for a pack of smokes and never come back indicates that something was seriously not okay in King's early upbringing. So no, I probably wouldn't talk to him.