Stepfather adoption: pros and cons

My stepfather never adopted my brother and me. My parents decided against it just in case my father Jerry suddenly realized having a relationship with his children was worthwhile. That’s what I was told, anyway. My step-grandfather didn’t adopt my mom, but my biological grandfather was still in the picture.

For a long time, there was no fallout from not having been adopted, except for the one time in grade school someone asked why I didn’t have the same last name as my parents.

Not being adopted did serve me well once: I got a Pell grant for one semester of college because my family income was calculated on the financial support of biological or adoptive parents. Mom’s government job wasn’t enough to put me above poverty level. Still, for a while I did go to UMSL via a Pell grant. Came home from UMSL every day, pulled into our three-car garage. The Reagan administration closed that loophole the next year, though, so I was a short-lived Welfare Princess.

However, not being adopted has screwed me out of about $25,000 this year. The settlement process has started for people who have been affected by growing up next to Coldwater Creek. Because Dad died of his many cancers I could claim the loss of a father, but stepfathers don’t count, evidently. Oddly, the loss of my brother would count more than losing Dad, but Dave’s liver cancer was negated by his cirrhosis, so that clause took him out of the running.

And then, in an ironic and brutal blow, this month’s colonoscopy and mammogram showed no cancers for me. Damn, I should have wallowed in that creek every day.