Two great stories in the Seattle Times today about Dads. This story Long Time Parent Finally Becomes Dad describes how a stepfather, Ken Lobejko, was adopted by the four now-adult children he helped raised: the accompanying photo is cute too….
It’s certainly not every day a man finds himself standing in court, as Lobejko was yesterday afternoon, with four helium balloons presented to him. Three, shaped like pink hearts, bore the words, “It’s a girl,” while the other, blue and round, said, “It’s a boy.”
Lobejko received court permission to adopt the four children of the woman who stood by him in court yesterday, his wife, Barbara.
But it was the kids who cooked up the idea.
“We couldn’t think of a better way to pay tribute to this man,” said Leslie Dammeier, 39, of Mercer Island. “He’s always been there for us and we’ve always called him ‘Ken.’ Now he’ll be ‘Dad.’ ” ….
The kids wanted to honor him, after realizing how much they respected him. But Lobejko seems pretty humble about it all:
“I tell people I married a woman with four kids and they say, ‘My God, what were you drinking?’ But I loved their mother and the four kids were there,” he said….
“I didn’t do it to win a Pulitzer Prize,” he said. “I married their mother. We stuck together. Just the normal procedure of life.”
I also liked this article Attitudes about paternity leave are changing which included a photo of a happy family: I recognized Julia Bacharach who was a couple years ahead of me in high school. I think we did an activity together – maybe it was track or Junior Statesmen?
Ted and I appreciated the two weeks paternity leave he received from IBM when our first child was born. Ted had begun working at the company during my last trimester, and the paternity leave benefit surprised us, a generous gift we enjoyed. We have lots of pictures and memories of Ted and Abigail cuddling together on the couch and Sky Chair . What a blessing for Ted and I to have been able to spend two weeks of those sweet summer mornings with our newborn baby together.
After being raised by a single mom (one of four siblings too!), and as part of a generation pierced by parents’ divorce and abandonment, I rejoice to see fathers’ hearts and childrens’ hearts being knit together now.
1 response so far ↓
1 medmusings // Nov 8, 2003 at 9:21 pm
kids adopt “dad”
in an era where broken families and single parents are becoming more and more prevalent, 4 grown seattle siblings formally adopted their mother’s husband, who thru that court proceeding, could now legally be called “dad.” An old friend from Brown,…