[adoptionblessings]

In recent days I read presidential candidate John McCain's backround of his sad legacy of leaving his first wife Carol, a former model who became crippled and gained weight during her hospitalization while he was a POW. McCain had married Carol earlier and adopted her children. Then they had more children too. While He was a Prisoner of War, Carol supported him and when he came home he ran off and had an affair for 6 months with a young blonde model Cindy 18 years younger than him who was the daughter of a very wealthy family The Hensley family.He divorced Carol and left her and his children & married Cindy and followed this millionaire to Arizona. The Hensley- now one of the largest distributors of Anheuser Busch Beer and Cindy is head of the board. Cindy's familiy promoted and funded his dreams of a political career. So not only did he leave his first wife but her children and their children. He then had children with Cindy and also adopted a daughter.As an adoptee myself, I find this a sad legacy for his many children. Here is an article I found:

McCain's family is as complicated as it is large.

There are the children from his first marriage - Doug and Andy, from his first wife's former marriage - whom he adopted when they were young, as well as a daughter, Sidney. Then there is the second family: Meghan, Jimmy, Jack, and the McCains' adopted daughter, Bridget, 16, who became a target of dirty campaigning in the 2000 presidential race when she was portrayed as the child of an illicit union.

Asked during an interview this fall about his reluctance to bring attention to his expansive brood, the normally loquacious John McCain, who is unabashed on any number of topics, seemed uncomfortable.

"It's intentional," he said. "I just feel it's inappropriate for us to mention our children. I don't want people to feel that, it's just, I'd like them to have their own lives.

"I wouldn't want to seem like I'm trying to gain some kind of advantage. I just feel that it's a private thing."
© Copyright 2007 Globe Newspaper Company.

[mcmama]

I don't know that this is a sad legacy. The man was a POW and endured torture that you cannot imagine. Despite the fact that his wife stood by him, it probably affected him personally and thus their marriage. Many of these couples had trouble after the war - the wives had become more independent than was customary in that day, and both partners grew in ways that they could not have predicted.

It is a private thing.

The only thing that is sad is our hunger to probe these people's lives in ways that are unseemly. Not just McCain, but all of them.

[Michelespreemies]

Janet, I so agree!

[adoptionblessings]

What is sad to me is the children who get left and I have worked with adoptees for 12 years who deal with unresolved loss isssues and of course divorce adds more sadness and loss to their lives. I know this happens to many many families and I certainly am not saying that as a POW he did not struggle from severe emotional and physical pain and trauma. His story is not unique as I am sure this happened to many families of service man and POWs. As my first post said- as an adoptee, it makes me sad to know the children of his first wife who had gone through loss from the end of the first marriage- then were adopted and had loss again.

[twinzplus3]

I don't see how being adopted makes it any more or less of a loss than had they not been adopted. I have to agree with Janet.

[mcmama]

McCain had issues with repatriation just like other vietnam vets. Most people on this site are not old enough to remember those days, or experienced them as small kids. So it is difficult to appreciate the social cataclysm that was going on then.

During their deployment, soldiers' wives had become far more independent than had been common in the past, with more opportunities - and shouldering more burdens. Also, divorce was more available than during the previous wars. Returning vets faced their own psychological issues, and a world that was very different from the one they left behind. For POWs, this was especially true, because they were gone longer, and they and their families endured terrific stress. And when the war was over, there were many divorces, some of them from long time marriages. The world had changed.

McCain was imprisoned in the Hanoi Hilton for 5 1/2 years. I think he is the only presidential candidate we have ever had who survived torture over a long period of time.

McCain and his wife divorced and he married his present wife a very short time later. That says to me that the first marriage went on longer than it should have. He didn't just run off after returning home. The first wife and he both say it was caused by a midlife crisis. He's been married to his present wife since 1980 and they have 4 children. Seems to still have a relationship with the three children of his first marriage, including the two who were his wife's biological children that he adopted, the one who was born during the vietnam years. They campaigned for him in 2000. YOu can read more about it here. In fact, one of his first wife's children has worked for the second wife's family.

I suppose this will come up more if he gets the nomination, but I doubt it is a liability. The Tet offensive happened 40 years ago yesterday, and for survivors of the vietnam war, a lot of water has passed under the bridge - turbulent at times, healing at others. I seriously doubt that anyone to the left or right of McCain is going to be able to make this stick. While it may be shameful to have failed at the marriage to the woman who was faithful to him during his imprisonment, it is hardly unusual. And it is to his and the whole brood's credit that the family - and siblings- remain as connected and amicable as they are. That's his true legacy, and it is complicated, but hardly sad. Actually, an inspiration to those of us who are divorced and struggle with balancing stepfamilies. A lot of work went into that from all sides, I am sure.

If this becomes a problem for McCain, I truly will wonder if Ronald "Hollywood divorce" Reagan could be elected today.

[mom2threeqts]

I agree that it is very sad for their children to suffer their father's loss. To answer the question of how they had endured loss already... they lost their birth family first. This is a profound loss for any child, whether they can remember their birth mother or not, they did lose that very first, very important connection that they made in life and very likely, they endured a loss of a foster mother or another caregiver before being adopted by their adoptive family. These are losses that do effect children in the deepest sense.
We are working with our youngest child, adopted from Korea, as he works through the severe PTSD that he incurred from those first two losses.
I'm not saying that the adoptive father was a wonderful father nor am I saying that he should not have left. But it was another loss for those children to endure and I think it would be very difficult to really believe in a forever family when you've already experienced an adoption that didn't last forever.

[twinzplus3]

I understand what you're saying, I just look at things differently. I think every person's crisis is self defined. I don't believe that every adoptee suffers this feeling of tragic loss for having been given up. I know some do. . .I understand that it is a common theme in the adoption community. . .but I don't believe that every adoptee chooses to feel that way. And yes, I do believe that it's a choice.

I think to just focus on this one snipit of his life and suggest or imply that he's not a good candidate is looking at the issue with blinders on. JMHO.

[mcmama]

When McCain married his first wife, he adopted her children from a previous union. It is not as though they went through the trauma of being orphaned, adopted out, and then enduring divorce. They had a child together. After he returned from being a POW, they remained married, but among the obstacles were a crippling auto accident that she had endured as well as his own physical and mental problems from 5 1/2 years of torture. The divorce in 1980 was uncontested, he gave a generous settlement, and married his present wife a month later. He had met her in 1979. His children were understandably upset and did not attend the wedding. They have since reconciled with their father. The family has gotten along, as families do, and the first wife was a personal assistant to Nancy Reagan and became head of the White House Visitors Center.

McCain and his second wife had two children of their own. In addition, they adopted a baby girl from Bangladesh. The adoption was finalized two years later, protracted due to uncertainty over who the baby's birth father was.

So I fail to see where the shame is in his legacy on adoption. Aside from being married for a long time to his first wife and having that fail over years, and then divorcing when he finally had reason to, I really don't see any more of a problem than Reagan had. It's a difficult legacy, but hardly shameful.