A data point: I'm not adopted (as far as I know!), but I've never heard of that before.

Also, I'd like to add that I find the idea of that to be deeply fucked up and cruel.

I agree. Ugh. I've never heard that before either.

One of the Brat Pack movies in the 80s had that line about an adopted kid finding his mother in a porn magazine. I can't remember which one. Anyway, it is a variation of the generations-old tale about the bastard kid unknowingly screwing his prostitute mom.

I'm not adopted, but I had several friends that were, and even in the height of our porn stash in the woods days, I never heard this rumor.

Then again, maybe we were just smart enough not to get caught. I know I was never busted.

Also: Agreed, cruel and completely f'ed up.

generations-old tale about the bastard kid unknowingly screwing his prostitute mom

Older than that... isn't this basically Oedipus Rex?

"LUKE...I AM YOUR FLUFFER."

Joe: I didn't want to have to spellcheck 'millennia' for the thousandth time.

lol at bonobo!

And let us not forget the cautionary tale of the internet age: be careful who you cyber with; it might be your mom. With a supposedly true story to go along with it (the guy who meets him mom on the beach?), though I'm very, very skeptical.

okay, I was right. I tried looking for the article that had been published in mainstream media, but found the Snopes page. Not true.

It's hard to be so right, so often.

oops. here.

i think the more modern version is the Electra angle where the man orders a call girl and it's his daughter.

i think the idea is "How would you feel if it was your mother?" with a twist on creepy parents, adoptive or not.

i knew a family with a dozen or so adopted Korean kids who were all over achievers while the birth kids were two traditional musician slackers (pretty successful as local musicians go). The parents were ministers and we joked they were starting their own army. Some people adopt out of "Christian obligation" which sometimes comes along with "sinful baggage" but i don't think any of it is in any type of canon anywhere.

Daughter recently left a vibrator out on too plain sight, resulting in Wife seeing it.

Of course we follow the Prime Directive on this, but I was musing on what would be the worst thing I could do, and I thought that, just in passing, mentioning very casually over dinner that I found the batteries low, and went ahead and put in fresh ones.

Then watching the trash for said vibe.

I love these little parental thought experiments!

danf, though we're in the pre-parenting baby incubation phase, that's the sort of thing I would have suggested to my wife, followed by a glare.