PrivateTim

No, Will THINKS he has come to the best decision for himself. He didn't consult with any adult, not Stef, not John Paul, not Claire, not Wade, nor anyone to see if there was a better way to handle this. Will is simply too callow to know what is good and what is bad for him. That he thinks he can make such a momentous decision with zero input from anyone else tells you how callow he is, The above theoretical conversation with a judge shows how absurd this is when you stop seeing it through Will's eyes. Will has tiny epiphanies that don't last. He hears from Jeff how rough his life really was and Will gets it for about 15 seconds, that his struggles are nothing compared to people in the real world. Name one negative consequence for his various misdeeds? What was his punishment for Rome? What were the consequences for his meltdown/running away? Whether or not he brought the alcohol on the H-W trip, he did drink and smoke j's, which is still illegal (2023) in CA for minors. Wil thought he didn't deserve any punishment. He wanted a medal for taking the rap for Ryan. Sure Brad should have listened and believed Will when he said he didn't bring it, but would the punishment have been any different for drinking at a school event? If Brad had asked Will if he smoked marijuana on the trip, would Wil have told him? Should there be no consequences for a minor illegally using marijuana? Whether or not anyone else (or everyone else) in his family uses MJ, is irrelevant. For a 14 year old it is still illegal and serious, especially in 2000. Wade called out Will on his inability to have civil conversation without the rage. "No matter how things turned out, I had to do this. I had to take control of my own life, my own destiny, and I had to start out fresh." OMG, can we say self important, self aggrandizing, delusional youth? You really want to take control of your own life, your own destiny, and start out fresh, don't move into Escorial. Get an apartment in Palo Alto, be responsible for cooking your own meals, washing your own clothes, getting to school and back, keeping your apartment clean. Moving into an environment where you have virtually NO RESPONSIBILITY is not taking control of your own life, your own destiny, and starting out fresh.

I'd have called the police. He still bought illegal drugs and gave them to two people BEFORE he was assaulted.

If Brad has made bad decisions for Will, Will has made worse decisions for himself. I think I know Will as well as anyone can, based on the character provided in these stories. But I do know is how California courts view family matters and I do know how courts view 14 year old vs 17 year olds. This chapter is written from Will's perspective so we get to see how Will thinks he's been grievously wounded and why he thinks a court will see it the same way. We haven't seen the counter argument that Brad's attorneys could make about Will's lack of maturity, starting from about a year ago when he was dancing nude and ejaculating in a nightclub in Rome, the number of adults he has had sex with, the number of people he has had sex with*, his drinking, his buying illegal drugs, his actions before he ran away, his running away, and how he has been since then, including Norway. If Brad opposes Will's emancipation, he won't get it. The court will order family counseling, possibly individual counseling, but it would not remove Brad's custody, and not even Jeanine's. If Will doesn't like Brad telling him what to do, he is really going to hate a judge telling him what to do. *in California it is illegal for anyone under the age of 18 to have sex with anyone, including people under the age of 18. While there may not be prosecutions in CA, a judge cannot ignore black letter law when a case is presented. Brad's point of view would be good, but I think most people get it. He loves Will. He doesn't think Will is capable of making decisions on his own. I think he is right in that, but I think he has completely bungled how to handle Will, but I blame Arbour for that 🤣 He has turned Brad into complete moron, but I also don't blame Mark for that. It is needed to move the story in a direction Mark wants to take it. Brad is no dumber than any male in a Shakespearean drama or a Puccini opera. Mark is the reincarnation of William S. I am sure there would have been a lot more sex in Hamlet were Shakespeare allowed to write it in his day.

Ha ha, it is just because he is named after you.....

Wade is too honorable to be a politician. The best people I've known are those who serve two or three terms in the House and figure out how fruitless and soulless it really is. I see Wade more as leading a non-profit organization that does grass roots works along the same lines as the Stanford GLB Club, playing small ball.

Will is obviously not mature enough to run his own life, based on his actions the past few months, but Brad isn't not just not handling the situation perfectly, he is like in bizzaro opposite world. Other than for the needs of the story, I do think Brad would be more contrite and accommodating, but an epiphany this time through is, I think Stef and JP would be "monitoring" Brad a bit to be sure he didn't backslide and talking to Will more to keep up with where he is. No one in the family wants to go through the Will disappearing act again. I do think, given the stress and heartache Brad suffered while Will was gone, he'd be more careful with his words and actions. Will thinks JJ is easy to figure out and manipulate, I think Will is just as easy to figure out and manipulate; involve Will more, listen to Will more, explain more to Will and Brad could have done all the things he did without the drama.

No, Judge Judy.

For sure Wade's...... Will's looks damn near normal compared to the Danfields.... and we haven't even gotten to Thanksgiving yet.

He is 6'2" and considerably larger than his mother. The notion that a policeman would arrest his mother is beyond laughable. Mood swings where you destroy two cars, two entire wardrobes, drug two people and steal $50,000? Yikes.

I think Claire and Brad are both more respectable than John Paul was at their age. Only as JP aged has he gained respectability. It is good that Wade is learning to not jump to his initial conclusion on his mother's actions, but to look for the hidden agenda buried inside.

JJ is simply confused. Who knows what he'll end up doing. I don't. I think we'll see Shane again. You really are evil 😵 I've never understood the need for labels and boxes to put people neatly in. I am sure I knew what stress behaviors were in 2012 the first time I read this. I took my first Myers Briggs in my final year at Boalt Hall and continued to be tested and analyzed at my law firm, which was/is very big into understanding the psychology of everyone, associates, clients, judges, opposing counsel, etc, so I wonder why I didn't pick up on originally that Brad used work as a hiding place. Jung would have loved Brad and Will, I know I do.

I tend to agree with that. I meant to say, I think he (Brad) should have learned that lesson when Will ran away. If they (he) decided not to fire Michael in Norway, but wait until they got back to the U.S., Brad should have called Will and explained to him what was going on. Letting Will find out by seeing Michael with the family, in the arena, was just stupid. It was good for the dramatics of the story, and maybe that is the real point and purpose, but to keep the story flowing in the same direction, I think Brad would have been a better communicator and Robbie would have been better at challenging Brad when he was making poor decisions. All that aside, I still cringe at 14 year olds offering up ultimatums.

OMFG gimme a break..... attack.... Will is like 6'2, 165 or some such thing. And Will has no stones to toss in that glass house of mental instability.

Don't you think Will would have something with Travis's DNA on it? A clean-up cloth (I refuse to use the other name 😁), a toothbrush, hairbrush?

Will THINKS he is trying to be nice to JJ based on how Wil defines "nice" in his own mind. In JJ's mind "being nice" would to be in the background and no one would know who he is. In Will's mind, being "nice" to JJ and dropping a few compliments is what is "being nice". It never occurs to him that "being nice" would mean being invisible and sublimating his own desires to let JJ have the spotlight. As to Evan and Will, mark that down as the 1,031st time that someone in CAP has not locked a door and been caught in flagrante delicto. Jeanine needs LOTS of pills and Brad needs to follow up on his promise to Elizabeth to keep her under control. Tiffany jumped in because she is probably the only person who really gets how bad and damaged Jeanine is. Brad had completed his Junior Year of high school when Be Rad started, Will is barely into his Freshman Year and he is pretty much out of control. Will is a pampered, spoiled, sheltered kid. Brad's first six years of life he was verbally and psychologically abused by his mother and siblings, which continued until Janice killed herself. I haven't seen a marked improvement of Will in The Gap Year, just a lot of the same self indulgent behavior. I am a big believer in self responsibility, but Shane and Evan are hormonal teens. Paternity, otherwise known as Chronicles of a Teenaged Predator, is the story of a lustful youth, preying on the weak, meek and vulnerable. 🤣

It was an awesome chapter, but it doesn't feel like Will learned anything in running away. He is that spoiled rich kid's son who says to 'the little people', "do you know who I am?" My favorite sign I've ever seen in a small diner was, 'It's nice to be important, but it's important to be nice.' At the slightest slight Will gets mean, snarky and demanding. He wants respect, but never seems to give it. He also never considers the danger he puts someone else in, just so he can please himself. What is it that DOESN'T make Will look spoiled? So he cares about Pat, but he doesn't about Jeff. He is abusing Jeff in my mind. He sure has no consideration for Shane and the consequences for Shane if they are caught, no consideration for JJ, by making himself the centerpiece of the trip.....

It does bother me that Will is on his third hook-up in less than 24 hours and that two of them were skaters, even after Tiffany explained how fanatical U.S.F.S. is on protecting their image. Sex with a family employee is another issue. Sure at 14 I was a horndog too, but I had a modicum of common sense.

Will needs to tell his father and his father needs to call Curtis Buck and tell him in no uncertain terms, the possible consequences of contacting Will again in any way, shape or form. I am wondering what the scene at the Foundation was really about. There was a lot of detail NOT about grants, but personalities. There is a large amount of plastics in the oceans, but despite the popular notions, it isn't plastic bottles, drinking straws and grocery bags and it isn't mostly from the U.S. Abandoned or lost fishing gear is almost 50% of the total and Japan and China are responsible for two thirds of the garbage in the GPGP. It doesn't mean we shouldn't try and control ocean pollution, but the banning of plastic straws and every company in the U.S. falling over each other to prove who cared more about ocean pollution was pointless. Plastic drinking straws are not a significant amount of ocean plastics pollution. I am looking forward to the coming chapters when all will be revealed.....

Rereading this for the third time, twice in 2023, I do with the new and improved, more thoughtful, more self aware Will had talked to Jeff Grimes to find out what was going on and that he hadn't pulled the stunt with the airlines; two stops would have been sufficient to make his point. And yes, Peter Hudnut is smoking hot and one of the nicest guys you'd ever meet.

Hey, if you ever do a Paternity rewrite/refresh, I wanna see Beau plowing Will, in a walk on the wild side.

Yeah, I guess I don't see what Wade likes about Matt so much over anyone else, but isn't that just like real life? There are people who float our boat and we can't really explain why.

I'd almost forgotten the rating system for stories (and people). Glad it is gone, people abused it. As to Maddy, she is a baby. Babies are boring as hell. We only see Riley because Wade is the father. Maddy falls by the wayside because babies make lousy narrators. I think Tony would be a lousy partner for Will. I think Travis is perfect and I still think Alistair would be a good match. Tony is too much of a goomba. Darius will continue to fade in storylines as Ace did and we'll see him at Thanksgiving and Christmas, unless his son turns out to be gay..... and really the son of a Crampton or Hendrickson... or maybe a Carmichael.

It is sexual chemistry. There is a lot more to compatibility than sex. We don't know much about Jeff, his background, upbringing, ambitions, interests, really anything other than he was on the streets at one time. I think we learn more as we go along, but at this stage Jeff and Wade aren't a match for lots of reasons.

That was Brad's first email. Will hasn't read Brad's newest email. I am guessing it is very different from the first.

My only additional thoughts this third time through is how much I'd like to see this chapter acted out by actors. It is gripping drama.