November 2022 archive

So I’ve been mucking about on Ancestry…

Apparently there are two titles that I can legally inherit, and one that is really close to me.

I am also part of the Broke family tree, but I can not inherit the title because I am not close enough to it. There is an incumbent who has two children, and I’m not going to fight an old man or his children for it… especially one who appears to be a conservative member of the House of Lords (UKIP?). I’ll pass on that one. I’m not even going to bother adding “de Broke” to my name in exchanges. The reason that I’m not close enough to become an incumbent for it is because my ancestors migrated over to America and his did not.

Anyway…

I can claim the title Lady of Holderness because it fell out of use, and a distant great-grandmother of mine was actually the Baroness of Holderness. No one else can claim the title, nor are they interested in the title. I suppose that’s the great thing about my family tree being as twisted as it is… any real contender for the title is dead at this point, so it is what it is, and anyone who might even consider fighting me for it is one of two things: dead or not interested. So it’s mine. My oldest son can become the Master of Holderness upon my death, and my youngest son can become Sir Holderness. As for the second one, it’s actually a high-priority one… I’m in close proximity to a Baronetess title that stopped being used because a lot of the people who could claim it died, and of those who it was passed on to (more of an effort was made to pass this one on because it is a higher priority title), for some reason they just let it fall out of use. These tended to be male-preference primogeniture for awhile, which is something that I have positively hated, but there is no choice to be had in this one: again, anyone who could fight me to claim this is either dead, or they aren’t even remotely interested in this “geeky sort of thing” and they would actively refuse it. So I’m stealing it. It’s mine. (I could probably actively steal it in Britain, too. I’m considering it… at some point in the future. Not now.) My oldest son would become the Baronet of Isel upon my death, and my youngest son would become The Honorable Sir Isel. It is what it is. These titles aren’t being used, I am in direct proximity to them due to great-grandmothers (gesturing upward here, far upward) or great-grandfathers being the legal holders of them — King Charles I actually conferred the Baronet of Isel title upon my ancestor — and I am reclaiming them for use as a direct descendant. Thank you for your time. Peace. I am out of here. Until next time, dear readers.

I’d make a quip, but let’s just keep this serious.

Someone came into the child support office on a Saturday, or logged into their child support… whatever on a Saturday, to close both of the boys’ child support cases out because this has been happening since 2014 and should not be at risk of happening or actually happening each time we get our benefits renewed. The “chief ombudsman” of the child support office, Stephanie Neely, (job term used loosely, of course, because if her supervisor had to investigate her when she refused to close my youngest son’s case out at the beginning of the year in spite of repeated good cause waivers being approved until Legal Aid and the National Child Support Agency began to get involved and both HHSC and the OAG began to chicken out, she shouldn’t be in charge of anything and she should know that) e-mailed me to let me know that and apologized “for the stress that this may have put on me”. I shouldn’t have to beg for my children to remain safe while we access state benefits, especially because we take advantage of provisions that safely allow us to access state benefits. And as a matter of fact, as I have since perfectly made clear, I’m not going to beg. You’re going to do your job. If me making you do your job makes you more anxious to deal with me doing your job, you should have thought about that when you tried to make me beg for my youngest son’s safety in… what, December of last year? January of this year? You should have learned quick that the kind of hardball I’m willing to play to keep my children safe from harm isn’t the hardball that the state wants to play, and if that incites fear, again — maybe you should find a different job. As a matter of fact, I actually encourage you to do so. You should never have been put in a position that allowed your daily work to influence children’s lives.

I don’t mind if people come to fear me if it means that I make them do their jobs (or, even better, quit their jobs in some cases), and if it keeps my kids safe from harm, even better. My job as a parent is not to have you like me. My job as a parent is to be my children’s parent, and as it seems in this state, their protector.

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