Looka my hunky son
Oh what was that about Matt Gaetz’s explosion of rage at Cedric Richardson for…what was it now? Worrying about the safety of black children while not asking Matt Gaetz for approval first? Something like that? How dare Richardson assume that Matt Gaetz doesn’t have any black children? Yes that was it.
Surprise revelation!
Erm. I hate to say it, but I don’t have to, because other people did.
Gaetz was 27? When the kid was 12? And Gaetz was single? Is that usual with adoptions?
Do single men in their 20s usually adopt teenage boys in the usual, parental sense of “adopt”? Wouldn’t appearances alone suggest that might be unwise? And then there’s the whole maturity issue. Are men in their 20s usually adult enough to be parents to teenagers?
It all seems deeply weird.
H/t Chris Tygesen
Adoption agencies are notoriously picky about who adopts, but there are some where you can skirt the requirements, especially if the kids are hard to adopt. My sister and her husband were unable to meet the requirements for adoption through reputable agencies, but managed to adopt 9 children.
Gaetz doesn’t actually say that he adopted Nestor, just that he lives with him and has raised him for 6 years. The fact that 2 years ago Gaetz referred to Nestor as just a ‘local student’ and ‘House page’ with no suggestion that they were otherwise acquainted adds to the strangeness of the situation.
Well he also calls him his son, which surely implies adoption…or else that Gaetz physically fathered him at age 15 and then ignored him for 12 years.
Yes indeed about “local student” and “page” – and there’s also a video where he calls Nestor his “helper.”
Curioser and curioser.
Or an unthinking, hastily conceived excuse to justify his outburst? And, on the subject of that outburst, is it possible that it wasn’t a how dare you talk to a white man like that?, nor yet a reaction to what Gaetz said was an attack on Republicans for not raising ‘non-white’ (a telling phrase, whatever the cause of the outburst) children?
Maybe Richardson’s remark about being more concerned for Gaetz’s theoretical black child (at that stage, Gaetz had only raised the possibility of having a black child as a ‘what-if’ question) than for Gaetz himself hit too close to home for Gaetz’s liking. After all, why would anybody be concerned for the safety and well-being of a child but not for its parent?
If the Nestor/Gaetz relationship is above board, Gaetz could have taken Richardson’s words as a veiled accusation against him, which in all fairness would anger any non-abusive parent. On the other hand, if there is something shady going on, Gaetz’s outburst may have been brought about by a guilt-driven fear that Richardson might know or suspect something.
Finally, I know many people whose partners came with ready-made children and many of them, despite not having officially adopted the kids, never use the ‘step’ prefix except for when it’s absolutely necessary, such as dealing with officialdom, for example.
Well, yes, that’s true, but Gaetz isn’t talking about that – MY son, MY life, lives with ME, I am so proud of him, best thing in MY life. He’s clearly saying he’s the only parent of this son.
I don’t think there’s much need to analyze why Gaetz shouted at Richardson. Gaetz is an asshole.
Maybe Nestor is really in a child/parent relationship with Gaetz. Maybe. If so, he’s being done a profound injustice.
The utter lack of any acknowledgement of him by Gaetz up until expedient to do so screams of fear of shame and embarrassment rather than privacy concerns though. Gaetz could have been open about the relationship and won huge brownie points for it years ago if he had been genuine.
As it is, one wonders about the parallels to others such as Jerry Falwell jnr and his pool boy.
How often do you see this happen on the internet? Asshole posts something racist/misogynist/homophobic/whatever, gets into a back-and-forth, till someone eventually says something like “I’m tired of people who aren’t black/women/gay/whatever telling me how I should feel”, and then asshole shoots back “How do you know I’m not black/a woman/gay/whatever?” Asshole thinks he’s won, but he’s just showing how much more of an asshole he is.