“The parents who raised the child are discounted, as if they were interim caretakers, like substitute teachers.”LOUIS BRIZZI

THE only thing that concerns Louis Brizzi about speaking out is that he’ll be misunderstood, that he’ll come off as a party-pooper, the one-in-every-crowd guy. But he’ll risk it, anyway.

Brizzi understands that Jim Fassel and his wife being reunited with a son, John Mathieson, whom they haven’t seen in 34 years – since his birth – is an emotional story, one that was bound to make big news.

But . . .

Brizzi, 40, and his wife, Mary have two adopted children, six and 2. Both were adopted two days after birth. “I don’t just have a boy and a girl,” he said Friday from his home in Middletown, N.J., “I have a son and a daughter.

“If the Fassels found their long-lost son, then John Mathieson found his long-lost parents. But he always had parents – people who nurtured and supported him and apparently did a good job as parents.

“That’s what bothers me about stories like this. The parents who raised the child are discounted, as if they were interim caretakers, like substitute teachers. I don’t know if it’s the media’s fault, I don’t know why. But it bothers me. And I know I’m not alone.

“A big part to this story puts an heroic spin on it, the kind that wouldn’t be applied if it didn’t include the head coach of an NFL team or some other respected public figure. But the heroic figures are John Mathieson’s lifelong parents – and they’ve been mostly dismissed.

“If the birth father emerges after 34 years, and he’s a bum with a criminal record, who’s posing for pictures? Who’s writing beautiful stories? Who’s going on ‘The Today Show?’

“But why would that birth father be any less worthy of the claim of fatherhood? Again, this thing bothers me because it seems to have more to do with who your birth father turned out to be than it does with fatherhood.

“Maybe because the adoptive parents are out of the picture [he’s deceased and she’s elderly] makes it easier, more convenient, to ignore them. But that doesn’t make it right; it might even make it worse.

“The Fassels admit to a mistake that led to a baby when they were in their late teens. They surrendered that child, yet they stayed together, got married and raised a beautiful family. That’s great; it is. I begrudge the Fassels nothing.

“And now that they’ve tried to right that mistake is great, too. But it’s not the kind of wrong that you can right. You can make it better, but you can’t make it right. Life isn’t that easy. But it’s being framed that way and I feel hurt by that.

“I know I’m going to be misunderstood on this, and maybe I’m overly sensitive, but couldn’t the story have been told without all the ‘hooray for them’ stuff? Where are the hoorays for John Mathieson’s parents, the parents who raised him? It’s not like, ‘He’s their son, too.’ No, he’s their son.”