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My Reactions to The Girls Who Went Away

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I have just written a blog reviewing Ann Fessler’s book The Girls who Went Away: The Hidden History of Women Who Surrendered Children for Adoption in the Decades Before Roe V. Wade. It’s an awfully long blog for a book report. Yet I felt I couldn’t do this book justice in one blog. This blog is some personal musings of mine. I’ve just spent most of the day rereading the book for the third time. Of course I have known that birthmothers of 1945-1973 were often acceding to pressure from their parents, boyfriends, or schools, which did not welcome (and … Continue reading →

“I Don’t Like My Skin”

“I don’t like my skin. I want your skin.” Uh-oh. This is coming from my four-year-old daughter. On the one hand, I’m not surprised because I know that children often want to look like their parents. I know that at the preschool age kids become aware of differences. I know that my skin color is more similar to the “majority” of Americans’ skin color (although “white” won’t be a majority in another 20 or 30 years, demographers believe). On the other hand, I am surprised because we have always told the girls how beautiful their skin is. We’ve never shied … Continue reading →

What fMRI Research Says About Teenage Brains

Teenagers are quick to press that they are young adults and should be treated as such. That has some validity with older kids, but younger teens are simply not young adults. When you’re in the midst of your eighth free-fall plunge in three weeks, this time because he didn’t get the part he wanted in the school play or she found out an unflattering picture was posted on someone’s Facebook page, I understand the draw, the temptation, for weary parents to want to see the adult light at the end of the teen tunnel prematurely. I understand you can be … Continue reading →

July in Review, Part Two

I blogged about a tragedy in which a young mother did not seek medical help for her daughter who wasn’t eating, and the child died. The 19-year-old claimed that she had tried to plan adoption for her daughter but that agencies wouldn’t work with her because she had no prenatal care. A hard-to-believe claim, but the story got me thinking : Could Education Have Prevented This Tragedy? In Let’s Educate Our Youth About Adoption, I suggested that preschoolers learn to call 911, and that young children learn to see adoption as a normal way of building a family. I suggested … Continue reading →