While working my way towards a doctorate at Teachers College Columbia University, one of my most challenging positions was at a community mental health center affiliated with Albert Einstein Hospital. The program was geared towards preventing child abuse and I was the Head teacher. We worked with those that suffered abuse and and learned to parent. Some of the children were also abused. One little girl whose mother was battered then suffocated her baby. The mother was incarcerated, the little girl in foster care. In play sessions the scene was enacted over and over again. It was this and other situations which brought thoughts of my adopting again. When I mentioned this to coworkers they were very encouraging and in fact prodded me to begin the process. I started calling agencies-and eventually the Catholic Home Bureau set up an appointment. The next months were chaotic and scary. However the process moved forward and I became their first single parent in 1978.
Enter Bernadette.
Tragic that all kinds of chosen families are now being threatened.
