Just a little (link) love: Why Mother? edition
September 10, 2020
If you’d like to join me in helping Lakota families and/or rural libraries this year, please read this post. Over 6 weeks in 2019, we raised $2669.94 for the Lakota families, touching 27 lives. What can we do in 2020?
Current total: Lakota, $1,732.74; Rural libraries, $321.62.
In Which Teenagers Can’t Make Phone Calls. I’m approaching 40 and I hate phone calls!
The wealth divide is just that much starker during the pandemic.
30 Years Ago, Romania Deprived Thousands of Babies of Human Contac
Some thoughtful book suggestions for high school students
Under “we deserve a break” I love Allie Brosh’s announcement.
Why, mother?
The dog and the net kind of feels like a good metaphor for us all stuck at home these days!
The Atlantic article really haunts me. It’s easy to point fingers in this essay and say that those inhumane institutions were evil (because, clearly, they really were). At the same time, figuring out a good alternative to comparable situations closer to home is really hard.
I’m thinking in particular of C-son, who moved in with us for a few months about 10 years ago. He was 15, and we were the 21st home he’d lived in. It was intended as an adoptive placement, but it lasted only about 3 or 4 months before we had him removed by the police, as he was throwing hammers at the home, with my other three kids up in the attic for safety. He went from our home to a mental hospital, and then a group home . . . internet searches say he’s now in prison, although he sends my son facebook updates of him in a football uniform, telling them he’s playing football in college.
He almost certainly suffered from RAD (reactive attachment disorder), a result of his first few years of life being bounced from one bad situation. By the time he got to us and it didn’t last, who was responsible for this? Us, for not sticking it out somehow? His social worker, for either lying about or neglecting his health, and telling us that his anger issues were all in the past? The foster care system that bounced him around for 15 years? I still don’t know the answer to how we/someone could have propped that kid up and avoided so, so much heartache.
So yeah, that article, it gets to me. Thanks for sharing.
It’s true! I do feel like that dog! XD
That Atlantic article haunted me too. I had relatives who were in traumatic situations (war) during their earliest formative years and their development was hindered in similar ways, to similarly tragic results in adulthood. I don’t know what the answer is when the scars and pain run so deep.