Risk It

Reading an article this morning about vulnerability, in a magazine (Science of Mind) that serves as the source of some of my own spiritual inspiration, I went looking on the internet and found two articles related to adoptee reunions (that is an adoptee making the effort to find their family of origin). Though not an adoptee myself (both of my own parents were), I have made that journey myself. The article starts with this quote from Brene Brown on vulnerability – being “a state of emotional exposure that comes with a certain degree of uncertainty. It involves a person’s willingness to accept the emotional risk that comes from being open and willing to love and be loved.”

When one embarks on a roots journey, we cannot be certain what we will uncover. Even though we may feel uncertainty and fear, we are seeking a fuller expression of who we are and who those we came from are. It is taking a chance that it could all end in rejection. Rejection is something that many adoptees struggle with anyway because the reality is, for reasons that are unknown at the beginning of this journey, we were rejected to some degree and for reasons we don’t know the reality of. Even so, we must face our difficult emotions by being honest with our self about what we expect and even putting some boundaries around what we are willing to experience when we make contact.

In my own research today, I found articles from two very different perspectives. One is LINK>10 Things To Know About Adoption Search & Reunion from the adoption agency known as Gladney (named for it’s founder) Center for Adoption, a licensed adoption agency, at their website is called Adoption.org. What I found humorous about this is not any of the information there but that there were only 9 things listed and not 10. What they do get correct is that society is now in a transition out of an era in which closed adoptions and sealed adoption records were the norm. That transition is as it should be and all for the better.

I trust the other one more – LINK>What Does Work in the Adoption Reunion? by Claudia Corrigan DArcy at Adoption Birth Mothers.com. She is honest enough to admit – Truthfully? I have no idea. What works for one reunion might not work for another. The measure of what makes an adoption reunion successful really does depend on the parties involved and how they measure that success. Are they both satisfied with the measure of contact? Are they both getting what they need out of the relationship? Are the interactions relatively “healthy” aka not destructive to the other party? Again, so many variables, so many different personalities, so many different experiences, differences in timing, in support. Her article lists 14 Relationship Tools (you will need) to Bring to An Adoption Reunion (and there are actually 14 listed !!). She suggests meeting in the middle as each party is coming from different ends of any adoption. She suggests that you try to understand where they (your birth relatives) are coming from, it can help understand their actions, motivations, and their intent – even if it gets jumbled up in the emotional overload.

If you are only at the beginning phases of your own roots journey, it is probably worth your time to read both and consider what they offer. My own effort ended up surprisingly successful. Do I have all I could have wished for, from the genetic relatives I have discovered ? Honestly no. There is a chasm of time that can’t be fully bridged. My grandparents, who would have known most accurately, are all dead. Neither I nor the relatives I have connected with can make up for decades of life lived without knowing the other one existed. Am I glad to no longer be totally in the dark (as I was for over 60 years) about my family’s origins ? Absolutely. What I have now – a sense of my cultural and genetic foundations – is worth everything it ever could have possibly been worth – in my own heart of hearts.

LOL, I see there is a typo in the header but it is easy enough to fill in the intended “n”.

Not Being Mom Is Not Easy

I was reading some instructions in my all things adoption group and something there really hit home for me personally. I want to begin saying that in this particular group there is a hierarchy – adoptees and people who have experienced foster care as a youth are given unfettered freedom of expression. Below them, next come the biological/genetic parents. The lowest level is the adoptive (even if only hoping to adopt) and foster parents. It is as it should be. Those at the top have spent much of their lives without personal autonomy or control over their daily experience – in effect – they have been marginalized in a society that lifts adoptive and foster care parents up on a pedestal.

I did not intentionally give up parenting my daughter but it happened. As I have become more informed about adoptee issues, my daughter and I have discussed how very like having been adopted her experience of growing up without me after the age of 3 was, very much like having been given up for adoption. At the end of my marriage to her dad, my self-esteem was low. I really didn’t know how important a mother was. I thought any of the two parents one was born of would be equally good (but at least birth parents still involved – and I did remain involved at a distance). I know better now but it is what it is and life doesn’t give us do-overs. Thankfully, I remain heartfully and decently close to my daughter, though I have not earned that, I am thankful she accepts the realities of her life and knows that I always have loved her immensely. That is the point of today’s blog.

There were no role models for absentee mothers in the early 1970s. I felt very alone in that regard and definitely felt judged as though – if I was not raising my daughter, I must be a terrible mother – and I still struggle with some belief that I was terrible as a mom. Having my 2 sons late in life has convinced me that under the right circumstances, I could have also been a good mom to my daughter. Still, I cannot recover all that I lost during those years.

From my all things adoption group today, it was said to the custodian parents (adoptive, foster, etc) – you are in the power position. Don’t expect moms to jump for joy when you offer visits, calls, etc. just because you think they should and you think you are doing something good for them. The thought of that is likely OVERWHELMING for many moms and it’s coming from someone raising their kid, essentially giving them “permission” to see their own child.

Can you understand how that might feel? I certainly do. I gave my daughter a telephone calling card, so that I wouldn’t cause her trouble at home by calling her first. Sometimes, I had to wait a very long time for the next phone call. I always felt judged. If I didn’t get her back from a visit by the time I had been expected to return her, I could feel the judgement as well.

It is true – society drives the expectation that a mother is supposed to love and nurture her child. A mom who loses her child to the system, or gives her child to someone else to raise, is automatically and instantaneously dealing with the shame that comes with doing that. It knocks their self-worth, and that was likely not so high to begin with, lowering it further down many pegs. It can cycle into greater depression, self-loathing, anxiety, self-harming behaviors and a general feeling of just giving up. It takes A LOT of work to build that sense of self back up. Some never do.

Moms DO love their kids – even if, for whatever reason, they are unable to raise them. That was always true with me.

Safety Security and Protection

I was intrigued and drawn in by this graphic image but wasn’t really finding what my heart was calling for from Dr Shaw. However, I did find this – LINK> Attachment Explained by Sarah Mundy. I had previously been exposed to Reactive Attachment Disorder in my all things adoption community. Sarah notes regarding “attachment” that “with different approaches and a number of terms banded around it can feel so confusing.” Sarah is a Clinical Psychologist with over 15 years of experience in the field. She also admits that as the mother of three, she has learned that theory does not always feel that easy to translate into practice.

Attachment theory was developed by Psychiatrist John Bowlby in the 1930s. Shaped by their experiences of being parented, children develop an internal working model, a template of how they see themselves and the world. Humans learn to behave in ways that will help maximize their chances of getting their needs met.

Sarah goes on to describe 4 attachment patterns – Secure, Insecure/Ambivalent, Insecure/Avoidant and Disorganized. It is clear to me now from 5 years of reading the thoughts and experiences of adoptees now that many of these challenges show up in how they were parented.

As a parent, I am well aware of those times when I feel that I did not do as good of a job parenting as I might have wished. Sarah says, “Try to remember that secure attachment relationships may be what we aspire to, but they are not actually that normal! Please try not to worry – nearly half of us lean towards insecure attachment relationships – they are adaptive ways to fit with the parenting that we have experienced.”

It is reassuring to know that a recent study on infant attachment found that parents need to be “in tune” with their babies about 50% of the time in order for them to develop secure attachment relationships. The benefits of developing a secure attachment are multitude – when we are safe in our relationships the world feels more exciting and less frightening. We can be vulnerable and know that others can help us, we can be curious and find joy more easily.

Sarah has more to say at the link.

Abandoned Child Syndrome

Stitch, Nani and Lilo

I’ll admit that I knew nothing about this movie and only that there was an odd looking creature (Stitch) and a little girl. A comment in my all things adoption group had me go looking. “My kids just watched Lilo and Stitch for the first time. I had totally forgot the Children’s Aid Society and parental loss triggers. It was hard for me to see how they are telling her that her sister may be better off without her and she may need to accept that. F**** that narrative. Never better off without some of our family especially after profound loss already. Bah. My vent for the day.”

What I found was this WordPress blog by MadameAce – LINK>In Brightest Day: Lilo & Stitch and Childhood Abandonment Issues. It was there I encountered the concept of LINK>Abandoned Child Syndrome. I named my blog Missing Mom because it is on the mom side that my emotions naturally gravitate.

When we first meet Lilo, we learn that she has an active imagination, and that she has clung to the fantasies in her head as being reality, which is probably just her way of dealing with the trauma in her life. People suffering from abandonment will also have an “extreme sensitivity to perceived rejections, exclusions or criticisms. We see Lilo’s issues with abandonment constantly throughout the whole movie, and we even get a sense that she blames herself for what happened or that she cannot form strong connections with other people.

As Stitch’ behavior progressively gets worse, he opts to run away. We see Lilo blame herself. She watches Stitch go and she doesn’t try to stop him. Instead, she says that she understands why he wants to leave and that everybody eventually leaves her anyway. It is a movie that addresses sometimes uncomfortable issues directly.

Children Are Such Open People

We live in such an internet driven, open society and yet I was reminded recently by someone inquiring about recycling wine corks (which we haven’t done for years now) that it is nearly impossible to get information off of google once it is there. Sometimes that is good, other times not so much. I said once it is out there – it’s eternal. This story from a kinship guardian reflects some concerns that many caregivers have.

Kinship here (legal guardianship). Not a “traditional” adoption, but this is regarding my 10 year old niece whom I have custody of. Her parents are not in the picture at all. How do I express my concerns to my 10 year old niece regarding her disclosing information to her peers, without shaming her for it ? My niece is VERY open about the fact that she lives with Aunt instead of with her parents. She even includes the “why’s” behind it. Again, I am NOT trying to silence nor shame her. I, however, have some concerns:

1.) Whatever my niece shares now, cannot be “unshared” in the future… for MANY years to come. Children live in the moment. Many of us have made public “mistakes” as young kids, that we now look back and cringe at — whether it’s a bad haircut, odd fashion styles, or an obsession with pink glitter Barbies everything. But those are temporary. Information is permanent. What if my niece changes her mind in the future, and decides that she doesn’t want people knowing who/what/where/when/why??? It’s too late… people already know.

2.) As my niece gets older, she will feel differently about her parents. My niece sees her parents in a positive light now, and seemingly has “no issues” with her kinship placement. However, things change as people get older, and they begin to realize that life isn’t all about rainbows and unicorns. There are things that she’ll need to process down the road.

3.) Other people’s responses. I can’t control nor protect my niece from people who respond in a cruel manner. I worry that my niece isn’t emotionally mature enough to handle various different types of responses — both good AND bad. She is a sensitive child. Also, some people assume very very terrible things about kids who do not live with their parents.

Adoptees were quick to point out – It is her story and she should be able to share it as she chooses. Even if she is 10. Even if she may grow into a more nuanced understanding. There is nothing shameful about a child talking about her life and she should feel that nothing is too much to ask the world to handle with her.

An adoptive parent shared – I struggle with this too. My daughter is not quite 5 and so we are just getting into the stage of other kids asking questions, some of which she has never asked herself because to her it’s just normal to have two moms and two dads. I have to remind myself to trust her to make her own choices, since like one adoptee said, it’s her story. But I also worry about the fact that you can’t “unshare” things you have told people. Her class is working on a project right now about babies and her mom has been helping with some of it, and I was wondering if this is going to lead to more questions and whether or not I ought to be managing that more explicitly… but I think we are going to just keep on keeping on, showing what’s normal for our family.

Though there is this practical consideration – it’s totally reasonable to have periodic, age appropriate talks about boundaries and privacy, but at the end of the day, she needs to lead. She will figure out where she missteps, and what she wants to censor/disclose as she matures.

One adoptee shared her real life experience – I wouldn’t say anything. Just show support if something happens and someone is mean. I think the period of me telling my peers was the most important when it came to how I choose to disclose my adoption. I was able to learn and make the decisions based on other people’s reactions. At no point did I ever feel like information was chasing me or out of control.

Realistically – help her with handling cruel responses. It is not your job to protect her from the real world. It is your job to prepare her and help her handle it. She is going to experience the cruel world one way or the other, let it not be a surprise after a sheltered life,

We All Want To Feel Safe…

Safe by Kristin Brantley Poe<LINK

I was inspired by this adoption related painting to consider the concept of Safe. I found a related kind of article at LINK>Fostering Perspectives, an effort by the North Carolina Div of Social Services and their Family and Children’s Resource Program.

Safe can be defined as free from harm or hurt. So, feeling safe means you do not anticipate either harm or hurt, emotionally or physically. One emotion we often feel without consciously knowing it is the feeling of safety.

It’s likely you’re able to recall at least one time in your life when you didn’t feel safe. Do you remember what emotions you were experiencing when this happened? Several emotions often compete for attention during traumatic events like this. The author of the article writes – When I was feeling unsafe, I was scared and anxious, and my body just froze in place. My heart pounded and my mind was racing to figure out what was going to happen next. Because I was not in control of my body’s reaction, panic was closing in.

Your interest in adoption related topics including foster care and family preservation is probably why you read this blog. It is highly probable that you may have heard the expression “safety, permanence, and well-being” before. We use these terms to compartmentalize the vision we have for child’s welfare. Caring people want children to have a permanent family who will be there for them for the rest of their lives.

The concept of safety is always evolving. Historically, we may have thought of safety as simply being free from physical abuse, free from sexual abuse, free from emotional abuse, and free from neglect. This type of safety is a critical first step on the road to well-being. We can broaden our definition of safety to include the concept of feeling safe; a concept that is called psychological safety.

What research tells us is that permanency and general well-being alone are not enough. It matters if a child does not feel safe. To have the kind of a good quality childhood that allows the child to develop, grow and be well in all aspects, the child needs to have a feeling of psychological safety as well.

At every age in a child’s development there are things that help a child to feel safe. When they are very young it might be a pacifier, a special blanket, sucking their thumb, a stuffed toy, a loving caregiver, a kind word, a smile, a hug, or the act of either rocking back and forth or being rocked. As children grow older, a feeling of safety might take the form of a friendly voice on the telephone, a comfy pillow, a special meal, friends, clubs, a special location, spiritual beliefs, or books.

Unfortunately, some seek safety through unhealthy behaviors – over-eating food, getting drunk on alcohol and/or high on drugs.

One important thing to remember is that children who have experienced trauma may get a sense of safety from things we hardly ever think of being related to the concept – food being readily available to the child at all times might just help them feel safe from hunger. The comfortable temperature in a room might help them feel safe if they have experienced homelessness or inadequate shelter.

It can be surprising to learn that things we may believe should create the feeling of safety such as a comforting hug or a hot bath could actually cause a child who has been abused to feel terribly unsafe. Sights, sounds, smells, people, places, things, words, colors and even a child’s own feelings can become linked to trauma. Afterward, exposure to anything associated with the trauma can bring up intense and terrifying feelings. Often, these associations to a trauma will be completely unconscious.

This is why it can be challenging for non-related (genetically and biologically) caregivers to actually help. It could help to become a really good detective. Such an effort might help a child identify things that make them feel safe. It could also help eliminate or minimize the things that cause the child to feel unsafe.

All caring people should understand that just because a government agency has certified a foster/adoptive/kinship parent as “safe” (often meaning such obvious factors as having the right locks on doors, or that there are no criminals living in the home, and that family pets are up-to-date on their rabies shots) does not mean that a child moving into this home will feel safe. In fact, what government agencies define as a “safe home” has very little to do with a child placed there feeling safe.

“If your (adoptive) parents or foster parents go on and on about what happened a long time ago, that’s kind of putting you down and not really making you happy.”
~ Angel, age 13

Using Detachment To Make Space

Adoption trauma refers to the shock and pain of being permanently and abruptly separated from biological family members and can affect both the birth parent and the child who is being adopted, given the circumstances of the separation. We now know that a child’s attachment to her mother starts in the womb, so even a child adopted at birth can experience severe attachment disruption later on in life. A friend was recently expounding on attachment and it seemed like some worthy thoughts to put in this blog.

She writes – Had a conversation recently with a loved one about loss, trauma, wounds, living in a bubble where the sense of belonging is not clear. When we lose loved ones, for example, due to death or breakups, when we are rejected, or misunderstandings separate you from people who are important to you – places where there is lack of warmth, lack of connection, a kind of coldness and cruelty that is hard to put in words and if you do put into words, you look weak – it is embarrassing, humiliating – further you go into the wound, building a fence around you made of loss, confusion, distorted or loss in sense of purpose, aloneness, pain, trauma, rejection, grief, loss of control. You can create narratives that preach positivity and strength but the heart is wounded, the heart has a stab pain, bleeding your life away, whispers in your inner ear of why you are not good enough – if only you were this or that..then maybe it would be alright. What can you do? A silent rage covers the wound, like a thin skin to help you function. A fight for your life that feel a fight in a dark room with no light in sight.

Then the idea “don’t be attached” sounds like more abuse, more alone, squeezing the heart tighter, as if trying to end what you are, your life. “Don’t be attached” feels like more of a stab. Abandoning yourself, your hopes. Hearing the word detachment can feel shattering. ..that as bad as you feel, now, don’t be attached.

Don’t be attached doesn’t mean withdraw from love, hope, from what you care or cared about. Particularly not withdrawing from the part of you that hurts. Not being attached is to draw closer to the hurt parts, abandoned parts, wounded parts. Not being attached is separating your self from the *story*, situations, to change the focus from the situation to the wounds to learn from them what you need to, to take time to transform into a newer version of yourself that has yet to be embraced and has navigated billions of hurts and disappointments, sometimes flat out rejections and absolute betrayals and abandonments, some that go very deep. The deep wound can cause even the lightest slights to feel exaggerated. We become sensitive to how the wind is blowing. We haven’t embraced our pain fully enough to heal. Everything that brings that pain to the surface or creates those feelings, it is a chance to embrace the wounded part, look at it, reason through, let others off the hook for a time, look at yourself, the wound, be alone with yourself, giving yourself time to heal. Otherwise, we might not sense when we are in relationships with people that abandon, hurt, reject – – because we haven’t yet developed a healthy one with the wounds we carry – using that as proof over and again that we are not worthy of more or pursue it, or even how…where.

Detachment is a short term method to make space to see yourself differently, to tend to your wounds properly, to love yourself rightly, to see things thorough and to come to terms once and for all – help yourself, gently, so we can evolve beyond the wounds.

**I do also consider there possibly being a radical process to detachment. A leap – as if off a cliff into a void, another world – where if you could do it – as if die to what you are – you would open to a world you had no idea is there, that you have only been seeing your thoughts and hardly reflecting anything at all but those thoughts – not reality. I imagine a Remembering, a rejoining with something exciting and pure. Personally, I find the idea and concept curious, the thought intriguing, and at times dwell on getting beyond idea and thoughts and wonder if there is another world..maybe a real world, reflected from a free conscience, a surprise, beyond *your* mind.

She ends it with this advice – Think about that then turn and say something silly and reveal your human flaws and personal prejudices. Even though your mind is there, inching in miles toward a leap.

What It’s Like To Age Out

Today’s story (not my story) –

I’m in Kansas. From age 2 to 18 I was in and out of the foster system. I aged out 4/27/2022, 11 days after my 18th birthday. The state aged me out and left me with nothing. I stayed living with my kinship placement for awhile. The night before graduation she kicked me out and the day of graduation texted me telling me she expected me to come home and get ready for graduation. She kicked me out again, after I told her I was taking a semester off before starting college. I spent the hottest part of summer homeless and couch surfing. I came back to her house 9/21/2022 and it’s been rocky. She continuously threatens to kick me out, which would be fine but I have nowhere to go. I have a Div of Child and Family Services worker at the moment, who is somewhat helping me out but she is hard to get ahold of. I am currently working as a server and about to become a manager as well as starting college this month. I don’t have many options right now and don’t really know what to do.

One adoptee offered this advice (which I agree with) – Don’t go back to that house. And honestly if u make more as a server don’t take the management position unless it’s more money. I’ve only taken lead server roles where I made more hourly and got to keep my tips also. Look on LINK>Roomster – it’s an app for roommates. That way you can at least get a room of your own. While you work on yourself. And it turns out that the management position is $2 more than what she is making now. And if she get tips while being a manager, she gets to keep them.

Since she indicated transportation issues, one person suggested that in some states, the Department of Vocational Rehabilitation will provide Driver’s Education classes for people who need to be able to drive themselves to and from job searches/work. She wrote back – I passed the driver’s education class, but had to be medically cleared. By the time I was finally medically cleared I had to retake to test and haven’t been able to.

Re: the housing issues, after someone suggested Catholic Charities (and talking to an advisor at the college about what might be available to share), she adds – “I did have rapid rehousing with Catholic Charities but when I worked at Amazon, I lost it because I made too much.”

And I didn’t realize Reddit could be helpful – there was this – Reddit is more anonymous and you can post on your local sub (probably r/”city name” as well as r/assistance, r/almost homeless, r/ex_foster and r/fosterit.) Your college might also have some resource suggestions, google “college name” + “counseling department.” Assuming you’re in the US, call 211 as well.

I rented rooms in apartments and houses from age 19-28 with roommates I found off of Craigslist, despite it’s bad rap. Many rooms do not require a credit score (I moved countries once, and credit scores don’t transfer.)

Also look up YMCA Host Homes to see if that’s a thing in your city, it’s a small program but could be an option.

All this, just to give you an idea of what these young people are up against. There is much more and I am hopeful that somehow my group which is so resourceful will be able to help this young woman somehow.

Adoption Disenfranchisement

I was attracted to a Medium article today with the title LINK>Understanding Adoption – Epistemological Implications by Shane Bouel today. The image hits a deep place. It was created by Thoughtless Delineation – AI ART. Just today, I posted “There are 2 good things in life – Freedom of Thought and Freedom of Action.” I am borrowing from and adding my own insights and understandings to the article linked above.

However in reading the linked article I find reason for deeper contemplation – “All social behavior is guided by values. Thus the study of social behavior can never be value-free if value freedom is interpreted in the sense of the absence of values because the values of the society under investigation form a part of the social facts to be studied by sociology.”

He goes on to say – “Knowledge and power are linked. In order to reveal the nature of the knowledge/power nexus and its relationship to the process of adoption we must not only ask what we know about adoption but more importantly, ask how we come to know what we know about adoption.” He is actually talking about adoption in Australia but I expect what he has to say applies here in the United States as well.

Adoption is a social construct. The understanding of adoption by those considered experts – social workers, mental health professionals and policymakers – places them in a powerful position as the creators and arbiters of knowledge related to adoption. Their understanding of adoption has a particular influence on the way it is presented and represented both theoretically and as practice. Therefore, some understandings are a result of distortions of the knowledge process. These distortions are products of validating certain kinds of knowledge by promoting certain narratives and silencing others.

Statements about the real nature of adoption become everyday knowledge for most people, especially those with no direct experience of the practice. The habit of understanding social phenomena like adoption with our personally unquestioned beliefs (because they are scientifically legitimate) instead of first attempting to understand the nature and origin of those beliefs is especially evident when we take a holistic view of the experience of being adopted as expressed by many adoptees.

Some would have us believe that the primary motivating force behind much excluding, value-free social research has been conspiratorial, that it has been little more than a premeditated and conscious desire by the powerful to control the less powerful. However worse is the acceptance, legitimization and application of objectified, positivistic notions about the real nature of adoption. These deny us access to the multi-level experiences of those (adoptees and birth parents) who have been subjected to it. Moreover, blind faith in the power of positivistic social science has further resulted in the institutionalized devaluing and belittling of those suffering its effects. Those individuals who have been, in some way, consumed by the process and who have spoken out loudly about their experiences have been viewed as little more than emotionally charged, angry and therefore irrational persons out of touch with reality.

Not only has the individual affected been blamed for the socially created, contradictory, unintended and unwanted effects of the adoption process but they have also been systematically alienated, ridiculed and stigmatized. Adoption has been portrayed and presented as given, unalterable and self-evident and as a consequence, it confronts the individual as a historically and scientifically justified, objective and benign process and therefore, it is undeniable fact. The biography of those consumed by the process is apprehended merely as a reactive, subjective personal episode, separate and distanced from the institution of adoption. Many affected persons experience adoption objectively as coercion and in many cases worse, as an oppressive force.

He has much more to say. It is time well spent to read his worthwhile essay.

A Never Baby Person Parented

Kelsey Graham with baby daughter

I’m a family preservation, never adopt out if one can help it, person and so I really liked this story in the LINK>Huffington Post – “What It’s Like To Be The ‘Young Mom’.”

Kelsey admits – “I was never a baby person. Growing up, when family members would have kids, I stood back, adoring the baby from afar, but passing on chances to hold it. I never babysat beyond watching my younger brother. And while it’s true what they say — when it’s your child, it’s different — it was still overwhelming being responsible for another life when I was just starting to lay the foundation for my own.”

She was in her sophomore year of college when she got pregnant and was 20 when she had her baby. I can relate. I was 19 when I had my daughter. My pregnancy was deliberate as I was married and all of our “married” friends also had young children and so, I didn’t see any reason to wait. Really, I was still a child when my daughter was young. My marriage didn’t last and unlike the author of this story, I didn’t go on to college until much later when I picked up a few hours but never graduated.

Happily, for Kelsey – she is still with her then boyfriend and now father of her daughter. With a strong support system from her family, her boyfriend, and his family, she was able to finish her degree. At 27, she was fortunate enough to return to school to earn her master’s degree. During that time, she worked in the Graduate School Office as an assistant with other students ranging in age from 20-year-olds who had just graduated with their bachelor’s to others in their 30s. She says, “It was nice to be around people closer to my age and, even more, to be back in the school setting I loved and where I felt like I belonged.”

Often feeling like she didn’t fit in, which she describes in quite a bit of detail in her op-ed, she realized that women are judged for whatever choices they make, especially if they deviate from the very narrow idea of what’s “normal.” I also understand this from my own personal experiences but thankfully, I do have friends who seem to understand my unconventional life experiences are what make me – “me”.

I do know that I have always been living my life as best I could. I know my experiences matter just as much as those who have trod more conventional paths. I am glad for my Facebook friends today. I realize these woman include all the women who have also taken the path less traveled. It’s comforting. The author notes – “Being a young mom is what brought her to me, and I’ll always feel lucky for that.” Yes, I can say the same about my own daughter – despite the bumps on our own journey together, when I could not financially support the two of us and didn’t have the kind of family support the author had on her own journey, I was no longer married to my daughter’s father and he didn’t believe in paying child support nor did I want to fight him for it.

Kelsey is a Copywriter and Freelance Writer. You can find her at LinkedIn here – https://www.linkedin.com/in/grahamkelsey/.