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Hand-Me-Downs When I was 20, I worked in a nursing home. One day I overheard a conversation between Minnie, one of the nursing assistants, and a woman named Amelia, who called her patients her babies. I was microwaving soup, trying not to listen to Minnie sell the idea of foster-parenting to Amelia as if it were a piece of questionable real estate. "It’s not bad at all," Minnie said, "and you can't beat the money." If they took in one more... read more Until the Real Thing Comes Along Fourteen years ago, at a loss for love, I got a puppy. "It will complicate your life," my sister objected. "You won’t be able to go anywhere."
"Dogs are a huge responsibility," friends warned. But I did it anyway.
It was true: I had to skip lunch to get home to walk her. I had to rush home after work to walk her, and, for a while, I had to get up in the middle of the night... read more Waiting for Working Moms
When my group of waiting-to-adopt friends met to talk, work was the last thing on our minds. We focused on travel advisories, referral pictures, and how to buy clothes for kids we hadn't yet met.
One year later, we're settled in with our children...and our talk is all about balance: of budgets, of work, of relationships and family life. Cathy took a second job. Sandy got laid off and decided to stay that way. Karen spent a crazy year working... read more
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