Wednesday, April 24, 2002

Aids Babies Come of Age

Bryan Robinson, an ABC reporter who has spent a little over a year volunteering at a home for children born with AIDS -- the Incarnation Center, has written a thought provoking article on issues facing these children as they become teenagers.

Not expected to live long, education was never a priority. But with the advent of better drug therapies, life span has increased and now dating, getting a job and other complications are soon to be reality.

Also from ABC is a related excerpt from You Get Past The Tears: A Memoir of Love and Survival, a book written by a teenager born with AIDS and her adoptive mother. The featured part of the book is from Patricia Broadbent's, the mother's, perspective as a foster parent.

She says many things well -- but I particularly liked this paragraph -- especially the last sentence:

Some people see taking in a foster child as a noble sacrifice. For me it wasn't about that. I had always enjoyed kids and had spent most of my adult life working with them in both the public and private sectors. I imagine that there were people who looked at the lifestyle my husband, Loren, and I had made and wondered why we did it. Three children from my previous marriage and one from ours had been adopted. I had always felt that parenting had more to do with how you raised a child once you got him than with how you got him.

The daughter was four when she was diagnosed with AIDS.

Click here for Robinson's article.

Click here for the book excerpt.

posted by Bohica at 8:41 AM