On Becoming
When my daughter was born, a new person was born inside of me. One that thought a lot more about what it meant to be other, outside, and different. I had lived my whole life inside the comfortable confines of being a middle class white person. Sure, my parents struggled and lived on the fringes of consumerism. We had enough, but only just. My dad worked hard, my mom worked hard, and we got by with enough. I never spent a whole lot of time considering what not enough looks like. I had what I needed, I never went hungry, and my parents provided toys and movies and other entertainments that are the hallmark of what we might consider American life. But, when my daughter came to us with a complicated background, this new person inside me started to wonder. Why were circumstances for others so different from my own? How would her life be different with another family? What if her birth mother had decided a different path? These questions, and lots of others, were pushed and enlarg