Terminal illness makes you an unfit parent...The Alaina Giordano Case

I am pretty pissed off this morning. I like Mike Galanos of Headline News on my Facebook Page and one of the stories highlighted on his feed is the case of Alaina Giordano. She is a single mom of two who was diagnosed with Stage 4 breast cancer. She divorced her husband  a year or so ago, he moved to Chicago. She stayed in Durham, North Carolina where she is receiving treatment at Duke for her illness. The female judge cited the fact that her terminal illness was a deciding factor in giving custody to the children's father. As Alaina Giordano herself said on a recent interview, none of us knows when we are going to die. The judge also cited that she was unemployed, shes been making it financially so far so thats just a buncha caca. My issue is that she left her husband because he was abusive...don't know all of the details but she was diagnosed prior to her divorce. Is he really the fit parent of the two? He has a job, that is not going to make him a better parent...the judge even said it would be easier for her to move to Chicago..what an asinine comment!
If her ex had any concern for his kids he would not be dragging their mother through court at a time like this and instead think of their  mental well being. Its devastating enough to know that your mother is going to die from a disease like Cancer, let alone to know that you may not be there to make those memories that would keep her alive in you. Her children are quite young 11, and almost 6, impressionable and so needing their Mom at this age. I would wish that he move to where she lives, that he have the compassion to think of the mother of his children as someone he once loved. Together they could work on the future of their kids, that he allow them this time with her no matter how long, 5 months or 20 years. After all they, the kids, are what is important here.
If this ruling is allowed to stand think of the precedent it would set, that a parent with a terminal illness, cancer, AIDS, or worse yet degenerative diseases like MS and or Parkinson's could risk losing the custody of their children.What do you think?

WHEN A CAT IS A BETTER MOTHER THAN A HUMAN, MY THOUGHTS ON THE UPCOMING CASEY ANTHONY MURDER TRIAL

The Casey Anthony murder trial is a week away, almost three years after the disappearance of her young daughter Caylee Anthony, she will be tried in her murder. I have been watching some of the shows that are leading up to the trial itself. I only knew vague information about the case until just recently and was not really following it. When I did watch a news show recently it focused on the fact that the trial would be set in another county and that jury selection was going to be a big focus in this high profile case. The show selected a jury and and a case was presented to them, more than half of the people on the jury voted for acquittal of Casey Anthony. This is because of the lack of physical evidence in this case. I am saddened and hope that a verdict will not be for acquittal, but rather I hope one of guilty will be found. It is a very hard case for both the prosecution and the defense to present, but one nonetheless that will focus on the fact that Caylee Anthony just two at the time of her disappearance was murdered and tossed into a remote area like yesterdays trash. Casey Anthony did not report her child missing for 31 days, and only after her mother confronted her about her vehicle that she had abandoned did she concoct a story about Caylee being left with a non-existent nanny. Casey Anthony partied it up like any 22 year old would at that age. Her behavior would not be so questionable except for the fact that her daughter was missing.
Casey was a young mother obviously, one probably overwhelmed with being a single parent. Despite all of the help you have or support being a parent at any age is not an easy thing let alone being a single parent. At the heart of my post tonight is the fact that I think a lot of parents don't realize their breaking point. Don't mistake my post as having any sympathy for a person like Casey Anthony. I don't have any for her. I believe wholeheartedly she killed her child and went on living as if she never even existed. I believe she is a sick individual. What I am saying is that a lot of people do not know how to ask for help when they need it. If only she had given custody to her parents or had asked for help so she could get her life together then maybe Caylee would still be alive.
We all at times as parents have had to walk away from our children, who have pushed us to a point that we don't even recognize the person we had become. Whether through anger or frustration or an inability to cope we have yelled when it was unnecessary or spanked, or said something we regretted. If you tell me you have never done any of those things than great, you must be the patron saint of parenting, and I really don't believe you. What I do believe is that a damned cat can be a better parent than a human being can. Remember Scarlett the cat that saved her five kittens from a burning building? Being selfless is not just a human trait. Parenting is thee hardest job in the world! We are not taught, it is a learn on the job process. Some of us are better learners than others. If you are a young parent or single, or both, then it is doubly worse. I am not making excuses here, I am saying that some people are not capable of recognizing the warning sign telling them what they are about to do is wrong. They just do it and then later say they did not know what they were doing.
What made Casey Anthony lose it? I see single young mothers every day who are on the verge and the scariest thing is they don't even know it. What I want this post to leave you with is a resource. Someone who is readily available when you think you are at your limit, Parents Anonymous is a national group with local chapters  http://www.parentsanonymous.org/ and http://www.nationalparenthelpline.org/ or call the National Parent Helpline at 1-855-427-2736. Just because you can have a child does not mean you know the first thing about being a parent, being a better parent means you know when to ask for help.

"Diary of a Single Mom" rings sooooo true....

What am I doing up at this hour? Its raining outside, the kids are asleep, the house is making  settling sounds and I am on my blogher.com and I come across a post about this PIC series "Diary of a Single Mom" and at first I was like YAWN..... but then I kept on watching the episodes and let me tell you they ring sooo true. Some of them are a little overdramaticized and kinda stereotypical but really as I watch more I find it speaking to me, especially this episode http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid1641244102?bctid=52215407001
The shows heroine Ocean learns that having dreams and wants as a single mom is so vital to moving forward in her own life and bettering her life for her children. Made me wanna prioritize more..... thanks DOASM . I am looking forward to seeing more episodes and following the growth of the characters!
So check it out on who woulda thought, the Public Internet Channel? I love it~NotUrTypicalGma

LOOK IN THE MIRROR! IS YOUR FACE THE NEXT FACE OF HOMELESSNES?

I find that my life has taken many twists and turns along the road less traveled. In each of these little side trips I have learned something valuable. Sometimes I find that I have to repeat these life lessons a few times before I actually learn from them. I was homeless on my own without my children almost 10 years ago and though that was stressful it was not as bad as being homeless with them years later. I had made a series of bad choices, living in a house shared with others is never a good idea, it never works. Especially if it is family. Then we moved into a house that we could not afford, we thought we would because my love was working and I was working and we got this bright idea to have a paper route to supplement our income! Wrong, people do not pay up. Then my love goes on a binge and loses his job. I injure my back at work and it all goes down hill from there. We stayed at the local Rescue Mission, and I talked my way into yet another apartment. In between that time we actually slept in our van at a lake. Once I called my cousin out of town for money for a motel room, it was like being at a five star hotel. We were clean and fed but we were tired of having to stay out on the weekends all day because the policy at the mission is to be gone until supper time. That was more draining than anything. We sat in the park and longed for a bed to lay on. Even if it was just a mattress without a box spring. We longed for a nice hot bath and fresh fluffy towels. We had to shower after other people at a certain hour and shower quickly. We had to attend Bible Study because it is faith based, not that faith is a bad thing, faith is important and somehow that is what you cling to. Faith may be the only thing you have in times like these that pull you through. You sit in this Bible study with others in your situation, and some who will never learn that life lesson, addicts and cons and people you think lesser than you. It is during this time that I realize I am not any better, I have belly flopped off of my pedestal, and dragged my kids down with me. It was also at this time that my teenage daughter was pregnant. What kind of Mother was I?

There were days that I would cry when no one else was around and days when I would cry when everyone was around. My love had spiraled into his demise, heavy back into the meth scene. I became tired of the life that I was living. After moving several times, more than not getting evicted, because I knew how long that took from my experience with the house. I learned to drag it out, to have a place to stay a little bit longer. The moving and transition was due to a garnishment of 25 percent on my paycheck, leaving me with sometimes bi-weekly checks as little as 325 dollars. Garnishments for the house that we thought we could afford to rent. I still have that stinking garnishment but I am going though a paralegal to file bankruptcy and soon, poof that will disappear. I just have a great landlord that lets me pay every time I get paid to lessen the burden. She knows my history and I am determined not to live that way again. I live in a quaint little house with a great yard for my grandson. I love this house! It is "our" house.

We have a large homeless population in my central California town. As a transit driver I see a lot of them, some are families or parts of families single parents mostly. Some are street people who have lost their way due to alcohol and drug use. Some are mentally unstable, nameless faces that pass through or take up permanent residence in our local park or  the benches at my workplace. There is Roger the alcoholic heroin addict, former hairdresser to the stars. Stories of Jimi Hendrix, and Stevie Nicks pepper his conversations. He talks about not always having been this way. One day he disappeared and he was gone for two weeks before he miraculously arose from the dead. The story was that he had been found dead out by the river one frigid morning. No, not our Roger he came into town freshly shaved, his blue eyes twinkling off of the light reflecting from his silvery gray hair that was brushed back neatly. We were all genuinely surprised if not happy to see him and he laughed off the "Roger is Dead" headline. Coyly saying "I was at my cousins for two weeks." The weather warms up and he is out and about.

Some of the street people get permanent addresses and get legit and some of them clean up and get sober, one such couple was Pam and Tom. Tom was an old codger who had a penchant for living on the wind and he also had a penchant for Pam a former stripper. Pam had a penchant for meth. So at the beginning of every month Tom would get his SSI and Pam would entice it from him. Tom told me once that he was so in love with Pam that it didn't matter what she did. He said the heart could not help who it loved. He had tears in his eyes as he said this. Tom and Pam were in an car accident, he suffered a concussion and he started to suffer dementia after that. He lived for a short time in a community with disabled people, but he would sneak out to see Pam. Still knowing how to get to his love when he needed to. Pam then entered a shelter for women who suffer from chronic homelessness called the Shunamite House. I believe she has lived there for a year and has gotten clean and is now Toms care provider. They ride the bus occasionally now and again running errands or going to the doctor. Tom secured housing in a Senior Living Community.

So it touched me to see a young woman riding my bus with a little wisp of a girl, and I guessed that she was homeless. She was well spoken and her child was clean and well kept, and I recognized that all too familiar dreariness on her face. We began talking and she told me she was at the shelter. I said I understood what she was going through and then I offered her some resources. This girl was already en pointe, securing homeless status for the Housing Authority transferring her social services case, all of the things rolling to get out of the situation. She told me after a few conversations that she felt a stigma and that she was someone who had a great job as a correctional officer and had education and never thought she would find herself homeless. She hated how people down talked her and made her feel less than. She talked about not wanting to settle for the first place that came along because she did not want a bad environment for her daughter. How someone made her feel that she had too high an expectation, because everyone knows if you are homeless you should not aspire to wanting more than less then. The attitude of ignorant uncaring people makes me so angry that I just want to scream in their faces, " if it was you going through this wouldn't you want to salvage any dignity you had!", really just yell at them till their faces vibrated and their hair blew back! So I empathized with her, but i didn't pity her, that is not what a person in her circumstance needs. I gave her my number but she has never called me, and I even told her where I lived so she could go to my house and be in a nice cool place when it was 106 degrees here. She has never come.I saw her a few days ago and things are getting better, her final paperwork is going through, funds for section 8 housing choice vouchers will be available in December. Section 8 programs are available in all states and are funded by the HUD department www.hud.gov/ . This allows tenants the right to choose a residence that meets strict criteria and is certified as a section 8 housing residence. It allows low income individuals and families to pay a percentage of their rent, the rest is funded by HUD. People who are successful on this program have the opportunity to buy their own homes through the DAP program which allows families to get assistance for a down payment on a home being built in an unincorporated area of the county or city. There is also the Self Help Program www.selfhelpenterprises.org/ , which allows families to use sweat equity as a down payment on their new homes also built in unincorporated areas. Often times this is the only way low income families are able to own homes. Imagine going from homeless to homeowner, and what a great feeling it is. I am just happy for now renting my house!

My new friend tells me she will come by this weekend when I have a yard sale. I told her to bring stuff she needs to get rid of and come and relax for the day. I hope she does show up. Just the other night my girls and their friend walked to the neighborhood store and it was a little later. My oldest rushed in to tell me that there was a young woman standing out in front of the store with a little girl and luggage and a container filled with toys. I immediately thought of my new friend. She said she looked lost and scared, and at the moment that she was going to approach her to see if she needed anything a woman got out of her car and offered this young mother a ride. She accepted and I can only imagine the situation she was leaving to take a ride with a compassionate stranger. I know if I would have been there I would have done the same thing. Would you have?

Homelessness in America is not going to go away anytime soon and the homeless people who are in your town don't deserve to be shunned or discarded like trash, sometimes a kind word is all that is needed. Maybe a sandwich or hot coffee or cold water. Be thankful that you are sitting in your house tonight with a nice meal even if its Hamburger Helper, and electricity, and the sounds of people near you. That you are able to take a hot bath for how ever long you want. When you put your head on your pillow in your bed think of those people who are trying to find a place to sleep. Think of me and my kids in our van, and how I still got up and went to work and they to school everyday. We were fortunate to have the assistance of Madera Unified School Ditricts liason Rachel Donatelli who gave us information about keeping my girls in their schools. Homeless students sometimes find refuge at school because it is the only stable environment they experience during their period of homelessness. This link provides information on a national level for homeless student assistance http://www.seirtec.org/nche/index.php. The McKinney Act which you can also find in the previous link provides information regarding the laws of "The No Child Left Behind Act" as it applies to homeless students. Do not pity us we are better people for having had that experience. We are stronger as individuals and as a family. Home truly is where the heart is. If you or someone you know is at risk of or are experiencing homelessness contact www.maderacap.org/ locally for emergency rent vouchers or funds for temporary shelter, or nationally www.nationalhomeless.org/ 


October 29,2010
Just wanted to add that Roger passed away he fell at the bus station and hit the back of his head and fractured his skull, he went into a coma and passed on October 25th, we all miss you Roger and know that you are in a much better place probably talking with Jimi and Janis about their hair.
In memory of Rodger Dwayne Lott. The place won't be the same without you.