Motherless Child: The Story of A Life by Sarah Gordon Weathersby
Motherless Child: The Story Of A Life - Amazon Press
"
I must say that I was moved to tears reading this book by Sarah Gordon Weathersby; not once, but several times. Motherless Child chronicles the life of a teenage girl in the 1960's, who, when faced with an unplanned pregnancy at a critical time in her life and that of her family, makes an agonizing choice. The choice she makes to give up her child for adoption has consequences. The result for the child, she comes to believe, was one that has many benefits. The result for her was a lifetime of pain and wondering.
That which seemed the greatest of tragedies in the 1960's, nearly 40 years later, mainly because of the many adjustments in societal mores in America, becomes bearable. It is bearable because the child had grown up in a loving home and became a doctor and a happily married mother. But the uncertainty of all those years almost consumes the author. The writing is so pointed and graceful at the same time. It points to the inward grief of a girl who becomes a woman in an instant, and it paints on a very large canvass of the 60's through the 90's multifaceted scenes of pathos and humor.
This story could have been about any girl faced with seemingly insurmountable odds, but because the story is about an African American girl in a typical African American family it has particular meaning for an America who almost never gets a glimpse into that class of families. So, often the stereotypes of "gangsta" rap, and of Daniel Patrick Moynihan, the American sociologist and politician who advised Nixon's America to treat African Americans with "benign neglect", becomes easy substitutes for the complex society of African Americans in the United States. These approaches sometimes dull the sensitiveness of other Americans to the human element present in that society as in any other society.
"Motherless Child: The Story of A Life" almost single handedly draws the reader out of that silly cocoon into the realities of the red blooded life of a person who experiences tragedy and triumph in one life."
Dr. Michael V.W. Gordon
Professor Emeritus, Indiana University
Former Vice Chancellor/Dean of Students
"
I must say that I was moved to tears reading this book by Sarah Gordon Weathersby; not once, but several times. Motherless Child chronicles the life of a teenage girl in the 1960's, who, when faced with an unplanned pregnancy at a critical time in her life and that of her family, makes an agonizing choice. The choice she makes to give up her child for adoption has consequences. The result for the child, she comes to believe, was one that has many benefits. The result for her was a lifetime of pain and wondering.
That which seemed the greatest of tragedies in the 1960's, nearly 40 years later, mainly because of the many adjustments in societal mores in America, becomes bearable. It is bearable because the child had grown up in a loving home and became a doctor and a happily married mother. But the uncertainty of all those years almost consumes the author. The writing is so pointed and graceful at the same time. It points to the inward grief of a girl who becomes a woman in an instant, and it paints on a very large canvass of the 60's through the 90's multifaceted scenes of pathos and humor.
This story could have been about any girl faced with seemingly insurmountable odds, but because the story is about an African American girl in a typical African American family it has particular meaning for an America who almost never gets a glimpse into that class of families. So, often the stereotypes of "gangsta" rap, and of Daniel Patrick Moynihan, the American sociologist and politician who advised Nixon's America to treat African Americans with "benign neglect", becomes easy substitutes for the complex society of African Americans in the United States. These approaches sometimes dull the sensitiveness of other Americans to the human element present in that society as in any other society.
"Motherless Child: The Story of A Life" almost single handedly draws the reader out of that silly cocoon into the realities of the red blooded life of a person who experiences tragedy and triumph in one life."
Dr. Michael V.W. Gordon
Professor Emeritus, Indiana University
Former Vice Chancellor/Dean of Students
