DMC: Room for two mothers in his life

Jane, DMC, and Jeanette Roberts at AAC 3-8-07

I met the rapper, Darryl McDaniels ( DMC)  in 2007 when I attended the annual conference of the American Adoption Congress in Boston with my good friend and fellow first mother Jeanette Roberts. In truth I had never heard of DMC and knew nothing about rap music. I learned he was a late discovery adoptee and an advocate for opening records.

I bought his just published book Ten Ways Not to Commit Suicide: A Memoir because I wanted to learn more about his adoption experience and as way of thanking him for standing up for adoption reform and taking the time to pose with me and Jeanette in a picture. I'm glad I did.

Secrets in adoption: Dealing with betrayal of lies by omission

Lorraine, not quite incognito

Sunday's New York Times had an essay called "Great Betrayals," about the victims of long held lies in their families. The psychiatrist who wrote the essay, Anna Fels, tells of a friend whose husband had hid a huge credit card debt, and even after divulging the secret, he continued to lie about the amount and refuse to divulge how the money was spent. The wife was left to puzzle it out for herself. "The disclosure wreaked financial and emotional havoc on their family," writes Fels.

She then discusses how clients of hers dealing with the revelation of "new, pivotal information" were often left to deal with the emotional jolt on their own. Society is likely to forgive the miscreant who kept the secret, but the victim gets little support. Writers have the option of making sense of the secret they were not in on through writing, but others don't. As Fels notes: