RAISING and LOSING, MY REMARKABLE TEENAGE MOTHER : ANCESTRY WORSHIP GENEALOGY BOOK REVIEW

 

This memoir by Stacey Aaronson, born Stacey Hill, is about a life that many have lived, being the child of a teenager mother who had a brief relationship with their birth father and a marriage to give the child a name.  It moves through the years quickly.  Stacey moved around a lot, between her birth parents, and spent long years not living with her mother, who went through many relationships and marriages.  What I wasn't expecting was that her mother herself had been adopted and that was a mystery.

Stacey is given to mystical powers such as second site and believes that she chose this mother before she was born and had a vision of her mother's birth mother as a child.  But she also feels it was up to her to raise her mother. Since eventually her mother's birth mother was found, this is not a case of Stacey being born again to do that.

In 1990 her mom got the NONIDENTIFYING INFORMATION about her own mother who gave birth to her in the Long Beach, California area in 1952.  That information is given fully in the book and I was surprised at how much information it was. I could imagine putting that all up on an adoption registry.

It turns out that teenage pregnancies among adoptees is common and the theory presented is that this is so the teenager can have someone in their life of their own genetics.  This theory is floated but not detailed.

The book does not say how the person who was hired to get the information unsealing the adoption proceeded, and I did wonder.  Upon the first phone call the birth mother completely denied it.  It took three phone calls.  So, now here is the disappointment.  For the next eighteen years Stacey's mother and her mother's birth mother sent cards and had telephone calls. They developed a relationship slowly but never met in person. Never. There was always a sense that this birth mother was withholding information and herself. It's said that she was a little bit Cherokee.

Stacey was not born Jewish. She discovered and was drawn to Judaism and converted.  She changed her name to Aaronson as part of her acceptance of a Jewish life.  She belongs to liberal Jewish congregations that accept women as Rabbis and accept lesbians.  Her partner is someone she met on the internet and had a long distance friendship with and it took a while for the friends to realize their soul connection and that it was not a "cyber illusion." Also, though she did have a relationship with a man who she was attracted to when she was young, she ended an engagement with another man who she was not attracted to. She realized she's lesbian and has had a long term relationship with a partner. Her mother instantly and fully accepted this. 

In 2016, after her birth mother had died, Stacey's mother got herself a DNA heritage kit and learned that the birth mother had lied on her NONIDENTIFYING INFORMATION....

Her birth father was not part Cherokee, he was Jewish.  And while that could have been a misunderstanding, she also lied about how many siblings she had.  The mystery is therefore one that will go unsolved forever. Not a lot is said about this woman other than that Stacey had been right in her vision of her as a toddler.  She was red haired and a lot like the actress Audrey Meadows.

The voice of this book is young and enthusiastic but it does get into the gritty details of her mother's death.  Somehow I did not get how it is that Stacey raised her mom.

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