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Tuesday, June 30, 2009

July NYC WOMENS DINNER and LI RESOLVE PEER GROUP


Womens Midtown Dinner Monday,July 13, 5:30-7:30 pm.
Womens Resolve LI Peer Group meeting, Thursday July 16, 6:30-8:30pm in East Meadow.

AFA June 2 Teleconference with Patricia Mendell and Joann Paley Galst

When its hard to get out for in-person counseling or peer group meetings, the teleconferences given by The AFA and Resolve can be very helpful.

On June 2 the topic was Disclosure and here is what Joann Paley Galst, PhD said in summing up....

There is no one right way to share this information with your child, It's
important that you are comfortable with your reproductive choices.If you
start early in sharing, you get to practice. You'll have lots of opportunities
to convey the message to your child. If you demonstrate love both to your child
and between members of the couple if you are a couple, you provide the security
within which kds can handle most anything.

I think I would add for single moms that by conveying your message with love and offering your child connections with both family and friends outside of your nuclear family, you will provide your child with honesty and security within the stability of your family, your heart, and the larger world of which your family is a part.

Joann Paley Galst, Ph.D.

Thursday, June 11, 2009

Language

A very important topic to me is the language we use around 3rd Party Reproduction and Parenting.Not only does it educate others, I think it helps us to assimilate and accept what is not always an easy concept for many people to wrap their head around.

Diane Ehrensaft, in her book "Mommies, Daddies, Donors, Surrogates", coined a phrase for what to call the donor, "Genetic Other". Its a favorite of mine although this is not complete for me so I am still on an inner quest to further define what a donor is to ME-before anyone actually legislates one. Lets not even go there.

Another one about parent and child is from Marna Gatlin at PVED.org:

Natural Child: Any child who is not artificial.
Real Parent: Any parent who is not imaginary.
Your Own Child: Any child who is not someone else's.
Adopted Child (or add something else here): A natural child, whose parents are not imaginary, and is our own.

Marna just wrote a great article that she posted on the PVED blog.
The title is "I'm The Mom, I'm The Mom, I'm The Mom"!

Here is a link.

http://tpvedo.blogspot.com/2009/05/im-mom-im-mom-im-mom.html

June Events Updated 6.11.09

Thursday June 18, Womens Dinner in Midtown 5:30-7:30pm.

Thursday June 24, Donor Family Night with Donors,email PMendell@aol.com or go to theafa.org to register.

Thursday June 25, Island Resolve Peer Support Group 3rd Part Parenting and Repro Mtg in East Meadow, 6:30-8:30pm, Women only.

Sunday June 28th, Upper West Side, All-inclusive NYC Gathering.All MVED, PVED FVED SMC TPPN and anyone interested are welcome.