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Dahleen Glanton: As first lady, Melania Trump always stood by her man
Melania Trump never found her voice as first lady. For four years, she could not distinguish herself as anything other than Donald Trump’s wife. Like her husband, she didn’t care for White House traditions. She performed her duties, including decorating for Christmas, begrudgingly. She promoted her own initiative, “Be Best,” halfheartedly and ineffectively. Prior to leaving the White House on Wednesday, she again broke protocol by refusing to meet with the incoming first lady. The unofficial obligation has long been considered a ritual of the peaceful transfer of power from one administration ...
Chicago Tribune
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Penn student who aged out of foster care wins prestigious Rhodes Scholarship
PHILADELPHIA — Mackenzie Fierceton grew up poor, cycling through the rocky child welfare system. She bounced from one foster home to the next. One home, during her junior year of high school, was so “toxic” and crammed with other foster kids that she left for weeks at a time, sleeping each night on a carousel of couches at the homes of various friends, she said.“It was a very challenging and isolating experience,” Fierceton said. “At my school, everyone kind of knew me as like the foster kid who all these bad things had happened to.”She poured herself into her studies.“School was always an out...
The Philadelphia Inquirer
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Living with Children: Avoid this trap
Nearly every time I talk to an adoptive parent, I become saddened, disgusted, angry or each in turn. It recently happened again.The parent in question is the mother of a pre-teen boy who was adopted in early toddlerhood – at least a year before the ability to remember past events develops. Research has established that no matter the intensity of an event occurring before 36 months on average and very rarely before 24 months, a child will not have recall of it. When “memories” of infancy and early toddlerhood are subjected to verification, they seldom pass the test.The parents of this young fel...
Tribune News Service
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Living with Children: Avoid this trap
Nearly every time I talk to an adoptive parent, I become saddened, disgusted, angry or each in turn. It recently happened again.The parent in question is the mother of a pre-teen boy who was adopted in early toddlerhood – at least a year before the ability to remember past events develops. Research has established that no matter the intensity of an event occurring before 36 months on average and very rarely before 24 months, a child will not have recall of it. When “memories” of infancy and early toddlerhood are subjected to verification, they seldom pass the test.The parents of this young fel...
Tribune News Service
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Former foster student donates $42,500 to the school that changed his life
SEATTLE — When James Abbott pulls at the threads of his childhood memories, he describes one in particular like a scene from a movie.“A car comes up, you are told to get in the car, and the car drives away. The last picture you have is your mom on the porch crying.”That was the moment when Abbott, who is now 60, left his family and entered foster care.Abbott, who grew up in Snohomish County, Washington, spent most of his high school years with a foster-care family. He was a computer geek in the 1980s, spent his career as a certified public accountant in the 1990s and has worked for Microsoft s...
The Seattle Times
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A Philly fight over faith and foster parents heads to the Supreme Court, pitting religious freedom against LGBTQ rights
PHILADELPHIA — A clash over whether the City of Philadelphia can require Catholic foster care agencies to consider placing children with same-sex couples heads to the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday, providing the court’s newly expanded conservative majority its first opportunity to signal how it will interpret questions of religious liberty and LGBTQ rights moving forward.Set to be heard just a day after an election in which President Donald Trump has appealed to religious voters in part by touting his record of appointing conservative judges, the case pits the city against a charitable arm o...
The Philadelphia Inquirer