blind insight: Untitled musing.

I got a call the other day from the former girlfriend of a client, the mother of his daughter. My client was only seventeen when he was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison. At that time, his daughter was only a couple of months old, and I think the girlfriend was barely sixteen.

My client has wanted desperately to find out how his daughter is doing and to have some contact with her. Our investigator found the mom, and was able to talk to her a month or so ago. We'd asked her to think about letting my client have contact with his daughter, or at least to give the girl some letters and artwork from her daddy and send him a picture of her. The woman was hesitant, but took my business card from the investigator and said she'd call me after she thought about it. I wasn't sure if we'd ever hear from her again.

But she just called me this week. We talked for a long time about her concerns about putting her daughter in touch with my client, although I had to make clear that I couldn't share any information with her about the case or about my conversations with the client.

Perhaps in part because I've been thinking about the whole parenting business these days, I was incredibly impressed with this young woman. She's around 24 now, and married with two young sons in addition to the daughter (who's 8). According to my investigator, who met with this woman in person, she has made a comfortable life for her young family, and lives in a nice apartment in a clean, safe neighborhood. My own interaction with her left me with the impression that she is exceptionally mature, intelligent, and articulate, and a caring and responsible mother.

She told me she's always taken care to make sure her daughter knows that she has a father who is a different man from the stepdad, and to only tell her daughter good things about her real father. She said the girl knows her real dad is in prison, and that they will talk more about what this means when she is older and can maybe understand it better. The mom told me that she grew up without a father, and she never wants her daughter to feel the kind of pain and sadness she knew growing up.

When I got off the phone with this woman, I sat at my desk for a while staring out the window, trying to imagine how I would have managed as a sixteen year old with a new baby and a boyfriend convicted of murder and in prison for the rest of his life. Though I know it's not likely to happen (or even appropriate under the circumstances), I want to talk to her again, and to learn the rest of her story. How did she survive during those early years as a single teenage mother, without turning to the destructive behaviors I've seen in so many other similarly-situated young women? How did she find it within herself to set aside her own admitted anger at the child's father and raise the girl with a positive picture of her dad? How did she acquire such strong parenting skills, despite her own troubled childhood? And how did she manage to build such a stable and secure life for herself and her growing young family, against the odds that obviously were stacked against her?

I hope that she can teach her children the kind of resourcefulness she must have within her. I wish that she or someone like her was reaching out to the many, many young people who turn to drugs and crime out of desperation or simply not knowing any other life, and telling them "hey, I'm just like you, and I've held it together and stayed clean." There are so many of them, those girls who keep having babies year after year in the hopes that the losers who father their kids will stick around and support mother and baby. The men keep leaving, and too many of the women end up turning tricks or moving drugs because they've got six kids and no skills.

Sometimes the realities of my clients' lives are too depressing to contemplate. But talking to this young mother mostly made me feel optimistic and hopeful. Even if I can't do much on the legal side for this client (which remains to be seen at this point), I hope I can at least help him re-establish his relationship with his daughter in a way that will work for everyone involved.

blind insight

my sight wanes; my insight waxes

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November 07, 2003

Untitled musing.

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