Me, Undone

My significant other stumbled across my last blog regarding her request. Let’s just say that she, yes she, wasn’t so thrilled. The birthday gift ended before it even began. I have to admit that I’m a bit relieved. I know that the frequency of sexual intimacy is not a measure of our commitment. Pause. Now I can savor the decadence of a spontaneous needy fix. Hooray for small miracles. After some thought, I think way too much, I believe that her request was an attempt to keep me near. She thinks that she is losing me. With great sadness, I ended my internship last Friday. I’ve had an amazing summer. I will miss the incredibly talented lawyers in the public interest field. They are rebel rousers, social movers and change makers—fighters of unpopular causes. Charles Houston was right; lawyers are either social parasites or social engineers. I am no parasite. I will miss my clients, women at point zero, struggling to regain control of their lives. I have faith in their ability to change an...

Most lawyers go into public interest law to save babies and old people. I help represent the “undeserving poor”—mothers whose children have been taken away by the state—mothers labeled unfit and unable to care for babies formed in the womb for nine months—mothers who still carry faint lines, like watermarks, across tummies—proof of life. These women live on the edge, marginalized and forgotten, many of them too tired or afraid to fight anymore. The state’s intervention is merely another assault in their daily lives. Ninety-eight percent of the cases I see involve issues of neglect—neglect varying from sub-standard housing, lack of adequate child care, to accidental injuries. Most of these issues are indicators of poverty—none of which have any nexus to a mother’s desire or ability to care for her child. That the state chooses to snatch children away from poor mothers instead of providing adequate resources is almost cruel. Poverty is not a crime. I am struck most by the assumptio...