Barbara Walters is not just a role model for women in the media, she is a role model to adoptive parents as well. Her only child Jackie is adopted.
This is an excerpt from the partial transcript found at abc.com.
Walters: Jackie Was 'Born in My Heart'
Although Walters desperately wanted a biological child, she decided to adopt a little girl after having three miscarriages. She describes her daughter as "a blessing."
"You know, when you have an adopted child, people can't understand that it's yours. I mean, I've said, born in my heart. Maybe not in my uterus, but in my heart," Walters said. "And so, I can't think of not having Jackie."
Jackie Danforth's adoption by Barbara and her husband at the time, Lee Guber, happened 39 years ago.
Jackie began having behavioral and drug use issues as an adolescent. Barbara never gave up on her. Isn't that what a parents does? All too often I hear stories from adoptive parents where friends and family will suggest "giving a child back" or asking "what will you do now" when an adoptive child has health or behavioral problems? Why would anyone ever ask such a question.
As a child I remember there being a family joke that maybe I landed with the wrong family. When asked if the stork delivered her to the right family, Jackie vehemently and without pause asserted that she definitely was "delivered" to the right place. Our children may have not come forth from our bodies but our children are where they are supposed to be. We all get to our destinations in life via different paths and all our paths are unique it is part of our humanity.
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