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Showing posts from February, 2014

My mother is an American Philomena

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I drug my poor husband to the movie Philomena the first week the movie came out.  He is such a good sport and he seemed visibly moved by the movie.  He didn't cry (like his blubbering wife) but he got extremely angry at the treatment the "real" Philomena endured in the Irish Laundries.  This is not a fictional story. This a true story of how the Catholic Laundries of the past shamed pregnant women by not only stealing their children, selling them to Americans and others but then forcing them to work off their room and board.  As shown in the movie, no sympathy, empathy or understanding was conveyed to these "wayward" women.  Only punishment for sex outside of marriage and their "sins". What movie-goers may not understand is that this is not just isolated to Ireland.  This happened in Australia, Canada and the United States.  (Meet some other U.S. Philomenas  here ) This happened to my mother.   My mother was fortunate that she was not in a religi