Chapter 8: Can A Bad Apple Lose Its Rot?

“What about that one? That little girl in the corner?”

“That’s Karen Fleming. You wouldn’t want her. We’ve decided that she’s unadoptable. Borderline autistic, potentially sociopathic, uneducable, possibly trainable, will never hold a job, can’t get along with anybody, child or adult. A real bad apple.”

That is what my adoptive mother was told in 1948 when she asked why I was the only little girl in the Children’s Aid Society (CAS) playroom that had not been put forward to her as a possible adoptee. That was my official identity and my declared (lack of) potential as a lifelong learner when I was 3 years old. My sense of self, reinforced daily by the matron, was that I was bad, a bad girl, born bad, and would stay bad.