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COMMENTARY #8
[redacted]
BETH [redacted]

Mothering

Jeanne White has been criticized for some choices she has
made as a mother. She has been accused of being a stage
mother, pushing her son toward center stage, exploiting his
illness for her own gain. She has also been accused of
losing sight of her son's personal needs in their fight to
gain public acceptance of his infection with AIDS, accused of
sacrificing the private care and nurturing she should have
provided her chronically ill son, for the political and
business tactics needed to wage courtroom battles.

No one but Jeanne White will ever know all the demons she has
wrestled, or how she has come to make the difficult decisions
placed before her. I will not pretend to know her heart.
But, as a mother who has faced some significant struggles of
my own, I'd like to project some theories about her
motivation.

Long before Ryan White was diagnosed as having AIDS in 1985
at the age of 13, his mother had known the pressures, grief,
and guilt of mothering a chronically ill child. Hemophilia,
although controllable, is a life threatening illness. Any