Deborah Doucette's Blog

Breast cancer is an epidemic. But, especially in October, it's all pink and balloons, women smiling in sneakers walking and walking, companies slapping breast cancer logos onto every bit of merchandise under the sun to make an extra buck, and money poured into raising awareness of a disease that one would have to be living under a giant, really deep rock to not be aware of.

There are nearly three million grandparents raising over five million grandchildren in the U.S. -- officially . Those figures represent grandparents that have legal, physical, and financial responsibility for their grandchildren. But if you include grandparents who are head of households that include both birth parents and grandchildren, the figure climbs to seven million. And once you understand that all of those situations are vastly underreported, you begin to get a better picture of an enor...

Millions of grandparents are rescuing their grandchildren from a life of neglect, chaos, and abuse at the hands of addicted parents. These are families from every walk of life, of socio-economic strata, of size, shape, and color. Make no mistake, they are families like yours and mine.

When one of my books came out recently, I did what all authors must do these days -- unless you are Stephen King or Alice Munro or Snooki -- promote your own book.

People have asked me how I found the lump. I hardly ever tell them the truth because I'm afraid they would think I'm crazy. I'll tell you, but not yet.

People have asked me how I found the lump. I hardly ever tell them the truth because I'm afraid they would think I'm crazy. I'll tell you, but not yet.



My debut novel, Bad Girls, has been released and it's way past time for me to start on the next one. By start, I mean actually typing it into the computer, because it really began long ago and has been percolating in my head for just about eight years. Since the day I completed treatment for breast cancer. I've started a few times, my hands hov...

People have asked me how I found the lump. I hardly ever tell them the truth because I'm afraid they would think I'm crazy. I'll tell you, but not yet.

My God, back in the day, how hard we worked at being the good girl, and how thoroughly we bought into it, letting the impossible quest hijack our true selves.

Grandparents raising grandchildren long for, pray for, and fight for three things: to keep their grandchildren safe, to see their adult children overcome their difficulties, and to come together as a family, healed and whole.