Rebecca Wellington will share her journey of writing ‘Who Is a Worthy Mother’ and how it opened a watershed of impactful, historical information about adoption policies and practices in America. On this journey, she has learned that the way our society practices adoption has deep implications about how our nation differentially values women and mothers.

About Rebecca
Rebecca Wellington has taught high school social studies, as well as undergraduate courses and graduate level courses in education history and curriculum and instruction. Her higher-education teaching adventures have taken her to universities across Western Washington, including University of Washington, Seattle University and the University of Puget Sound. She holds a doctorate in Education History from the University of Washington, where she taught in the undergraduate program of the College of Education. Rebecca's career in education started on the ocean, sailing around the world on a traditionally rigged tall ship. Through this two-year global circumnavigation Rebecca trained for a US Coast Guard captain's license and went on to work in non-profit outdoor education, teaching kids to sail on the Charles River in Boston and later on the Puget Sound of Washington State. Rebecca's scholarly articles have been published in the History of Education Quarterly, the American Indian Quarterly and the Pacific Northwest Quarterly. Rebecca was driven to write a history of adoption in the United States from the perspective of an adoptee and to honor the memory of her older sister and truth of brave women everywhere. Rebecca's proudest accomplishment is mothering her two daughters, Maria and Victoria. She and her husband and daughters live in Seattle, Washington on the traditional homelands of the Duwamish people.