Book Summary
A five-year-old announces she's going to be a ballerina when she grows up and isn’t going to get married. At six she describes her image of God as a man made of metal. By nine she attempts to read Freud in her parents’ library. Following her autistic brother’s sudden death when she’s a preteen, she acquires a crippling anxiety disorder. How does she know what she knows, discover an unimaginable family secret, and finally retrieve her voice and understand the meaning of her early inklings?
Rooted in the historical context of the 1950s and 1960s, I Didn't Know That I Didn't Know You: A Latecoming of Age Story is a collection of personal essays that highlight the wisdom of a child as it informs adult lifestyle decisions, family relations, vocational choice, and religious and spiritual affiliation. Personal, professional, and pastoral sensibilities combine to explore questions of individual identity, family dynamics, social change, and ultimately, hope.
Each essay is embedded in a larger context: the women’s and LGBTQ+ movements; developing theories of mental illness; the changing role of religion; and the #MeToo movement. As is true for all of us, the author's narrative is a story within a story.
Reading this book, you'll feel you have made a new friend. Speaking in a warm, wise voice, the author takes you gently by the hand to share what she found on sifting through old possessions and family memories. She brings the insights of a long-experienced, multidisciplinary therapist to her own story, and perhaps to yours as well. In this beautiful memoir, a child who lacked the words for the trouble around and inside her becomes the adult who can calmly name and understand the most intractable of struggles—her own and others'. Along the way, she frees herself from the pressure to conform and creates her own chosen family. Unafraid to share her vulnerabilities and to laugh at her earlier selves—the loving but naïve child, the younger adult confused by dark family secrets—she puts to rest, by writing about them, the forces that once harmed her.
Margaret Homans, author of The Imprint of Another Life: Adoption Narratives and Human Possibility
What a jewel box Morningstar has given us: a collection of treasures, forged in the heat of history, illuminating ways forward as we navigate the trauma, oppression and confusion of our lives.
Jaclyn Friedman,
Author of Yes Means Yes: Visions of Female Sexual Power and a World Without Rape
Morningstar packs each paragraph—whether it’s about something positive or troublesome—death of a sibling, her underappreciative mother, the complexities of having a child without a man, the paradox of being Jewish at a Christian seminary—with liveliness, curiosity and insight.
Mopsy Strange Kennedy,
former book reviewer,
The Improper Bostonian
Morningstar’s memoir is so rich with details emblematic of the period in which she grew up. Her astute insights and hopeful perspective offer something to readers of all ages and eras. This memoir, full of clever humor, will help us better reflect on the realities of our own lives.
Judy Norsigian, co-founder,
Our Bodies Ourselves
Morningstar brilliantly illuminates the proverb “the fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge.” Her powerful and moving memoir is a suspenseful mystery with a big reveal at the end. Like a detective, she sifts through clues until she can solve the crime that has so tainted her life. In doing so, she helps all of us understand that the past is always present but that it need not define or ruin us.
Jean Kilbourne,
Award-winning filmmaker, Killing Us Softly
Inviting, informative, and inspirational, I Didn’t Know That I Didn’t Know You: A Late Coming of Age Story showcases the gems that we can all uncover when we mine our memories. Each essay hooks us in with a personal story, teaches us something about the inner workings of the human mind, and leaves us with a greater understanding of ourselves. A moving collection that is a must read for all ages.
Jennifer Crystal,
Author of One Tick Stopped the Clock
About the Author
Betty Morningstar is a career clinical social worker. She has worked as a psychotherapist for over forty years. She earned her M.S.W. and Ph.D. degrees from Smith College School for Social Work, where she also taught courses in clinical practice. Later at Smith, she served as a core faculty member for an advanced certificate program in Contemplative Clinical Practice. She was honored by the school for her contributions to the field.
Betty has always been active in the larger social work community, as president of the MA chapter of the National Association of Social Workers (NASW). Through NASW-MA, she recruited a group of social workers to create a committee on international social work. As a leader, she provided consultation and clinical training to the staff and administration at Cape Town, South Africa's Khayelitsha Township and to social work students at Al Quds University in East Jerusalem.
Along with several colleagues, Betty established the Center for the Study of Diversity and Social Change. This group published articles and presented workshops on culturally responsible leadership of non-profit organizations.
She also received a Master's degree in religious studies and has provided chaplaincy services
to elderly individuals and groups.
Previously Published
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"Mother of the Bride" Boston Globe Magazine, 3/24/24
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"When the Clock of the Living Runs Down," Intima: A Journal of Narrative Medicine, 2021
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"O Chaplain! My Chaplain! Poetry in Pastoral Care," Guest Blog for Chaplaincy Innovation Lab at Brandeis University, 2021
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"The Power of a Delusion," ibid., 2020
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Angela Wangari Walter, Yvonne Ruiz, Robbie Welch Christler Tourse, Helene Kress, Betty Morningstar, Bet MacArthur & Ann Daniels (2017) "Leadership Matters: How Hidden Biases Perpetuate Institutional Racism in Organizations," Human Service Organizations: Management, Leadership & Governance, 41:3, 213-221, DOI: 10.1080/23303131.2016.1249584
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"Stories That Transform: Narrative Approaches to Spiritually Oriented Clinical Practice," Smith College Studies in Social Work, vol. 80, issues 2-3, 2010. Taylor & Francis
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"Lesbian Parents: Understanding Developmental Pathways" Laird, J. Lesbians and Lesbian Families: Reflections on Theory and Practice, Columbia University Press, 1999
From Psychotherapist to Writer
I was born a psychotherapist, though I didn't think of it that way until I started writing some of the essays in I Didn't Know That I Didn't Know You. As my earliest companion, my autistic older brother and I managed to co-exist peacefully, despite the fact that he was almost completely non-verbal and communicated mostly with sounds, repetitive gestures, and huge tantrums. Before school-age I had no assumptions about how other kids went about their little lives. I believe my innocence allowed me to approach my brother in a way that accommodated his inexplicable behavior. Our tacit arrangement taught me early on how to resonate with someone else's perceptions, fears, and irrational thoughts—the messiness of their interior lives. To do so, you must be present, suspend judgment, and often try to grasp and respond to that which is unsaid.
My next teacher came in the form of a book I pulled off my parents' bookshelf when I was nine. I opened Freud's The Interpretation of Dreams, only to find it incomprehensible. I somehow knew, however, that this book had everything to do with what I would be when I grew up. Even as I considered other paths—early childhood educator, French teacher, sociologist—my career was predetermined by the time I turned ten.
Though I majored in religion in college, I landed in a clinical social work graduate program where I unraveled the mysterious writings of Freud and other psychoanalytic theorists. There, I found myself at ease with writing, probably because I was engaged on every level—mind, heart, and soul—with the material. Learning about "normal" and "abnormal" development enhanced my preliterate sensitivity to the human psyche. With that, I could put my thoughts into words.
My clinical experience prepared me for a doctoral program in social work. I found great pleasure in writing case studies and integrating theory with practice. The interminable dissertation process forced me to write about methodology, findings and data interpretation; the discussion section allowed me to use my voice to explain why it all mattered. Eventually I did return to the study of religion and added chaplaincy to my repertoire of healing practices. I also began writing and teaching about, as well as providing, spiritually-informed psychotherapy.
When I turned sixty, I went to a psychic, which I didn't tell many people. The take-away from the visit: "You're entering the most creative phase of your life. I don't know what form it will take." But I knew. I went home and signed up for a creative writing class for adults. A few years later, I landed in a nine-month Writing to Heal program at Grub Street Creative Writing Center, where I began the process of curating the personal essays I'd written and discovering the pattern they formed. My inner GPS brought me to exactly where I belonged.