We will probably always think of Teri Martin not by name, but as the woman who left her teen-aged son in a Nebraska hospital. In today’s Detroit Free Press, Mrs. Martin shares a story that is difficult to read and even more difficult to believe.

Frankly, I cannot think of a single reason to abandon a child 700 miles from home. But Mrs. Martin said her son knew about the trip for days before they left. She said he knew the purpose for the trip, “wanted the help.” And this is where I begin to lose faith in Mrs. Martin’s incredible story. Her son, who had been adopted with his younger brother, was just 13 years old. How could he have understood? Why would he have agreed to be left hours from home, in a place he’d never been? The Martins say he frightened them. They say he set fires and endangered their other children.  But Nebraska officials were never told this, and the newspaper couldn’t find any evidence that he’d been in any serious trouble.

There are other odd bits of reality in the news report that collide with the story the Martins now tell, but others will judge what is true and what is not. But I can’t help wondering how the Martin family came to this place, what happened in the beginning, the day they signed the adoption papers. And what happened before then to this child who is now back in a system that clearly failed him by providing parents unable to cope.

Teri Martin may now be a poster child for the unfit mothers of the world, but I wonder about her, too. You see, my mother raised four children. Lots of women do, but Mom was an orphan, raised by her grandmother in the most difficult of circumstances. She had no role models, no one showing her how to parent.

If she could grow up to be a great mom, why not Teri Martin?