BIO

Diane was born into an Italian American family, of first-generation working-class parents, in which gender roles were quite clearly defined.  Diane started working as a teenager in a factory assembling plastic toys.  Her choice of professional careers was limited to being a secretary, which was dictated for her by her mother. College was not an option for women in her home.  She married young and repeated the mistakes of her parents’ marriage.   

 

Her mother had a very tight hold on her, resulting in Diane being rebellious. The patriarchy and the gender rules that needed to be followed, resulted in her becoming a feminist.  At the age of thirty-five, after being in therapy for a few years and at the encouragement of her first husband, she decided to go to college.  It took six years of undergrad at Ramapo College of NJ and three years of graduate school at Fordham University, before she was able to work in a profession of her choice as a Licensed Clinical Social Worker.  She worked at a domestic violence shelter and got her clinical experience working on a locked psych unit at a hospital. She eventually went on to establish a private practice doing psychotherapy for over twenty years. 

 

Prior to retiring in 2022, Diane decided she wanted to write her memoir.  It was not so much for herself as it was for her grandchildren.  You see, Diane’s mother never, NEVER, discussed her childhood with anyone and neither did any of her mother’s five sisters.  Because Diane had no history of her mother’s life, this motivated her to write her OWN story.  It has been her experience that grandchildren usually are not interested in their grandparent’s life until the grandparent has passed or is no longer well enough to tell their story. This was what fueled her engine to not only tell her story, but to help others who have had similar experiences. 

 

Diane and her husband are both retired and live at the Jersey Shore. They spend time traveling and enjoying their grandchildren (even though their grandchildren are too young to have an interest in or desire to inquire about their families of origin).