Book / Author
“No TV anchor has ever produced a memoir as grippingly honest as this.” - Newsday
Dominic's First Shock: Reading his Mother's Medical Records
"No Momma’s Boy" is a motivational and inspirational narrative of how to overcome seemingly insurmountable odds in life. The National Alliance on Mental Illness chose "No Momma's Boy," as one of its best books. Dominic has taken his message all over America, Canada, and the country of Jamaica.
Excerpt from chapter one:
“Some of the 620 pages were typed, and some were barely legible, the writing scratched in various doctors’ handwriting. Those pages contained my mother’s case history. The fact that it was so voluminous made it that much more intimidating. I wanted to read those facts one page at a time. I walked away from the [post office] clerk and over to a side table, feeling that I was in for the shock of a lifetime. I picked up one sheet, placing the other 619 pages on the post office table. The dim, fluorescent light was not as bright as the morning sun that shone through the thick windows. But as my eyes scanned each line on that first page, the information somehow came more sharply into focus and made my skin crawl.""On June 20, she beat him (Dominic) so hard that she raised welts on him. However she wants to be a good mother and it quite alarmed by her recent angry outbursts and thoughts of strangling her son. On one occasion while feeling “strange and dead,” she put her hands around his throat before he awakened, and she was frightened by his crying. She has more recently reported that while in a state of depersonalization, she has had frightening thoughts of pushing her son out the window and has heard a voice tell her to “do it.”
-Psychiatric Summary Report on Laverne Carter
June 21, 1966
Reading those words, quite literally took Dominic's breath away.
Chapter Seven
Dominic's Post-Mortem on his mother.
“I didn’t know why she had lived the life she had lived. I don’t why she had inflicted pain on me. There was so much I didn’t understand. And this final chapter made things even worse. This was not a life well lived; this was a tragedy.
From the beginning to the end, her life was filled with adversity, a tale of great sorrow. I don’t know if Laverne was ever truly happy at any point in her whole life. There was trouble, always trouble.
Laverne had not been a happy child because she believed her parents didn’t want her, especially considering she lived apart from them. To my knowledge, no one had ever given Laverne a birthday party. She hadn’t gone to the prom, and she had never married. No one had celebrated Laverne’s being on Planet Earth-ever. When I, her firstborn, came into the world, she went from the maternity ward and months later to the mental ward. Every man she loved beat or betrayed her. She undoubtedly wrestled with memories of straitjackets and mental institutions. She probably lived with a near-paralyzing guilt of her abuse and abandonment of me. And she lived in public housing, owning very little and having no means of making an independent living."
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Journalist Dominic Carter is a longtime NY Television Political Anchor, works on-air at WABC Radio as a Talk-Show Host, and appears on the Wendy Williams TV Show. Carter has interviewed some of the most influential politicians in the nation. He has also appeared on MSNBC, CNN, FOX, PBS and NPR. Carter attended the State University of New York at Cortland and Graduate School at Syracuse University. Dominic has won numerous awards, including a Peabody for his commitment to Families and Children. Dominic has also been nominated for an Emmy.
KVC Foster Parent Conference. Kansas. Aired live in Nebraska, West Virginia and Kentucky. Dominic receives a standing ovation.
Michigan. Foster, Kinship, and Adoptive Parents.
Erie, Pennsylvania
To contact Dominic: Dominic.carterTV@gmail.com
Ontario Canada
Dominic received a standing ovation.
Dallas - Texas Foster Parent Association.
