Cara Valente Compton

truman-foundation0024"I had a son that I gave up for adoption when I was 22 years old. It was the biggest heartbreak of my life, but now we are in touch and he has a child and get to sneak peaks at my grandchild.  I have four more children who I have raised - three daughters and one son. Motherhood has really been the most empowering thing in my life.  My youngest child, my son, is transgender and wants to be called Hazel.  So I guess I really have four daughters." - Cara Valente Compton is a Truman Scholar and she attended the Truman Foundation's 40th Anniversary Party at Gracie Mansion earlier this month.

Lillian Martinez

me&EVE female founders0147med "Having kids was the best.  Things in life can go downhill but with my kids it will never be downhill.  I have three children, I wanted to have four but I stopped at three, it was enough. Raising them gives you more responsibilities and more worries but they really keep me going. When they were little my husband could drop them off at school in the morning and then head to work.  I had to leave much earlier to commute from Jersey City to my job here in the city.  Now I see mothers racing around to get their kids to school and still get to work on time in the morning. Luckily I didn't have to worry about that." Lillian Martinez works for the United States Postal Service and she has three children and six grandchildren.