Least Favorite Things

Even if you are no Julie Andrews, you can give this a try. These are a few of my things that suck. Sung to the tune of "My Favorite Things."

Hostile adopters when we reunited,
Smug social workers and love bombs ignited,
Force and coercion and brainwashing too,
These are the things that they might do to you.

Women in crisis are such easy pickin's,
Just like a tragedy written by Dickens.
No diapers to change and no lullabyes to sing,
These are a few of the suckiest things.

(Chorus)When you learn that you are pregnant ,
And you seek their aid,
They tell you adoption's your only good option,
And you shouldn't feel afraid.

Surrender papers, adoption attorneys,
PAPs walking next to maternity gurneys,
Grabbing that baby while still on its string,
These are a few of the suckiest things.

Just one small picture, then promises broken,
Possessive adopters don't care what's been spoken,
Your contact will melt like a snowman in spring,
Aren't these all just the suckiest things?

(Chorus)And reunions, often awkward, tell the story true,
That adoption has warped that unbreakable bond,
And the one that is hurt...is you.

So go on, believe them and buy the whole story,
Bask in the love and the heroine's glory,
It will be all over when the birthing bell rings,
That's why adoption's the suckiest thing.

(Repeat chorus)

With apologies to Rogers and Hammerstein and all the mothers out there who bought the line and drank the Kool Aid.

Morality, an Issue in Flux?

Sometimes I think all this hostility directed towards the single, never-wed mother, especially the ones of us who were trapped by the adoption industry, goes a lot deeper than the insecurities of adopters and the greed of the industry. There is that patriarchal, Puritanical, right-wing, judgmentalism that parades around as "sexual morality." That judgmentalism also always blames the women, even when it is an adolescent child who was abused by an older, male sexual predator or a rape victim.


In Adoption, where is the morality in causing a lifetime of pain and grief for a young woman and a load of rejection, emotional responsibility for the welfare of adults, and identity confusion for a child? The so-called "moral majority" and "Christian Conservatives" in this country are so obsessed with who does what in bed with who that one wonders why there IS that obsession? They say that men think about sex an average of 17,000 times a day and men still run the show. The church has been totally patriarchal since Paul got hold of it and women have always been feared for our "power" of bringing forth life.

Let a woman show a bit of sexual autonomy or dare to reproduce without the "proper credentials" (marriage, savings account, career, McMansion, two cars, past the 30th birthday) and the predators are on her like white on rice. Let her be married to a man who is less than affluent and have more than 2 children and here comes the CPS, in the guise of white knights, to relieve them of their adoptable little assets. It is, therefore, concluded that being poor is immoral.

The open adoption proponents are about ready to realize that this particular tossed crumb didn't fix things because too many moms are rebelling against the constant torture of seeing their child calling another woman, "Mom" and having to dance to the adopters' tunes. So, the "sinner" is still on the outside, being punished for her lapse in "morality." If anything, "open" adoption has proven just how corrupt the industry and those who are out to have what they want at any cost can be.

We all are learning that the law of the land and how things go in a court of law is not based on what is ethical, right or just, anymore. It's based on what is "legal" and how that legality can be attained through what loopholes and machinations. It's how the courts and the law are acting against Stephanie Bennett, the mother in Ohio, who was abused, impregnated and threatened by an older man, betrayed by a school counselor and taken in by an adoption agency whose license is on the line, already, for a number of offenses.

By all that is moral, ethical, just and right, the people who have her little girl should be at her doorstep, hats in hand, to place that toddler in her real mother's arms. But they are manipulating the law, issues of jurisdiction, and the old "child's best interests" ploys to the hilt and at the advice of the agency, A Child's Waiting Adoption Services. Poor Stephanie and her family are middle American, blue-collar, normal folk like most of us and they are up against a sophisticated system that can turn the, seemingly, elastic concept of morality, against her.

For most of us raised in this segment of society, justice has always been for what was right...not for what was legally attainable. And I was taught that it was immoral to bring pain to others for your own gain or for any other reason. But I guess that morality, sexuality and how it is allowed or disallowed or turned, twisted and contorted is up to the Magi of the legal loopholes and the bottom line. It is confusing, I am sure, to many of our young people to see this as they mature...to see that it is immoral to do such-and-such in one situation, but moral to do the same in another? And we wonder about the narcissism and self-involvement of younger generations?

We, as a culture and as a nation, are what our leaders, in governments, churches and businesses, are making us and it doesn't look good. The Ugly American is getting uglier. Morality seems to be reduced to whatever fits the current need and to hell with any pain caused along the way. Spiritual values are bent to fit the bell curve of society's latest bent and we can call ourselves lost if we let it continue.

It would be nice if we found our way back to the true morality of what is just, kind and compassionate and if we started by bringing Evelyn Bennett back to her mother and her grandparents. If that were to happen, then I would stop worrying so much about what is happening to our national morality, or, well, at least that would be a step in the right direction.

Right now, our national morality seems to me to be so much silly putty.

From The Ridiculous To The Sublime

Well, we finally have a topper for the concept introduced by wannabe adopters of being "paper pregnant." There is now a tee-shirt that is just too specious for words, proclaiming that adoption is the "new pregnant." To say I am offended would be an understatement. I presume that home studies are the "new sex/conception?"

http://www.celebrity-babies.com/2008/04/adoption.html

They can take our babies, but they can't take the experience of conception, gestation and childbirth, so they decide to re-define something so elemental and natural that it shouldn't be messed with, at all, to fit the fantasy world of "as if born to."

The smugly smiling model wearing this abomination of a message tee shirt can grin all she likes. I still don't see a baby bump. I don't see that glow and the hand on the protruding belly as the baby moves inside. I don't see Dad and older sibs with their ears and hands on Mom's pregnant belly, joining in the natural family experience. I don't see a damn thing about any of it that is real. I sang and talked to my babies while I carried them inside me. Do the pre-adopters sing a tee shirt lullabye?

It seems the more adamant people get about adopting being some kind of God-given right of the infertile, the farther away from reality they get. The fantasy is becoming the new reality if one must make some kind of statement along those lines. I think that pro-adoptionists, facilitators, eugenicists and PAPs stay awake at night trying to think up ways to take from us what they never will be able to have....the experience of being pregnant and giving birth.

Here's another idea for a tee for the fantasy-prone. How about "Invading the Privacy of Labor and Delivery is the new Childbirth," or "Hangovers From Celebrating Nabbing a B****mother is the New Morning Sickness?" These make just about as much sense and are as unreal as the tee that inspired this post.

What scares me is that people with this other-worldly train of thought and immersion in fantasy are passing home studies and raising the children of unsuspecting women who were duped into surrender. Should these people be raising children if they cannot accept the reality of what adoption truly is? Adoption is paper parenthood and a legalized lie. To try to make it anything else is "the new alchemy." They still cannot turn lead into gold.

It seems, though, that self-delusion has become socially acceptable.

Of Riders, Amendments and Other Sneaky Things

As adopted people across North America fight for the right to their original birth certificates, we see the usual arsenal being brought out in an attempt to shoot these ADULTS down. It is a simple fact that an adopted person's civil rights are being abridged by the unavailability of these simple, legal records. Of course, the first salvo of the closed records warriors is "barfmuggle privacy." WE are the villains of the piece.

Yeah, right. Let's look at it as it really is. On one side, you have a few, unnamed mothers who just happen to be available to the anti-open records attorneys and who will call the reappearance of their adult child in their lives their "worst nightmare." On the other side, we have mothers, thousands and thousands of them, whose fondest wish is to see their child again. These are the brave ones, because, believe me, reunion isn't for the faint of heart. Never the less, maternal instinct outweighs adoption rhetoric by a huge margin. That shoots down THAT particular nonsensical, illogical argument.

As that fails and once they see that the bill to open records might have greater support that they figured, they start adding things...veto options, riders that require a bureaucratic intermediary, enough forms and jumping through hoops to form a circus, and anything else they can sneak in there that might rock the boat. One such thing was the idea that they could violate the HIPAA laws by requiring mothers to present personal medical and counseling information to the adoptee. Sorry, Children, but that is something I will do on my own as I see fit. My raised children don't know everything about my records and I intend to keep it that way. That put us mothers in the uncomfortable position of having to oppose the bill that carried this specious little rider and made us look very anti-adoptee when we are anything BUT.

Here's an idea. Why don't we give these original birth certificates to both the adopted person AND the mother (who was still the legal parent at the time these documents were filed) and let us take care of the rest? It's about time that we moms were treated like the mature women we are, rather than the vulnerable teens that were grist for the adoption mills, and our children are treated like adults with civil rights rather than eternal children and the possessions of the purchasers. Left alone, we can manage to exchange information and create a relationshiop (oops...that's what the facilitators and adopters fear the most) quite well.

Oh, and maybe the bureaucrats could correct one little flaw on the OBC's of quite a few of our children. You see, even though many of us named the fathers with little hesitation, just because we didn't have that male creature's last name and a ring on the third finger of our left hand, the almighty social worker put "father unknown" in that slot on the document. Not cool...not cool at all. MOST of us DID know who the fathers of our children are and had no problem identifying them. It seems that our word had very little value. How better to make us look like irresponsible sluts than to say that we didn't even know who fathered our child?

The social work hierarchy of that era, the government toadies and a lot of doctors, attorneys and even members of the clergy have a lot to answer to for what happened. A good start would be to give us and our children those OBC's. It's really not a lot to ask for unless a lot of people have a lot to hide...hmmmmmmm?

One Trick Ponies

The circus is full of them. And, as Paul Simon observed, they turn their tricks with pride. The only thing about that is that it limits us as an organized entity out to right the wrongs of the adoption industry. There are so many things that we need to speak out against and Yes, I most certainly do include the BSE.

But there is also this problem of certain adoptionist organizations such as the Evan B. Donaldson Institute and the NCFA who do slanted "studies" and then presume to be the voice of the mothers of adoption loss. As another blogger put it, and quite well, CUT IT OUT! We are mature women who are capable of speaking for ourselves. The last thing we need is facilitators and adopters speaking for us. We can take care of ourselves now...we aren't those malleable, vulnerable teens anymore. We have acquired serious ovarian fortitude.

We are also a diverse group of women with many different talents and perspectives and we don't walk in lock-step to what one person or one group of people says our focus should be. No one person, even if the person is a (self-published) author, can speak for all of us as "THE Voice of Mothers" and shouldn't even try. PHD's and Masters' Degrees, authorship and working at a university and all that other good stuff is no more a requirement for leadership than who has the biggest guns. We are all articulate, intelligent women who have a shared experience and some of us see that experience very differently from others.

I, for instance, do not believe, for a minute, that I was "duped." I was forced, I was coerced, I was subjected to constant threats, warning, urgings and criticisms of my ability to parent my own children, but I was not "duped." THAT came later, post-BSE. It was what was done to me and my sisters from that era that enabled that heinous industry to grow, ripen and become fat on the coveting of their customers and led them to use psychology, advertising science and every other trick in the book to dupe our younger sisters into thinking that adoption was the best thing since paper napkins.

Not only do we hold, within our ranks, a multitude of talent, we also cannot all be lumped together under one banner. Those that are trying to do that are making a big mistake and a mighty entity is going to go down because of it. Hey, even those who have "achieved" can make mistakes. Were I the type to pray in public, my prayer would be, "Sock a little humility to us all, God/dess. because we sure need it....some more than others."

Who are the truly humble? Those are the ones who can say "I'm sorry," without following it up with a "but," and without feeling diminished that they might be able to learn something from someone else. That's the difference between humility and humiliation.

We also have the "childless aunties" among us. These are mothers who have not achieved reunion, but who know exactly how one should be conducted and chastise the ones who have had their reunions crash and burn. Wow, aren't we the compassionate ones?

Well, there is my personal critique. I have received a lot of such criticism, myself. I took what I needed and left the rest. But I will truly be lost if I continue to think I can't make mistakes and I don't have anything to learn from anyone else (well, except adopters and facilitators....ya gotta have some pride).

Swapping Insults

In discussing the passing of our sister, Dian Wellfare, on another blog, some of the commenters were talking about how, at a certain forum that seems to be insult central, Di could give as good as she got. I was happy to know that because, Lord knows, when you don't like adoption, you tend to catch nasty little bits of Hell from some people who would otherwise be nice and polite. I've received a few of my own and have found that considering the source is a pretty good way to go.

But I don't like it when an important, logical and reasonable argument for a cause and for justice goes unheard for the zingers being exchanged. Everyone seems to think they are Don Rickles. The insults range from clever to cruel, but they all seem to accomplish the same thing. No, they don't particularly hurt the feeling of or reduce the self-esteem of the one being insulted. Most are mature enough to rise above that kind of thing. That juvenile activity just takes valuable time away from what could be a reasonable debate between adults and reduce it to something that is so middle school. It reminds me of the cliques in school with the hot-shots that would strut and preen while putting down the girl with the good grades or the boy who was too poor to afford the designer labels. It's bullying. It's immature and it really doesn't make that much of an impact on someone who has a few, good, working marble rolling around in their cranium.

In the case of the outcome of my high school days, the girl with the good grades was married, young, to the hunk with the big bucks, plus has her career and two children that she had while in college (smart enough not to wait too long). And the boy who was laughed at for wearing K-Mart jeans and bringing his lunch, is now a SC state supreme court judge.

For all the nastiness hurled at Di, she will be remembered long after the memories of the mudslingers have faded into oblivion. Her accomplishments are over and above those of any of her detractors, her voice was strong and her message was pure. Me..hey, I am just happy that I will be remembered by my children, grandchildren and those precious little great-grands and that my hubby thinks I am hot. Funny, but when you have that going for you, all the put-downs and sneers just don't seem to make a very big difference in the all-over picture.

Yeah, I rag on about adoption, I hate it, it is wrong and it had caused a lot of pain for a lot of good people. But my life is happy and having a cause for which to fight has only added to that happiness. Some days, we just have to stop and smell the roses and refuse to step in the shit. You have to look at the ground in order to see both. That reminds me. My Mother-in-law's coral beauty roses are blooming. Time to grab the camera.

Our Ovine Society

Ovine-pertaining to sheep.

The world needs leaders and good followers, but we don't need to follow like sheep, especially when the "leaders" are poseurs. I was thinking about this when I read about the fact that Dr. Phil McGraw, a person I have always thought of as less than qualified to be the guru he pretends to be, is falling out of favor. I also notice that we don't hear as much from "Dr." Laura as we used to. We tend to be a day late and a dollar short in recognizing that we put way too much credibility in these media icons. I'd love to know who died and made Oprah Winfrey the savior of us all? Even Rush Limbaugh's audience is noticeably smaller. It is so good to see people questioning the influence of these people.

We have real heroes all around us. One such hero, Dian Wellfare, just left us way too soon. But I still stand among a group of women who can claim the title, who hold fast to their cause and their beliefs and I see heroes with graying hair and grandchildren...women who refuse to compromise or seek out ego gratification in lieu of progress and justice. These are women who don't suffer wedgies in their buttcracks due to sitting on that fence between mothers of adoption loss and those who think they should be cozying up to adopters and facilitators in the name of "education. These are mothers and some adoptees who have seen the truth and stand by that truth and don't "soften" the message just because some are cowards or seek popularity.

We have an opportunity, in the upcoming election, to move towards a government that will be, at the very least, somewhat more open to hearing our stories, stories that are the truth about what has been done to a generation of women in the name of social progress and problem solving....the truth about how women predate on other women and call it a good thing....the truth about how petty bureaucrats play God with the very fabric of the God/dess-given natural family.

There are those that would call themselves "leaders" when the strength to really speak the true word is not in them. Unfortunately, some of these so-called "leaders" have found their way into the natural family preservation movement, and, with the help of their woolly, ovine followers, are doing all they can to dilute and distort an important message.

We don't have to be sheep. We hold the shears. We have votes...votes in our political system and votes in our organizations. Let's keep the sheep out in the yard. They are great to help keep the grass down. Let's have real people start making decisions about where we are headed. Leaders, and lieutenants, sages and seers...we have what it takes so all it takes, now, is the doing.

A Day Of Mourning

Dian Wellfare 1950 - 2008

http://www.babyscoopera.com/

Di was a couragous warrior for the rights of mothers. She was the founder of Origins, Inc., NSW and a friend to many of us. She will be sorely missed. Her obituary can be read at the link, above. I'd like to ask all of my readers and friends, especially those of us from the BSE who have profited so much from her advice and leadership, to take a moment today to remember Di.

The best thing we can do to memorialize this champion of us all is to keep the word going out..that mothers and their children should not be separated for the benefit of an arrogant industry and self-entitled adopters....that the women of the BSE are owed an apology, redress and recognition....that something evil is being done under the umbrella of "building a family" and our nation and the world needs to wake up to that fact and start asking the right questions.

See ya, Di. Hold a seat for us.

Evil-More than a Concept

To do evil a human being must first of all believe that what he's doing is
good... Ideology - that is what gives devildoing its long-sought justification
and gives the evildoer the necessary steadfastness and determination. That is
the social theory which helps to make his acts seem good instead of bad in his
own and others' eyes, so that he won't hear reproaches and curses but will
receive praise and honors.

-Alexandr Solzhenitsyn

We could post for hours on the many evils done in the name of the greater good, or in the name of God or the name of Christ, but this kind of evil that Solzhenitsyn describes is carried on in all levels of our society and invades our most sacred institution...the family. Adoption was first seen, by self-proclaimed "experts" as a solution to a two-fold problem; the "sin/crime/social problem" of unwed pregnancies and the longing of the infertile for a baby. It was win-win....it was done to "protect" the reputation of the mother-to-be and to provide married, financially solvent (read "superior") couples with a child they could "call their own." This was a misguided concept, but, especially in the BSE when married couples were portrayed as sleeping in twin beds, one that caught on.

What they didn't take into account what the fact that evil, in the guise of "morality" already existed in the equation. Declaring a child born to a single mother to be "illegitimate" and the mother to be psychologically disturbed/sinful for having sex prior to marriage was, in and of itself, an evil of arrogance, judgmentalism, patriarchal, misogynistic and dichotomous thinking.

The best description of evil I have ever heard was on a Canadian board, posted by a mom who referred to things said during the Nuremberg trials. "Evil is the total lack of empathy." Those with true caring hearts, empathy, sympathy, compassion, would definitely look at what the cost is to the mother and her child of separating them, legally dissolving their most primal relationship and attempting to force a child into a family mold that they just don't fit. In the industry which seeks to profit from a tragedy and in the self-entitled adopter who tries to fool themselves into thinking they are doing no harm, we see true evil.

I think of the story of Solomon in the Bible, which is one of my favorite pieces of scripture to refute the fundies who proclaim that God advocates adoption. Solomon recognized the good in the true mother and the evil in the woman who coveted the living child. That's why he made his decision to return the babe to his mother. Somewhere, among the "good people" of our society, evil has made a niche for itself in adoption. Solomon's lesson has gone by the wayside.

Now, before the indignant adopters and good adoptees get on their high horses, let me say that I am not talking about the children that must be removed from parents who are abusive or neglectful. These children need care...not adopting. They need to be with someone who cares more for them than whether or not they are called "mom and dad." Rather, I am talking about the millions of women who did nothing more wrong that dare to be fertile without a wedding band on their finger or a man's name attached to theirs. I am talking about subtle coercion, designed to make a mother-to-be feel unfit, see her baby as a "burden" and her surrender of her own flesh and blood as "heroic." They are the victims of true evil.

I am talking about billboards that offer adoption as an "alternative" to abortion without ever mentioning the alternative of keeping and raising one's offspring. I am talking about huge, powerful adoption-industry/adoption-attorney lobbies that keep fueling their pet legislators to introduce bills to keep the laws as restrictive as possible for the natural mother in the event that she comes out of the dream and into her own good senses and wants her child (Florida is among the worst in this area). I am talking about wannabe adopters that troll the Internet and even follow pregnant, young women around in public places, desperate to get a healthy infant so that they can play "let's pretend." I am talking about counseling for grief-stricken mothers that consists of some social worker telling her to "move on" and "get over it." This is true EVIL.

And isn't there something a little bit narcissistic and non-empathic about a person thinking that, just because they can't have a child of their own, they DESERVE one? Isn't self-entitlement a form of evil?

And let me close with a quote from a friend who said this in a sermon at a little Methodist Church in South Carolina. "I have seen more of the Devil's work done in the name of God than I care to think about." Word, Brother.

Our Covetous Society

"Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbor's."

(The Holy Bible, King James Version, Exodus-Chapter 20)

cov·et
/ˈkʌvɪt/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[kuhv-it]

–verb (used with object)
1.to desire wrongfully, inordinately, or without due regard for the rights of others: to covet another's property.
2.to wish for, esp. eagerly: He won the prize they all coveted.

–verb (used without object)
3.to have an inordinate or wrongful desire.
[Origin: 1175–1225; ME coveiten meaning "culpability"]

forms
cov·et·a·ble, adjective
cov·et·er, noun
cov·et·ing·ly, adverb
—Synonyms 1. See "Envy"
—Antonyms 1. renounce

Thanks to another mother/friend for the idea for this post. We moms are good at detecting those who covet....especially those who covet the child of another person. I am quite sure that all the self-justifying by adopters has effectively diminished their feeling of being covetous, but covetous they are.

I have seen remarks posted such as this one on a board that shall remain nameless (but NOT blameless). "I saw that KID with that baby! She couldn't have been more than 16 and there she was with that baby. That baby should have been mine! She had no business, at her age, keeping that baby when there are people like me, older, married with more money, that NEED a baby!"

Now, if that wasn't a covetous statement, then the Bible needs to be re-written to include, "exception to the commandment on coveting..thou shalt covet thy neighbor's child....God says, go ahead, knock thyself out."

I was young when I gave birth to my raised children. I didn't delay childbearing because I had already felt the pain of empty arms and wanted to fill them again. As a younger mother, I had healthy children from fresh ova, had the energy and stamina to chase down toddlers and deal with the roughest parts of motherhood and I had more years ahead of me to see my children grow and develop and form their own lives. Yeah, sometimes things were rough, financially, but we always managed. WHY do we hate the idea of young women giving birth when that is what nature intends? That "biological clock" thing is REAL.

So, the prevailing wisdom has twisted the concept into a scenario that it is OK to go for the big bucks and the 5-bedroom McMansion and the big 401K first, priority numero uno, and then take a baby from a fertile, YOUNG woman as a God-given RIGHT? Something is rotten in Big Brother-ville. Somewhere along the line, the industry of adoption has blinded this nation to the most sacred bond that exists in Nature...that of mother and child...and used the idea of a "better" society to include eugenics, ie., children being raised by the "right kind of people."

If this trend continues, the natural family is an endangered entity. Read "1984." Read Margaret Atwood's "The Handmaid's Tale." Look back at Hitlers vision of a super-race, pure and powerful as he saw those concepts. People, this is happening! It is happening in the churches through the auspices of the "so-called" Moral Majority, the $1.6-billion a year adoption industry, the political far right and the fear mongers that scare us with the perceived threat of extra-marital sexual activity.

That whole concept is patriarchal in concept, as it is. Those commandments do not say, anywhere, that "thou shalt not have sex while unmarried." It does condemn adultery, but that has to do with married folks kicking over the traces. That unwed sex concept, instilled by a misogynistic St. Paul and the patriarchs of Judaism and the early church have more to do with the assurance of paternity of one's offspring rather than any moral complaint. Property was handed down from father to oldest son. No man wanted his property to go to the son of another man. They took this to extremes in the dark and middle ages with chastity belts, confirmation of blood on the sheets after a wedding night, and theological discussions among clerics of that era as to whether or not women even possessed souls. Women were, for thousands of years, chattel..possessions, with no rights of our own.

Childhood didn't last as long, back in those days, either. Once a girl began to have her cycle, she was ready for marriage. Only modern society keeps our children as helpless, child-like dependents right into their 20's. Then, of course, you have all the "studies" done by pro-adoptionists that brand young mothers as more likely to abuse and neglect...a questionable conclusion at best...and Voila! It's perfectly OK to covet and commandeer the child of the unmarried, young woman. Being covetous allows for a lot of twists and turns to get to justification of the coveting.

The industry banks on that coveting. It is their bread and butter. They cater to that obsessive desire for the offspring of another by painting the coveters as saints and rescuers. The mother is the "Good"mother for surrendering and then she is just another young slut that didn't deserve to raise her own child.

Sunday was my oldest child's 46th birthday. I sat and remembered her birth. I remember having to threaten the nurses in order to get her brought to me on a regular basis until I left the hospital. I remember taking off all her little clothes and checking every square inch of her. I remember the love that surged through me. I remember being in awe of how something so perfect and beautiful could come from me. I remember her sleeping with her head on my chest and my heartbeat being her lullabye. I remember us staring into each other's eyes when I fed her a bottle. I remember saying goodbye....something that should never have happened but for the covetous nature of a wife and husband out there that were unable to naturally produce their own offspring and a system that wanted to "kill two birds with one stone," ie., punish/cure me for having the temerity to have sex and get pregnant while single and to fulfill the covetous dreams of the infertile.

The bitch of it all is that it is still happening...maybe not in the Holocaust-like numbers of my era, but it still goes on. I can hope that other countries follow Russia's lead and start keeping their babies inside their geographical boundaries so that these kids can grow up in their own culture. I want everyone concerned to do all in their power to make it really hard for those who would be so arrogant as to covet the child of another and erroneously believe they have the right to do so. I want the "Ugly American" to look askance at our arrogant assumption that it is preferable to grow up in our society rather than in one's own culture. It isn't right, according to those commandments and it sure isn't natural and in tune with creation.

The Graying of the Mothers

I've had a dear, close friend tell me she is backing away from adoption activism. Here's another strong voice for the BSE that is silenced by the fact that, as we get older, our health is not as good and we get so tired.....tired of the BS, the infighting, the egregious machinations of the industry and its proponents. It's harsh in the land of natural family preservation. There is either the faction that wants to silence us or the others that think we need to march in lock-step or the others that think their way is the better way and kick us to the curb. There are the trouble-makers, the bitchers and the harassers and they come in all ages, there.

Those of us, who are fed up with it all, are withdrawing, more and more, into the comfort of our families and friends. We are losing hope of any significant change happening within our lifetime and are tired of putting ourselves out there as targets for the rabid pro-adoption faction, the industry, the eugenicists and the ignorant. We're just plain tired, period and I have the gray hair to prove it.

There are younger, more energetic voices that are working towards change, but they have a blind spot when it comes to the importance of the phenomenon of the BSE. Millions of us old, tired moms with the last part of our lives looking us smack in the kisser are being relegated to "well that's too bad...next?" status. One organization, in which I still hold a membership and have supported with my dues and my small donations, has, essentially, taken the BSE and blended it into the whole of adoption, mixing to try to dilute the unique characteristics of an era that is, sorry kids, vitally important if you want to change adoption. I feel betrayed because they are the group with the name recognition and it is NOTHING like it was meant to be, now.

We BSE moms, on the other hand, are finding ourselves having to pay more attention to our health, our blood pressure, hearts, and all other bodily needs that can be affected by stress. I have been criticized for not publishing the adverse and argumentative (and even hateful) comments, saying that makes me ineffective in what I am posting, here. What people don't understand is that this is how I can keep my voice in this issue alive and, by hitting that "reject" button, I do my health a biiiiig favor. The pissing contests and trying to reason with the unreasonable are activities that have taken the starch out of me on too many occasions. I don't want to be as sick as I was last year, ever again.

I want to enjoy what is left of my life. I have heard the same comment from many other BSE moms. We've paid our dues and the only thing that we want now is recognition and justice. Aside from the positive impetus this would have for change, we just downright DESERVE some redress. But, we are not in the mainstream of those who want to "educate" adopters and facilitators...who just giggle to themselves and keep on picking our brains to see what kind of crumbs they can throw to us while they proceed on with the program of separating mothers and babies.

At least, here, I have a forum and there are plenty of readers who have contacted me and let me know that something I wrote helped them. That's all I need. I don't have to conform to the questionable standards of this person or that and I sure don't need to run my blood pressure up, just to get on an unending merry-go-round with a critic.

To my friend, Honey, I don't fault you, one bit, in your decision to take care of you, first. I've been there, done that, and will continue to do so. I'll just keep writing here and wondering about how the fishing is in WV. There is no need for either of us to die for the cause. Besides, the myth of adoption has already left a dead spot in our hearts. I think that's enough suffering for one lifetime..don't you?

(*For those who don't want to back-track and don't know what the BSE is; The Baby Scoop Era is a time period between the end of WWII and Roe v Wade, when a huge number, millions, of babies were taken from, usually single, young mothers and placed by adoption facilitators in secret, closed adoptions. The numbers are unprecedented and there has not been such a mass insult to single mothers since then. It still happens, but not in the numbers and not with the punitive pressure of an entire society behind it.)

Woe Is "Hateful" Me

One of those comments that I consign to the circular file made me laugh before I hit the "reject" button. It was one of those that went, "blah, blah, blah Hateful, blah blah blah dumpster babies, blah blah shame on you." I am quite sure that this adoption-besotted person who took umbrage thinks that she/he was very original and got me told in spades. Laughing out loud here, but I think they only know one song, and that one, they sing off-tune. I will make another small effort at educating the uneducable. Why do I bother?

You want to see hateful? Go to some group sites I won't name here and see what a wannabe adopter posts when a mother wakes up to her love and caring for her own child and decides to keep and raise that child. You would think that, rather than exercising her rights as that baby's TRUE and legal mother, that she had murdered Mother Teresa. The hate and the self-entitlement ooze out in flows like lava from the Hawaiian volcanoes and just about as red-hot.

You want to feel like the object of hate? Have your adult child find you and want to have a relationship with you. It's not just insecurity or fear....it's downright hostility and our children get put in the middle of it all, so it's usually we moms that back off rather than have our children go through such a tug of war.

You want to know about shame? How about being treated, even by members of one's own family, like you are the Whore of Babylon? How about being called a promiscuous slut and being seen like that by the social workers that are supposed to be helping you, even though you only had one partner or, for some of us, were raped?

Don't lay your hateful shit or your shame on me. If you try, you're going to just see them bounce off and lay there. I shrugged both of those things off a long time ago, and if telling the truth is hateful to you, then I feel very, very sorry for you. As for those dumpster babies, you are talking about a very small minority. How would you like it if I constantly referred to the adopters who have molested, abused and even killed the children they adopted? They have been in the news, now, haven't they?

Boy, I do love that "reject" button.