I no longer feel safe within the larger community of mothers of adoption loss. The anger of the adoptees and the unresolved guilt of many mothers, especially those who did not go on to have other children, has allowed a new label...Abandoner. The vicious, hostile sound of that reverberates in the heart of every mother who was coerced and/or forced to do what she was told was the only possible thing she could do for the well-being of her child.
I sat at my laptop, in a motel, last night and read some of this crap and almost cried in frustration. Adopted adults are demanding that we place ourselves in the path of legal jeapordy because they suffer from "emotional abandonment." Let's see..I suffer from the emotional perception of lack of riches so maybe we need a law to make me a millionaire. Everyone, whether they contributed to my particular financial state or not, would be forced to feed the kitty. It doesn't matter that I am solvent and my needs are being met. I feel emotionally poorer than Bill Gates so that is enough, isn't it?
Then there are the mothers...women with whom I felt a bond of sisterhood for having endured the same horrible situation and loss. But these women seem to be so overwhelmed with guilt or so enamoured of the idea of self-sacrifice that they are content to be seen as abandoners and feel that we must offer our last drop of blood to the adopted people of the nation. NO, to these women. I DID NOT ABANDON MY BABIES!!!!!!!!!!! How can a kid who is under the control of her parents, frightened and confused and made to carry an unbelievable load of shame be a willful abandoner? And, whether you agree or not, willful is the only adjective that will suffice in the true definition of abandoner.
It doesn't matter what we were compelled to sign or had those awful papers signed for us. It doesn't matter what the emotional perception of the adoptee might be (especially the rejected ones who want to hate all mothers). It doesn't matter about the unresolved guilt and desire for martydom of these mothers. What matters are the facts and, if one is emotionally sound and sane, the facts will translate into the proper emotions.
About 30 years ago, I realized that I had problems and I decided to do something about them. I went into a program for eating disordered people and I learned that I was operating on old, childhood misconceptions and old tapes running in my head. What I had to do was to learn to correct the misconceptions and burn those old tapes. A simple concept but certainly not one easily accomplished, I still wanted to be at peace and sane so I had at it and guess what? All that guilt and misguided sense of carrying the responsibility of the happiness of the world on my shoulders went away, bit by bitter bit. I am certainly not emotionally perfect, but I am sound enough in my self-image that I refuse to pick up a burden just because it is thrown at me.
The size of my world is getting smaller and smaller. Right now, there are just a few mothers that I can count as friends and from whom I get genuine support. There are also a few adopted people who see the truth behind the harsh and harmful lies and I can communicate with them on an equal basis. Other than that, my husband, children, other immediate family and my little dog are it. Trust is a valuable commodity and a few former friends have lost mine. I grieve the loss both I and they have suffered.
I am not the mother of all adopted people. I do not carry the responsibility for the happiness and satisfaction of all adoptees. It is psychopathically hateful the way we are spoken to and about by some of these "adults." I have reunited with my adult children and we have our own situations with which to deal but we deal on a mutually respectful basis. Hey, try it. It works.
Moreover, just because Mary Lou and Sally Ann are having a grand old time pounding their breasts in true martyred-mother style, doesn't mean I feel constrained to join the guilt party or should. I'm disappointed in so many of my sisters who would sacrifice themselves rather than demand respect.
Were it not for the few notable people I have mentioned before, I would be feeling very alone and unsupported. I wonder how long it will be before I stop caring?
4 comments:
Yes so easy to feel caring slipping away in the face of all the anger, hurt and unresolved suffering.We're all adults here, let's all act like adults, get our stuff sorted and show some understanding and compassion for others who have suffered and have scars.We'll never get rid of them but hey we're alive, we can shout about it and maybe one day change will come.
I too prefer to be with only those who have some understanding and haven't got time for the rest anymore, unless they're starting out.
Abandonner's indeed!!!
I just hate that! I was told that unless I signed the papers, my son would be taken anyway as an "abandoned child" and I would then come under the radar of CPS. They would then take any subsequent children. Since I am pretty sure that they took my son before I signed papers, I felt that fear for decades. But, I did NOT abandon my son! He was stolen from me as surely as if they had held a gun to my head. DON'T call me an Abandoner!
kitta here:
I wonder if any of these detractors have ever bothered to read the laws.
If we didn't sign any papers, and just walked off, our children would be declared 'abandoned." then they would be processed through the courts and adopted anyway, without our participation. They would have been placed in foster care in the interim.
We would have been charged with 'abandonment" which was a crime. We might even be arrested.
However...we didn't do that...
Many of us signed temporary care agreements.These allowed us time to try to get help(sometimes mother succeeded in getting their parents or boyfriends to step up).
Often, however, agencies would start pressure, telling us they would terminate us in court anyway, during the temporary care time which was illegal...forcing us to sign a surrender under threats and duress. This was NOT abandonment on our part.
This was coercion on the agency's part.
However, the court threat was real...and the laws are on the books.After a certain period of time in care, a mother's rights can be terminated. But it is a lot longer than just a few weeks.
Or, we might have been coerced to sign the surrender in hospital or in the home, with similar court threat tactics...or telling us we had huge bills to pay if we "backed out"..or that the adoptive parents and our parents already had made arrangements and we were underage and couldn't back out now because it was "illegal"...and other tactics...
You know what really chaps my hide?..when I hear middle-aged very adult women, adopted as newborns..(guess what years/era?), who have learned of the most discriminatory and inhumane practices against their own mothers, and yes even themselves as newborns, not just in America but in other westernized countries as well..who still call their mothers "Abandoners"!! The majority of BSE Mothers truly had no choice..yet the daughters of these BSE Mothers still insist on calling their mothers "Abandoners". In my book, tells more about the character (or lack of)of the "middle-aged very adult" woman who as a fresh newborn was lost to her mother and thusly lost to adoption, then the mother she feels justified to further crucify with the label of "Abandoner". I find these "women" to be just as cruel,inhumane and judgemental as the society, parents, religious orgs, and the droves of social workers that condemned their own mothers in the first place.
*Feelings of abandonment* and labelling someone as an *Abandoner* is not the same and should not be touted as such by very adult women who were surrendered as newborns. Were these adult women not taught any lessons in compassion by their adoptive families? Really causes one to question.
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