Hasidic saying (Thanks CB)
I get so tired of hearing the treacle spewed by those young brood mares such as the ones who post to the blog Birthmothers For Adoption. These young women are only a couple of years out from their loss, if that, and have a lot to go through, yet they are putting themselves up as "experts" in the area of surrendering a child for adoption. I'm not quite sure of the significance of this amateurish logo. The pink ribbon is a Breast Cancer Awareness logo, the heart is, well, a heart and the wings??? Well, all I can think of is, maybe, a breast cancer survivor in love, riding a Harley?
You only have to read a few entries to know that the mothers on that group (and no, I will not do them the disservice they do themselves by calling them "birth"mothers) have sipped long and deeply at the Adoption Kool Aid spring of denial and misinformation. They are still in the pink cloud of self-delusion encouraged by the Industry and the adopters that say they are loving mothers...GOOD mothers, even, for turning their infant over to genetic strangers. I have to pity them because they are so damn clueless.
While I abhor the fact that these young women are actually promoting adoption after losing their own children to the Beast, I hate, more, the fact that the Industry is getting so good at making that Kool Aid taste like fine wine. They are honing the brainwashing of the American public to a fine, sharp edge. The blade is so sharp, the Beemommies don't even feel the cut.
I felt a brief moment of hope when I read an entry "Adoption Wasn't For Me," only to find that she just hadn't been introduced to the LDS adoption machine. Well, obviously it is all in the way it is presented. I couldn't read too much more because I was saddened, sickened and felt an uncomfortable twinge of guilt.
The guilt I felt was at keeping silent, as we EMS mothers were ordered to do, for so many years. Our silence aided in the beguiling of these naifs. When the phenomenon of search and reunion started, the Industry was, only then, starting to hear faint rumblings from the mothers of appropriated infants. Their response was the infamous "Focus Groups" where mothers were blindfolded, made to relive their pain and tragedy and then sent on their way with $100 for their participation. Out of that dastardly action came the idea of "open adoption," which was nothing more than a way to entice more women into surrender and not worth the paper on which it is printed. It was crumbs when a feast was in order.
To make a bad situation worse, they now have, in some church supported agencies, especially the LDS, relinquishment and "binding" ceremonies. How on earth could any mother survive these indignities and torture unless she was thoroughly, emotionally anesthetized? I watched a short video of one such ceremony and it was barbaric. It was like forcing the lamb to celebrate its own slaughter.
I watched a horror movie, recently...one so bad it was almost funny. The vampire was turning people into vampires and then sending them out to make more vampires with an eye to world domination (what would they subsist on when all the humans are turned..enquiring minds want to know?). The Industry turns mothers-to-be into beemommies and then sends them forth to entice more beemommies. That's scarier than the scariest horror movie.
The bad part, the hard part, for me, is that I understand their denial. I was in the "Good Birthmother" fog for quite a few years. It took reuniting with two damaged, adult children in great pain to realize that I had been HAD. I'd love to be able to get through to these young handmaids and let them know that, when they realize that pink cloud is just water vapor with food coloring, they are going to fall and fall hard. They are still floating and feeling all heroic and righteous. And if they believe that idiocy about their children "rising up and calling them blessed," they can forget THAT in a big, fat hurry. That very seldom happens and, when it does, it is usually temporary and a prelude to "goodbye forever."
The Industry is pulling out all the stops and these young sisters have been swept up in the wave of anti-choice, guilt-inducing, Madison Avenue glitz, smoke and mirrors. I have to do my small part to counteract the poison they are spreading with what they, mistakenly, probably see as good intentions. If they really, honestly think that giving up their babies is so damn wonderful, then I am doubly sorry for them.
If and when the awakening comes, it is going to be a rude one.
22 comments:
You are so right. It IS a horror movie, much scarier than Jaws or The Exorcist, but their "Binding ceremony" is real.
I could barely look at any of the pictures, let alone any of the videos. How cruel that this poor baby is plastered all over the internet....her trauma splashed for the world to see.
These women are part of the new adoption machine, and they are frightening. Proclaiming themselves as heroes and pulling other women into their sickness.
I know of one first Mother who "went to the other side" and promoted her broker's services. When she finally woke up, it was ugly.
Its like a whore teaching apprentice hookers how to please a pimp.
Uh, Linda...about that "whore" analogy? Being a mother who was accused of being a whore, slut, loose, tramp, you name it, it kinda makes me feel icky. Other than that, I agree with your comment.
The cruelty is to both the baby and the mother. The mother just isn't aware of her real pain yet. These women are so blinded by the hype.
Great post Robin! It fit especially well after your poignant Soul Sickness post yesterday. It is so sad that these young women have no idea what they are in for. I really feel for these women because many of them are likely in open adoptions and know that they have to keep toeing the line or they will lose whatever contact they do have with their children. Also, once the deed is done, I think many mothers have to keep believing the lie otherwise they would be overwhelmed by their pain and grief.
Adoption has been the perfect crime for so long because each of us mothers thought that we were the only one and our shame and guilt and low self-esteem kept us from saying anything about it to anyone. My fog lifted, as yours did, the first day that I spoke with my daughter and heard the pain in her voice. We need to keep telling people and you are doing just that here, which I say is no small thing.
You know, Robin, as soon as I hit post I thought about that. Im sorry. I know my own f Mom was accused of being that, too, and I hate it...
I was trying to think of an analogy before I had had my morning pot of coffee.
No coffee first? With me, that excuses it BIG TIME. ;o) I can't even see before I have my first cup, much less read and post. LOL
I think just the fact that she felt the need to create this website and enlist other Mothers who share her experience, speaks volumes. The problem, IMO, is that she is still wanting to believe the lovely lies the adoption entities... use to entice her and other vulnerable pregnant women to "make the right choice" for her child. I spent years believing those lovely lies, it was not until I was reunited with my children and saw first hand how they had been affected by adoption, that I was forced to deal with the truth of the choice I made. The consequences of choosing to place a child for adoption are devastating, and life long for both Mother and child.
Excellent post - again, Robin. I love reading your stuff. I hope that someday my "D" (my other mother) finds her voice... like you.
It is equally difficult for those of us who were given no choice. We had to hold on to the hopes that the lies we were told were true. We had no other options.
I once stumbled upon www.canadaadopts.com A man was talking about the baby he and his wife were planning to adopt. The young expectant mom was barely 2 months (that's TWO) pregnant. I joined so that I could comment and point out that this poor girl needed time and space so she could make her decision and they were planning on adoption WAY too early. I got many enraged responses (to that and a number of other comments I made over the next several months until I was kicked off.) But in all those months one young woman named Shelley who identified herself as a "birth mother" was the one person I couldn't communicate with at all. Even adoptive parents and those hoping to adopt would respond to reason sometimes but not her and of course she was their trump card. Anything I or anyone else said was nullified because she was so happy. It wasn't until later that I found this.....http://www.adoptionconnections.ca/profilewrite.htm (hope the link works). You guessed it... its our Shelley and for $199 she'll help you convince a struggling expectant mom to hand over her child to you. Its not uplifting reading but a good example of how the cycle is continued. Clare
I may have been in The Mist for 34 years....but I never, never thought, from the minute I signed the surrender doc to encourage other young mothers to give their newborns away nor to praise, sanctify or annoint angelic personas onto any mother that lost her baby to adoption.
And Linda hit it..""Its like a whore teaching apprentice hookers how to please a pimp.""
Call me whatever...cold-hearted, I don't care...I have no sympathy for these *birth mothers*, for that is truly what they are. They are the willing Breeders for the adoption farm. Matters not to me, slick marketing and all that..at what point do these *Birth Mothers* not read their own slop and even question themselves the tiniest little bit? I have a hunch, like a drug, they are now addicted to their Angel Status and attention brought from same. They received lots of attention while they were preggers from their Chosen PAPs, they received plenty of attention from the agency or whoever engineered their 'gift' to give to others. They still want more attention..so now they give that to themselves and want others to join in with them. Personally, I think they are mentally ill. And if whoever reads my 'comment' and you don't like it...tough..is how I feel about it.
I was reading at that site yesterday...made me sick to my stomach and angered me.
And no I will never feel one ounce of guilt for not speaking up decades ago. I lived with my own personal guilt, on a day to day basis. I absolutely refuse to take on more guilt for the actions of others...even other mothers..like the ones at that website/blog.
I find this post very gut wrenching. I live in Utah so the LDS version of adoption is oozing all over the place. The thought of it all makes me sick. Numb is the perfect word for getting through it all. I was wondering do you know of any groups in Utah that share beliefs like yours? That tell the truth of the whole matter instead of sugar coat everyting to death by "blessing" everyone. I would love to find one. I have always wanted my voice to be heard but never found a local outlet.
Fabulous post!
I guess I see the younger mothers as a product of their times just as we were the product of ours. They have been exposed to a different kind of message, spread by a more all-encompassing and pervasive media. The resurgence of ultra-conservatism and the need for the younger generation to rebel against the principals of the older one is a potent cocktail. These girls are Stepford moms. They only get their identities from the machinations of others. We were stereotyped as morally loose and I don't want to do the same to them, whether I think they are responsible for their own actions or not.
Robin...I am not stereotyping this type of good birth mother...they have done that themselves all over the internet, in their own words..not mine.
Of course, they don't have to answer to me..but one day they will have to answer to someone, namely their own child/children. As many of us older mothers have already had to do..one way or another.
In the past I did try imparting my experience, in a thoughtful and compassionate way. I was told to go to hell, that I was a bitch, that I didn't know what I was talking about, was called a 'whore' by the creators of the Birthmom Buds group in a private email, have been banned for speaking out where the new birth mothers hang out and even recently lambasted by yahoo private message by an expectant 'birth mom', telling me that I was a c*cks***er...I was called that several times in one email. Sorry..I can't empathize with a lot of the good beemommies anymore.
Hit me once,shame on you. Hit me twice, shame on me...try it a 3rd time, I hit back!
Oh,I see your end of it, too, Chris and mostly agree. I got called names for enroaching on their LaLa land as well. I see them as responsible for their own choices, especially since they have many we didn't have. I just hate to hear that term used for any mother. If it tars a few, it tars us all. JMO
I have to say that in regards to the current crop of good bmommies I have mixed feelings. They are adults for the most part, and they have choices, and for their right to choose I will go to the wall, and have, actually. However, they DO have choices. That is the one thing that differentiats them from us. WE had none.
I cannot get all in a lather over their bmommiehood. I don't even read their posts anymore, since they are so totally alien to my experience that I cannot equate. I have heard many of them say that they love the feeling so much that they had another child to relinquish, sort of a "have one for the Gipper" sort of thing. That is simply outside my ken. I don't even WANT to understand that.
Nor should we be surprised. The NCFA SAID they were going to do that. The entire premise of their booklet "BMGM: Her Heroic Redemption" is an outline for doing this. The Increasing Domestic Infant Adoption thing also details their plan.
If you put the information out there, remind them that it exists, point out that they have detailed and outlined their agenda, listed the reasons why it is so and they STILL go to the fountain, sucks to be them. I cannot feel sorry for them. It is sad, but it is their choosing. They truly do have choices. They truly do have options.
You summed them up nicely a few days ago when you called them Juda Goats, and I love the thing that Celeste sent you. Those are both biblical and/or ancient. That shows how long this process has been around. If 2000 years won't convince them, how can we think we can? I am done trying. I will continue to work for OUR rights to finally be recognized. That's enough for me to take on. The rest, oh well.....
""If it tars a few, it tars us all.""
I think this can be used in the same respect of the Good Birthmothers on the internet, with their 'gifts', with 'god's plan', with 'lovely/wonderful adoptive parents I chose', 'I am not selfish', 'I am so happy and contented with my choice to relinquish my baby', etc., etc., etc., they 'tar' us as well.
At one point in my life...I personally knew 2 real-life 'whores'..I knew it, they knew it, everybody knew it. And these 2 attractive young women did not apologize to anyone for what they chose to do..sometimes for money, sometimes as a 'gift'. One of the gals names was 'Frenchy'..she was very attractive, yet tough. She cared about other women, once she even offered to beat someone up for me and she meant it, she surely would have done it...though we never carried thru with 'the plan'. Then there was 'Gracie'..again very attractive, a no bull-shit person. She once gave me very sage and wise advice when I was 19 yrs old. I knew not too long after that 'advice' was given to me..Gracie was spot-on. Both of these young women had really tough lives as children, no one to care for them..so they took care of themselves the best they could. But they were honest, they were direct and like Gracie, could even cry with you. Frenchy & Gracie, thought me a 'nice' girl, they wanted to protect me, they didn't call me names, they didn't disparage me...nor I them. I will never forget Frenchy & Gracie..2 'whores' I was proud to know. These 2 young women (older than me at the time)..also were abandoned and given no choice, other than the choice to survive the best they could. Bless Frenchy & Gracie wherever they are today. And I have thought of them several times over the years, not with judgment, not with disrespect, but with heartfelt compassion and concern. Yes, they were 'whores', I wasn't, still I was never ashamed to speak to either one of them on the street, as we walked by one another. If people wanted to do the 'tar' thing...mattered not to me..I knew my truth, they were kind women to me that's all I knew at the age of my 18-19 yrs.
But for the Grace of God, go I. Go any of us.....
I guess I feel that however VERY MISGUIDED they may be, that they are still in such deep denial, something that it took me years to come out of.....I hated what I did, but honestly believed that it was for the best...after all "they" wouldn'
t lie to me, would they?......hahahaha......but therein lies the rub...."they" didn't give me a choice, and today they truly HAVE a choice....if they quietly made the choice and went on, I would feel some sympathy since I KNOW they will learn by their choice, but much later. But to openly taut such a choice makes me angry, angry for the child that will suffer the consequences, and angry that the choice seems to be made with such joy. I don't say it as well as others, but it just plain makes me angry!!! Always, Jenny
Sounds like a special sorority. I particularly like the birthmother basket giveaway and (my favorite) the blankets for birthmothers program which gives blankets to birthmothers when they leave the hospital so no one has to go home empty-handed. (and the blankets can keep them warm at night) If this wasn't so sickening, I would swear it is a bad joke.
We had a little 15 yr old birthmother- about 1 month postpartum- that came to our triad support group, brought by her therapist, and for the 2 hours all she could do was cry. All I could think of was how many years she had ahead of her to cry and feel that pain of loss and how glad I was that my 38 years of punishment were over. When these girls get married and have their own families, I bet they shut up. By then they may not be seeing their children anymore. If it was an open adoption, it may be closed. And then they have to get thru reunion and the child possibly hating them, because, remember, these words that they are writing will be out there in cyberspace somewhere for all to read- even their lost child.
Trying to get them to understand is hopeless at this point. This is how they are trying to live with so much pain and grief inside.
Makes me so sad.
"one day they will have to answer to someone, namely their own child/children" In my book no mother has to answer to anyone even her own child.She may like to tell her story, but 'answer' smacks of judgement and retribution.
Viewing all this for far away is so sad because there is a very different perspective.
America invented marketing and it does it efficiently, expertly in the adoption industry.There's no surprise in that.No-one can predict how these Beemommies will feel and be in 20 years time..maybe they won't feel like other mothers because they've been brought up in different times with different expectations. What they've been feed and addicted too many never leave them, perhaps they'll just go on needing to test out their angel wings.
Please tell me someone what is 'binding'?
The Binding Ceremony, Von, as it is practiced in the Mormon (Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints...LDS) is done when church members adopt a child. The ceremony is supposed to "bind" the child and the family together, going one better on the "as if born to" of legal speak, for all time.
Von..When I said 'answer to', yes there is an answering that does happen in most reunions.
When the now adult child asks their natural mother...Why did you leave me?,(this is the exact question my own daughter asked me at the beginning of our reunion), Why did you surrender me?
A question does deserve an answer, an honest one. How will the good beemommies of today answer?
Chris is right, Von. The adoptee, when reunited, always wants to know WHY. It's the big question and the most vital one.
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