A Little Less Talk.......

....and a lot more action. I have been suffering from a writer's block, especially in this subject area where so much has been written. As time has gone by, I have noticed that I am often repeating myself. Of course, that happens with a lot of causes. And some things do bear repeating.

The latest political unrest and national and international crisis have distracted me. As a senior citizen, largely reliant on Social Security and Medicare, I am afraid of what I see happening in the halls of congress and in the White House. As a die-hard liberal, I am frustrated.

But, first and foremost, is my interest in seeing justice done for the Mothers of the EMS and our adult children. We can't change the past, but we can address the injustices and damage done and demand that something be done in the way of redress and civil/human rights.

It's a simple request from our adult children. Give them access to their Original Birth Certificates in a simple and straightforward bill with no embroidery and contact vetoes and "on-demand" medical histories from their Mothers. It shouldn't take 80+ pages to give our children the right to information they should have had all along. Then let the ADULTS involved take it from there.

It's not quite so simple in the case of the Mothers' issues. But, if they can complicate something as simple as OBC access for adoptees, think of what they could do with our plight. I do know that we are sick and tired of the Industry, adopters and others who don't know us presuming to speak for us. We are big girls now. If we want to say "no" we can do it on our own without the help of the ACLU, NCFA or the EBDI. That is, of course, if we want to. The vast majority of us DO NOT want our names kept from our adult children. The states and bill writers are big-brothering us to death with this one.

Well, come August 8, I will have my opportunity to put my physical presence where my mouth has been, lo, these many years. I am braving the heat of the big city of San Antonio, Texas to add my voice to those seeking the cooperation of state reps. The National Convention of State Legislators will be meeting there and adoptees and mothers will be there. We shall see what we shall see because a couple of us will also be representing SMAAC and the Mothers' issues. We have been working on a brochure for our cause and hope to see it in the hands of someone who might actually learn something from it

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We will be there with adoptees, demonstrating and, hopefully, educating. This is not an easy task. We are bucking a status quo with which our entire society has been not only comfortable, but enamoured. Adoption mythology in the US is right up there with the flag, baseball, apple pie and fireworks on the Fourth. It is another of those feel-good myths that people would rather believe than see the dark underbelly. It is presented to the public by the Industry, and those that profit in any way from it, in the same skewed way that we have taught American History to our children..totally slanted and prettied up with the dirt swept under the rug. Getting the word out about the realities involved is going to be an uphill climb.

So, San Antonio, don't get me wrong. I know you have that lovely RiverWalk and that little, historical, adobe mission, but you could never get me to come there in August for those attractions. Triple-digit heat is not my thing. But the cluster-f*** of sealed records, the inequities of coerced surrenders and the grief of Mothers and the civil and human rights of us and our adult children can and will get me out there in the heat. And I'm mean when I'm hot.

Watch out, you State Legislators...the adoptees are coming and they are bringing their Mamas!

Conjectures, Urban Legends and Fantasies

Nothing could possibly be more surreal than the landscape of our dreams and imaginations, especially when fueled by half-truths, lies and rumored legends. I'm not denying that there is a visceral memory and early childhood memories that are real and true for the adoptee. But over the years, adopters avoiding questions, the industry and adopters telling convenient lies, the social perceptions of adoption and being adopted, the mythology and the deepest wishes can create a picture worthy of Charnine or Dali.


The real and valid feelings the adoptee experience are the brush, but, too often, misinformation and unrealistic expectations are the paint with which the adoptee creates an idea of what might be. Meanwhile, Mothers are often busy either trying to blank out the canvas or, at least, present a fairy-tale image of happily ever after for their lost babies. This is why we meet each other across a barrier of warped images, coping mechanisms, preconceptions and a consciousness tainted by an unnatural separation. There is nothing natural about surrender or adoption and there is nothing easy or natural about reunion from what I have seen and experienced.


When I was in treatment at the Rader institute (for bulimia), we had a wonderful group leader who made a contract with each new patient when they joined his group. We had to promise, on a scale of one to ten, to not kill ourselves, not kill anyone else and not go crazy. I managed a ten on the first two but had trouble getting past six on the last one. He kept at me until I got to a ten. I kept trying to figure out why that going crazy thing was so attractive to me that I was reluctant to let go of it. I guess, like everyone else, I was looking for an easy way out and a way to live without having to face life. I was way past insecure and into the melting clocks and purple trees of self-loathing.


I had constructed an image of what life should be, for me and for my children, and it wasn't happening. I was not ready to step out of the fantasy and learn how to enjoy and appreciate and cope, healthily, with reality. I made a lot of progress at Rader. I grew up a lot. I accepted the process and the imperfections of life, people and myself. This all happened a few years prior to reunion. I shudder to think what might have happened had I not been through that particular refining fire.


I'll be honest that reunion took me a few big steps backwards and I had to retrace my steps to reality and sanity. None of the hopes and dreams I had for my two oldest children had come true. Their expectations and imaginations had created just as unreal a scenario as mine had. And it has been so hard to admit that we can't fix each other. It's like going into a museum and looking at a piece of surreal or modern art. Each of us see something different in the painting. Sometimes I wonder if we are even speaking the same language. All we know is that the connection is there and still strong.


Someone told me that no one could understand adoptees but other adoptees. They're right. The same holds true for Mothers. So we are often at an impasse with many of our number in seeking cooperation to achieve goals. There are those that see only the dark and those that won't give up the rose-colored glasses and then there's the pain competitions. That's the reality based on the surreality. So what we need to do is find a way to accept the reality of the other, even if we don't understand it.


Once again, I have set the bar pretty high, even for myself. I can accept that the adoptee FEELS abandoned, but MY children were NOT abandoned. And it is almost impossible for people in the generations following us to even begin to understand the pressure of society and family shame. Conversely, it is hard for us to understand how it feels to be a lilac on a magnolia tree..grafted on to another family and expected to be totally okay and comfortable with that. I can't begin to imagine how it must feel to experience that "otherness" and yet be expected to behave as if it doesn't exist.


So, we would all fit right into a painting by any of the surrealists...trying to get into each others' heads, walking on eggshells and traveling through alien territory. And we are trying to do this with a road map that is drawn from lies, suppositions, our own fantasies, manipulations and the official picture of surrender and adoption presented by the industry, government and society and (all too often) the church. It takes courage to toss away that poorly-charted map and do some serious exploring without any preconceived notions to shed false light on the path.


All this is a fancy way to say that we all need to get real. Where is the logic in, for instance, saying that "my mother is the bitch from hell so I am going to hate 'em all, mistrust 'em all and call them all 'birthmothers' regardless of what they want?" It makes about as much sense as saying that "my adult child is a selfish, whining, demanding monster so all adopted people are mean and childish." But there are Adoptees and Mothers who will say just those things. These folks are still out there with Bugs Bunny meeting up with the Dodo Bird. It's a fear factor...if it is true for them, then it needs to be true for everyone...illogical but human.


I don't know how long it will take for us to meet on a common ground that is acceptable to us both. For all the mistrust and misunderstanding, there is a need for connection, love and acceptance that is just as great as any of the hostility. I just hope we get there. There are a few willing to find common ground. There are those of us who want records open for adoptees AND mothers, who want the Industry investigated and past practices put under the microscope of public and congressional scrutiny and we are willing to stand up and identify ourselves.


What really pisses me off the most is that the main architects of this surreal social experiment are uncaring of the weird world they have created. There's money in it and they are not ready to see that their "wonderful solution" only created more pain and problems. Some of these geniuses passed thinking they had left behind a perfect legacy. And the Industry and PAPs and adopters are the ones who gain along with the high-paid lobbyists and the congressional palms they grease.

Them that has, gets.

They're All Alike...Aren't They??

I went through a period in my life when I pretty much judged all men by one standard. In my mind, they were all out for one thing only, incapable of fidelity and emotionally immature. I was pretty darn smug in my biased wisdom as I tarred each and every male with the same brush. After all, I had learned my lesson about the opposite gender through hard and painful experience. With a flick of my wrist and a twisted grin, I would proclaim, loudly, that "Men are all alike."

Was that fair of me or even accurate? NO. I was guilty of what I call "Center of the World Syndrome." If it was true for me, it was true for everyone. My experience with men, save my grandfather and a favorite uncle, was hurtful and traumatic. I obviously had a lot of maturing to do and I don't wonder that my first marriage was not very successful. While I don't think it was all my fault, I am sure that my attitude towards men didn't help anything. Thank goodness I finally stopped calling all equines mules and got to know men as individuals. I  have a wonderful husband and some terrific male friends and my sons are terrific.

It's unfortunate that some seem to see ALL Natural Mothers based on their own negative experiences with their own. I can understand the frustration, anger and hurt that an adoptee experiences when their mothers are too frightened, ashamed or too indoctrinated by the adoption myth to be open to their surrendered children. I don't blame them for telling it like it is FOR THEM. But we are not all alike any more than all adopted people are identical. We don't hold a set of magic keys to open all the doors to all their mysteries, but most of us welcome our reunited children and do our best. Some of us even searched for our children.

When making a statement about something an Nmom has done that is unfair or unkind, I think it's important to make it clear that it is that one particular mother who is being cited. When you say "Mothers," it indicts us all. Being surprised or resentful when we object is ignoring the obvious. When we ask that you don't say this about all of us, that isn't an attack. It's simply a reasonable request based on fairness and logic.

Now, I want to address one issue in particular and that's the idea recently put forth that we think, because we gave birth, that we can control all our children into adulthood. Nothing is further from the truth. Were I to try to tell my adult, raised children that they couldn't associate with their surrendered siblings, they would laugh out loud. I have not had that kind of "control" since they were 13. True, there might be the rare controlling matriarch among us who tries, but I doubt if she would meet with a lot of success. On the other hand, there have been any number of Adopters who have issued just such an ultimatum to their adopted, ADULT children and were obeyed. MOST of us Nmoms are not that insecure.

But the bottom line here is that stereotyping anyone, especially in the adoption reunion, open records arena, is cutting off one's nose to spite one's face. The "Us against Them" schism between mothers and adult adoptees as two separate groups IS unnecessary and counter-productive. All it takes to avoid this is to be careful to own our own situations without presenting it as an across-the-board portrayal of all mothers OR adoptees.

We have joined with adoptees in an effort to balance the scales for mothers, support the rights of our children to their original birth certificates and to bridge the gap between the two parties. I am sure that there are some mothers that would rather we wouldn't do that and some adoptees that would rather we not even show up in San Antonio in August.

But this is about all of us..not just the adoptee and not just the mother. There are decades of secrets, lies and painful experiences from which we all need to heal and even more decades of discrimination against both that must cease. We're all sensitive from our experiences. It doesn't take much to touch off that raw nerve on both ends of the discussion. Unfortunately, there are those among us who are so angry and so settled in that anger that trying to get those individuals to see reason and temper their comments with equity and compassion is dust in the wind. This is where I think we ALL need to be careful, adoptees and mothers, not to let those who have not dealt with their anger direct our actions.

I wish I could be mother to all the adopted adults who have met with heartache. I wish they all could be made welcome by their mothers and natural families.And I wish that the mothers who have been treated badly by the adoptee could have the kind of adult child that I have had the pleasure to meet, know and grow to admire and care for. I wish they could experience the love I have received from  my adult, reunited children. I wish reunions were all wonderful but even the best have their thorny moments. 

If anything gets done, it will be done better, quicker and more fairly if we do it together. I reiterate; We mothers of SMAAC support adoptees in their quest for open access to their Original Birth Certificates. We also believe that adult adoptees have the right to free association with any other adult, natural family members they wish to contact. And in saying that, we represent the thinking of the majority of Natural Mothers. Most mothers do NOT want to control their adult children. We're past the point where we want the aggravation. We know how to cut apron strings and nudge the young ones out of the nest.

As far as "Control?" I can just hear all of my children, raised and reunited, saying, should I try to exert control over their associations, "Get REAL, Mom," followed by belly laughs.

I so hope this clears smoke from the issue and that all my adopted friends know it is meant for a few, not all, and is a clarification, not an attack.

Barring Death and Disease..SA, Here I Come!

Well, I tied down my airline reservations, yesterday. I don't know if there will be many SMAAC mothers in San Antonio in August, but this mother will be there, as will Musing Mother. I will be flying in on my wedding anniversary, leaving hubby at home with the two terrors..uh, I mean Terriers. That's how important it is to me to be a part of this gathering. I am lucky that he understands.

While this is a project of the Adoptee's Rights group, it will also be the first time that the mothers will be able to speak up for our rights as well as supporting the rights of adoptees to their original birth certificates. Will we be heard? I hope so, but it is also very important to note that we are actually speaking out in a venue other than blogs, letters and Facebook sites.

Our message will be a bit different from what has been talked about, prior to this occasion. We not only support the rights of adoptees, we also are stating that we mothers are worth the trouble of  real consideration of our own rights, as well...rights that were badly violated when our children were taken for adoption during the Era of Mass Surrender. We are neither fragile flowers needing protection, nor are we nothing more than a rung on a ladder for our adult children to climb. We are self-respecting, mature women who can handle our own relationships and decide, for ourselves, what we will and will not share with others, especially when that right is threatened by the state.

No, Mr. and Ms. Legislator, we do NOT need protection of our "anonymity" from our own children. We have the freedom of association as it is guaranteed in the Constitution and we can pursue that as we wish. Most of us are in our 60's. We have survived the worst that life could throw at us. Why should we need legal protection of a presumed right we were never, in most states, given in the first place and why is it assumed we would even want it? WHEN are these people going to listen to us rather than the various adoption-friendly organizations who have the temerity to try to do our talking for us? That one really chaps my hide. Every time Pertman or Johnson or an adopter tries to speak for us, I see red.

We have long had our differences with the content of many of these bills being considered or that have passed in many states. We do not have any patience with the idea that our personal medical and psycho-social histories should be on tap for the state to disseminate to adult adoptees as they see fit. We have long believed that there should be true equality in who has access to open record which means that mothers should have access to identifying information of their adult children. Fair is fair.

And maybe, just maybe, there might be time to say something, while we are there, about justice for the mothers of our era. Perhaps there will even be an opening to let these people know that it still happens to women of the present day. Maybe we can help create a crack in the mortar that holds together an elitist institution, a social experiment that has failed. Maybe people could start seeing that the rights guaranteed us in our Constitution do not include the right to take children from mothers just because they are single or poor or the right to recruit women to bear children for the infertile.

Maybe the day will come, hopefully, when we are no longer soiled goods with fragile psyches still in our teens...maybe the day will come when adult adoptees are no longer treated as infants and property.

But, I'm getting ahead of myself..one step at a time. However, this IS history and we are helping to make it. If all I ever do is this one thing, I can be at peace with myself and let things happen as they come. It took a long time for this Industry to become the power house it is and it will take a long time to take it down a peg or ten.

At my age, I have nothing but time. We'll see.

What Do We Want?

You know, FAQ bullet-point answers are all well and good, but when it comes to the question of what the Natural Mothers of SMAAC want, in my opinion it just can't be power-pointed into a nice little sentence or two. We do our best, but there is so much dangling over the sides that I keep wanting to expand the platform. I guess that is what these blogs are all about. Here, I can expand.

I remember when I was active in the early feminist movement of the late 60's -early 70's. I wrote a letter to the editor about something, I don't remember exactly what, and it was published. Of course, my name and location was also published.

I was appalled to receive a call from some strange man, the day after my letter appeared in the newspaper, asking me, in an exasperated tone, "just what do y'all want??" I told him I wanted the right to express my opinion without having a total stranger call my home and invade my privacy. He apologized, which surprised me, and said goodbye.

It's funny that now we are still trying, as Natural Mothers, to have the right to speak for ourselves and to educate others on the difference between privacy, confidentiality and anonymity. That's number one on my personal "I Want" list. I want other people to stop speaking for me. By other people, I mean anyone who supports adoption, benefits or profits from adoption and I do mean the likes of Adam Pertman, the NCFA, the ACLU and adopters. HOW DARE those entities speak for us?

I have to use the analogy of my friend, Musing Mother, who, in a discussion of the matter, said that a male adopter (Pertman) speaking for us is like a woman describing what it is like to pee standing up via a penis. It does not compute. WE know how we feel. For people like Pertman to presume to advocate for us (in a way that is sure to keep adoption a going concern) is more than just questionable...it is insulting.

Now, let me warn some FB friends from the get-go. I consider anyone speaking on behalf of Pertman and in his defense to be violating my rules about no pro-adoption or pro-adopter rhetoric here. I am not one of those who believes that for us to succeed we need adopters on our side. That's like the flies inviting the spiders to dinner. I can not conceive of there ever being a proper addressing of the crimes against the mothers and equal access to information happening with the assistance of those who adopt. It certainly won't happen with the "help" of the NCFA or the EBDI.

More than anything, I would love to see all these people stop their jawing and ask US what we want and then LISTEN. They might be amazed to learn that we are not frail, fragile, ignorant, deviant, amoral, careless or without respectability. Those few fear-ruled, shame-infused, coward moms that protest open OBCs need to put on their big girl panties and deal. Those of us who are not afraid of our pasts, are not ashamed of our lives and who care about the children we lost to adoption are stronger and more plentiful than these few, pitiful, shallow women who are being used  by the industry.

Fast on the heels of wanting to be able to speak for ourselves and be heard, comes the wish that we could all come together, mothers and adopted people, without egos, rancor, stereotyping or arguments about trivia. If we could agree on one thing, that Natural Mothers and Adopted Adults deserve the human and civil right to know their origins or the welfare of their children without government, agency or any other institutional interference, that would be a start.

The ego thing, unfortunately, figures large and looming in the effort to organize and find common ground. There are a few that are so much more concerned with being the star of the show, more wounded than thou or leaving a legacy as the consummate experts on adoption that they draw back and unconsciously sabotage the rest of us...come to think of it, some of that sabotage has been pretty darn deliberate. There are a notable few who can disagree without being disagreeable. These folks can let others have their say, have their own and leave it at that.

Then there are the ones who hammer at a disagreement until they have alienated scores of people..people whose minds have not been changed one whit. That these people would shut the f*** up, is way,way up there on my Want List.

So, you see, when it comes to FAQ's, just getting past the first one..."What Do You Want?"....takes me a whole lot more than a couple of succinct sentences. But I am also a realist and know that attention spans are short and sound bites and Power Point presentations are the communication of the day. So SMAAC and ARD do a good and effective thing with the FAQ's.

But thank the Cosmos for blogs. Sometimes you just have to elaborate.

Another Issue Altogether

Every now and then, I am reminded that, though the arena of adoption-related activism covers a lot of territory, the fight for justice for the Mothers of the EMS is almost like "Star Wars, I, II and III"...a prequel. Once the industry and our parents and others had succeeded in taking our parental rights, adoption became the issue. We, in that era, did not "place." We did not "make an adoption plan" for our babies. We surrendered and the adoption plan was made by the agencies and social workers. Many of us were just doing what we were told to do, or else, or were manipulated and coerced into doing. There were some exception, but those mothers are the minority and not part of what this fight entails.

Most of the mothers from that era with whom I have talked and exchanged emails did not want to surrender their infants. Some of us tried to fight. Some of us begged and pled. Some of us were beaten down into the pits of low self-esteem. In order, it is said, to "create a family" through adoption, you must first destroy the mother. Well, in my case, they did a bang-up job of that. Thank God, I worked my way back to where I needed to be. It took years but I did it.

It is a good idea to remind folks that we were isolated, warehoused, hidden, shamed, blamed and abandoned by our families and the fathers of our babies while we were being groomed for surrender by the experts. OUR human and civil rights were ignored and violated. Most of us faced the unknown, scary prospect of labor and delivery without a single, caring and familiar face anywhere around. We were given aliases or were not allowed to use our last names. We wore fake wedding bands when we went outside the homes, as if that would fool anyone. We fell in love with the babies in our wombs just like any other pregnant woman. But we faced the birth of that baby with fear and grief.

Society labeled and categorized us. We were either sinning delinquents or psychologically damaged or both. We were fed lies upon lies, like "you will forget" and "having more children will take away the pain" and "THE baby is going DIRECTLY to a good home" and "THE baby will never miss you." Those are just a few of the lies we were told and, desperate for any comfort we could find, we believed those lies. These were adults, "experts," telling us this and we were raised to respect that. Usually the cobwebs were swept out of our brains upon reunion. Boy, were we surprised. That surprise came just before the eruption of suppressed grief, realization and righteous indignation.

We were confronted with the hard and painful truth that our absence in the lives of our children was deeply felt. We saw the damage that could do. We heard their stories, felt their resentment, cried with them and for them and realized that we still have to change the image of the unmarried mother from careless slut to who we really are...every woman....and from victim to warrior.

My girlfriend in SC just reunited with her daughter and, as she went through the non-ID, written by the social worker, she kept saying, "this is bullshit." Mine has just enough truth for me to know it was me, but it was twisted and slanted in such a way as to make it seem that I wanted to surrender my baby.

So, it is from all this and more, that we get our need to seek justice. We were young, vulnerable and what was done to us was done BECAUSE THEY COULD. I am no longer 16. I am 65 years old and I want to hear someone who should say "this was and is wrong," say it and mean it. We are owed something for our suffering and it isn't money so much as it is justice and redress. We paid the ultimate price for any mother...our children. Our babies are gone forever and we can never get them back. We are making relationships with adults..familiar strangers. We look now for respect for our experience and ourselves, and some honesty from a corrupt industry and the government and churches that sanction it. We want adopters to see what their demand for a child created. 

We may not get all we want before I shuffle off this mortal coil, but we can make a lot of people very uncomfortable. The more uncomfortable, I say, the better. From my experience, I would say they earned every little bit of it.

And hear this loud and clear. Facilitators, adopters, PAPs, even our adult children....we will no longer take any crap from anyone without fighting back. You can take that to the bank.

Get Me A Labrador And I'll Retrieve It

I grew up on Looney Tunes cartoons. I loved Disney, but I got my real, deep, belly laughs from Bugs, Porky, Daffy, Elmer Fudd, Foghorn Leghorn, Charlie the Dog, Marvin the Martian, Wylie Coyote, the Roadrunner and all the rest.My all time favorite cartoon is "What's Opera Doc" followed closely by "Often an Orphan." The latter stars Porky and Charlie and is totally priceless from start to finish.

The cartoon opens with Charlie being "taken for a ride in the country." A man opens the car door, Charlie bounds out, the man throws a stick, Charlie gives chase and the man jumps back into the car and roars away, leaving poor Charlie with a stick in his mouth on the side of the road. Charlie then goes into all his "adorable dog" poses until along comes Porky and he is rescued...we think. It is not long before we learn why Charlie was cut loose by his previous master. He's just a bit obnoxious. Being over-eager to please, he goes into con man mode.

My favorite exchange between Porky and Charlie is; P:"What kind of dog are you, anyway?" C: "Why I'm a Labrador Retriever." P: "You're not a Labrador Retriever." C: "Oh Yes I am. Get me a Labrador and I'll retrieve it!" P: non-plussed silence. C: "Do you even have a Labrador?" P: *sputter C:"Do you know where you can get a Labrador?" P: "Well, No." C: "THEN SHADDAP!"

It wasn't until I watched this cartoon in its entirety again, that I saw, in the body of the film, the bits and pieces of a lot of reunions. Charlie is over-eager to please and over-needy to the point of being obnoxious. Porky is having trouble getting his bearings and wants to be a kind person but is being pushed to the edge. The cartoon ends with Porky taking Charlie for another "ride in the country," only Charlie pulls a fast one and jumps in the car and drives off while Porky is throwing the stick. Now it is Porky's turn to sit at the side of the road and try to be adorable.

I think that the roles here are interchangeable. There always seems to be one who pushes and one who retreats in the reunion dance and that can change from one to the other as the years pass. Charlie wants to be the center of the Universe and, while Porky is willing to give food, water and shelter (*love and acceptance), he does have a farm to run. The Mother and the Adoptee wear both faces in this analogy. I have seen some mothers try so hard that they lose what they might have had of themselves in the need to connect with the child they lost. I have seen adoptees pushing and testing and needing until the mother is drained and they, the adoptee, are angry and emotionally exhausted, not understanding why they do it.

And I have seen both Mother and Adoptee so angry that "THEN SHADDUP" is the only thing left to say. It's a dance to discordant music and with no rehearsal. In a way, it reminds me a bit of the Apache dance of the Parisian streets of the early part of the last century. The dancers exchange slaps and pushes and drags and there are intense but mixed feelings in every movement. The Apache dance is, to me, passionately sad and cruel. But what was done to us and to our children is also sad and cruel. And it has placed a barrier between us that is very hard to penetrate all the way.

There are times when I want to just wish, so hard, that I could go back and have a do over and not have my children appropriated for adoption. I put my sanity at risk if I dwell on that tragedy and what happened to them very much. I have to make room in my life for all the others who are integral parts of my world. But the gap between me and my adult, surrendered children is keenly felt and the bridges we build are not all that sturdy. It's like the paste we used to make in kindergarten. Too much water, and nothing holds together. Adoption dilutes the bond of blood and love and we have to find new ways to strengthen it. If we are lucky, we can add more of the original bond until it "takes." Or not..... Too often there is a gate in the center of the bridge and the lock on that gate is, most often, the adopters.

If ever there were anything that would make me want to scream, it is the confusion of this unnatural thing called adoption and the treatment dealt out to the mothers of the EMS. I know we are not going to get anywhere by sitting on the side of the road trying to be adorable. We learn, too quickly, that it just doesn't get the job done. That's why you will see mothers of the EMS, representing SMAAC, in San Antonio next July. We're done chasing the sticks that anyone, including the Industry, throws and are throwing a few of our own. 

Whether we are a fast-talking Charlie or a befuddled Porky, we are all mad as hell and are not going to take it anymore. When it comes to getting justice for us and our children of the EMS, you just get me a Labrador and I'll retrieve it.

Mother, Behold YOUR Child

A friend of mine saw a bumper sticker, probably from an anti-choice group, with a picture of a fetal ultrasound image and the words, "Woman, behold your son." That is from the Bible and was supposedly said by Jesus to Mary while he was being crucified as he turned her care over to his apostle, John.

The thing is that this message, this bumper-sticker, can backfire on these folks because that picture proves that motherhood begins with gestation, not adoption. How I wish that we had been able to avail ourselves of this technology during the EMS. I wonder how many of our parents, once they saw their grandchild in utero, would have re-thought the idea of surrender. I wonder how many of us mothers might not have dug in and fought a bit harder.

The bond I felt with my unborn children began the moment I could feel that first little flutter of life. I went with my granddaughter to see an ultrasound of my great-grandson when she was expecting him and I was hooked. When you can see your flesh and blood developing inside you, how much more difficult would it be to surrender? We were not even supposed to be allowed the joy of feeling that life within because we were waiting for that moment when our babies would be born and lost to us. Most of us still, as is natural, were overwhelmed with love as we felt each little kick and shuffle.

There is a new bill being introduced on a national level..an "Adoption Support Act" which will offer even more monetary goodies to the saintly adopters and which will allow the Adoption Industry to raid the dwindling Social Security coffers. Most of us EMS mothers are now dependent on that Social Security Income , which many of us paid into for years while working. It's OUR money. That they want to use it for adoption incentives just really rattles my chain, big time. Musing Mother will be blogging more about this issue.

I wonder, if the legislature passes that idiotic insult, if we can sue for more benefits since we certainly gave our all to that endeavor? What about using the money to help mother and child stay together. In any event, KEEP YOUR DEWCLAWS OFF MY SOCIAL SECURITY!! (I am, after all, a Senior Mother)

To me, this bumper sticker, with its supposed "adopt, don't abort" message is a good one for our needs. It shows us the fact that we are doing something ordained by a higher power than a government or a court. It says, plainly, "behold YOUR," NOT, "behold someone's" child. The insidious methods now being used to try to implement pre-birth agreements and brainwash the mother into seeing the child inside her as belonging to others is becoming more and more prevalent. That is the legacy that we leave if we remain silent about the truth of surrender and its effects.

The next time I hear someone claim to be "paper pregnant" I am going to ask to see their ultrasound. Will it show an image of a drawing of a baby inside the PAP? There is no way that hoping/wanting to adopt and expecting a biological child can be compared. I think that is why I enjoyed being pregnant so much with my two oldest. While they were inside me, they were still MINE. I would sit and sleep with my hands over my growing belly as if protecting the life inside me.

The pro-adoption rhetoric is growing stronger and the benefits offered to those who prey on the mothers is increasing. We were told to go and remain silent. Now that we have disregarded the instructions, the industry lobbyists are gearing up even more. I think we have scared them. I think they see angry mothers and adult adoptees as a real threat.

And they most certainly should. I am out to take them down.

There Is Always "Plan B"

This online ad for Plan B "Morning After" contraceptive caught the eye of Musing Mother and then caught my eye. I know we were both thinking the same thing. If there is something that can prevent the zygote from implanting and developing, why doesn't every sexually active, single young woman get this? 72 hours is 3 days to prevent an unexpected pregnancy. The sooner you take the pill, the fewer cells are present in the zygote. It is flushed out in a regular menses just as many other fertilized ova have been. Not all  fertilized ova implant and gestate. That's simple biology. No one considers that either an abortion or a miscarriage. In fact, women don't even know when it happens.

As much as I love my adult, reunited children, if this had been available when I was an infatuated teen, and later, an assaulted one, believe me, I would probably have been ordered by my parents to take it. I do know that they give it, now, to rape victims in the ERs of most hospitals. Though my pregnancies were unplanned and problematic, I loved my children and, once I had been through gestation and birth, wanted nothing more than just to hold, love and raise them.

This is just another little bit of evidence to prove the point that, not only have things changed greatly since our day, but that there are not just unnecessary adoptions~ there are unnecessary pregnancies. I can understand a woman forgetting her pill, or a moment of passion becoming so intense that a condom and foam are forgotten in the heat of the moment. But if you can get a simple pill from your doctor or pharmacist to take the morning after the heat has subsided, then for Pete's Sake, do it!!

I am more and more convinced that there is a conspiracy to keep young people ignorant of the simplest and most effective birth control methods. We've all seen how well "abstinence only" works (not) and being sensible seems, to many people in love, to be less than romantic. C'mon people. You can be "swept away" and still take time to take a pill, or use a condom...it's simple, fast and easy. Being in love or lust doesn't mean that it's okay to be careless. We've come too far in the areas of medical science and contraception to have to provide babies to an Industry that destroys little families for money.

So, the choices you have are now increased. You can prevent pregnancy beforehand, you can prevent it in the 72 hours following unprotected intercourse, you can legally and safely terminate a pregnancy or, if you feel you must carry to term, you can keep and raise the child YOU created without the social stigma of our era.

All those choices are the most responsible ones I can think of and adoption isn't among them.

* Note: Never say that I won't admit it when I am off the mark. The drug that causes the zygote (fertilized ovum) from implanting is not the same as "Plan B" and is still in the testing stages. There is a drug that will aid in completing the emptying of the uterus when miscarriage is unavoidable and the newer drug is based on that one. I know that one is real because they gave it to my daughter when she started miscarrying.

Stigmas and Shaming and Secrets, Oh My!

It was really good to read at The Declassified Adoptee blog and see that she has become very savvy about what has been done to us as mothers. This is down a couple of paragraphs in her most excellent post, but it is so very, very true. The fact is that we were stereotyped, stigmatized and dismissed as disturbed and delinquent. She dug and read and learned and put it so well, here.


"...When First We Practice to Deceive



Birth records became more difficult for Adult Adoptees to obtain as the later-half of the 20th century progressed. This was due to the social stigmas that unwed, "adolescent" mothers were fundamentally flawed and would interfere with the adoptee's developmental stages and the Adoptive Parent's ability to bond with the adoptee if they knew the adoptee's identity and/or whereabouts. What started as a way of hiding illegitimacy turned into a way to label Original Mothers as a threat to their children."
 

You know, from that evaluation, I can't help but picture us natural moms as a bunch of dingbat witches intent on cursing our own, much loved babies with something awful. I don't know what they thought we could do to them other than want them back. I don't know if our flaw was moral or psychological as these "experts" saw it, or both by all, but that mind-set worked well enough that the attitude stayed with quite a few of us for a long time. Not being considered a "whole" and "unflawed" person played Hell with my self-image for years.

I can remember the first time I ever heard any mothers protest the labeling that was put on us during the EMS. I had, timidly, gone to a "search and support" meeting. While there, looking for some support when all the emphasis seemed to be on search, I did hear something worthwhile. Some adopter was there making comments about how we shouldn't feel bad that we weren't in a position to keep our babies. Another mother spoke up and said, loud enough to be heard by all, "We were unwed, NOT unfit." Hallelujah and Amen, Sister!

We are still being blamed for the fact that records closed, for the fact that some people want to keep them closed and probably, global warming. The industry hides its misdeeds behind our stereotyped images. We used to joke about natural mothers wearing bangs because it helped cover the scarlet letter branded on our foreheads. Now, we just refuse to wear the letter. We didn't deserve it then and we don't now.

We can now look into our research and see the number of successful, well-adjusted people who were raised by single mothers. It wasn't the fact that we had no husband. It was because we had never had a husband when we became unmarried moms. Many women, divorced and widowed, raised children on their own. But, we didn't have that man's name as our own, nor never been gifted with that gold band. This had the social workers, psychologists and clergy judging us as a group without knowing a single one of us as an individual with values and a heart that could be broken. They only saw single girls who had engaged in "carnal intercourse" as evidenced by our growing bellies.

The social workers never, that I can remember, took the time to get to know me when I was in that situation. I imagine they saw the fear and the dread and the loneliness but that was due to my "flaws," as well. Our minister suggested to my mother that I should have a hysterectomy when I became pregnant after being date-raped. All he could see was the fact that I had gone and gotten myself pregnant, again. Neat trick, huh? I, and earthworms and some phyto-plankton can do that. It's bio-magic with a twist.

I am sick and tired of the Industry, their lobbying cartel, attorneys and legislators using us as an excuse to keep from looking at the families being ripped apart, and people becoming unable to know who they are or where they originated. We went from being breeding stock to being portrayed as frail, frightened, fragile older women afraid of their scarlet past catching up to them. Ye Gods! it makes me want to jack-smack as many of them as I can find. And most of us are about as "fragile" as Mack Trucks.

I imagine that the NCFA and their ilk are having quite a problem understanding the phenomenon of mothers not only challenging them but using our own names when we do it. What happened to all that shame the "counselors" so carefully worked to instill in us?

Sorry Chuck, and all the rest. We grew up and wised up. Go peddle your lies to adopters. We aren't buying them and neither are our adult children.

Where's The Respect?

I think it started in the sixties with the mantra "don't trust anyone over 30." I can remember, as a teen, thinking my parents were incredibly ignorant of the real world. The older I got, the smarter they became. Now that I stand on the cusp of age 65, my parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles, I realize, were blooming geniuses! They had lived their way around life's booby traps and tried to tell us where they were, but we were going to blaze our own trail. More's the pity.

The same thing happened with my own raised children. In fact, both of them have remarked on how intelligent and knowledgeable I have become as they have grown older. They have also admitted that they have wished, many times, that they had listened to me when I tried to steer them in a better direction.

I know that, when my parents were younger, they had a lot more respect for their elders than succeeding generations seem to have had. Now, there seems to be no respect at all and every attempt made to keep a younger mother from falling into the adoption pit seems to be met with disregard, contempt or downright hostility. As much as I hate to blather on about the subject, I also hate to see these young women so absorbed by the fantasy that, when the real pain comes, they are unable to cope. I keep thinking of one such mother, used badly by the woman who adopted her child, who took her own life when that open adoption slammed shut and she realized how she had been manipulated.

I was training a college student for the dry cleaning chain with which I worked for many years. She was intelligent, lovely, caught on quickly and was a joy to train. I was so shocked and felt like a hornet had stung my heart when she said that, should she become pregnant before she graduated, she would like to relinquish her baby to a professor of hers that couldn't have children of her own. She was offering her own hypothetical offspring on the altar of the "more deserving" infertile and I was appalled at the casual sincerity of her statement.

I have helped younger mothers who really wanted to keep their babies, but I have only been able to change the minds of two who were considering surrender. When I was actively trying to "save" these girls from experiencing that awful grief and their infants from the pain and confusions of separation, I lost more than I won. It became too much for me to handle, emotionally. I only have to pick up a hot horseshoe one time to learn that it burns.

Now, I have no problem with a FULLY informed young woman making her own decision. But there ain't no such animal. They are either being counseled by agency workers, crisis pregnancy center pro-lifers or new "b"mommies riding the pink cloud of assumed selflessness. They are told to disregard us as bitter and angry with nothing to really contribute. Adult adopted people are dismissed as ungrateful and troubled. So the whole, complete story with all the ramifications is left in the dust and these girls go skipping off to breeding farms like Gladney to get their scholarships and give that wonderful gift. What bull crap!

I look at the woman in the picture and see someone who has lived and has much to offer. Wisdom comes at a price, for many of us. "Live and learn" isn't just an adage. That lady deserves to have her opinions and experiences respected, even if someone disagrees. It is a common happening that the one who disagrees will later find out that they should have listened more closely. Most cultures venerate their elders. This society, especially our younger sister mothers, smirk at us. The picture of the older woman advising and aiding is just that...a picture.

We never stop learning until we die. My grandmother used to tell me that and she was right. I am still learning and not all that I learn makes positive statements about human nature. The inability to say, "I was wrong and I am sorry," permeates the populace. Ego and pride go before open minds and hearts. To live to a ripe, old age and learn is to accept disillusionment. Most of my belief in the innate goodness of people has gone the way of the Blue Whale; rare, hard to find and to be cherished and protected if you come across it.

I guess this is why I find more satisfaction in working for the majority of the mothers of my generation. There is no question that each of us knows what we are talking about because we all lived it. It is a cause we can support, defend and for which we can fight.

I'm no Knight on a white horse. If the maiden wants to walk into the dragon's mouth, I'll just yell at her to watch out for the teeth. You can't rescue a drowning person who is convinced they can breathe water. And with all the advantages new mothers have on the side of keeping or avoiding pregnancy or terminating pregnancy, I just don't have the sympathy for them they seem to require.

Uh-Oh, Spoke Too Soon

I had thought that the brouhaha had finally begun to wind down and the offers of peace, or rather, "you do your thing and we'll do ours and leave each other alone", had been accepted. From comments received and things being said, it seems I relaxed too soon.

Now, whether this is just a couple of die-hards, one stubborn, self-absorbed, self-appointed expert who cannot let anyone disagree with her, or a group who thinks we need to be assimilated by the Borg, it has gone far enough.

If this is a group of people trying to undermine SMAAC, Wow! You all must think that a few grandmothers have a lot of power. If we scare you, then you must not be very sure of your position. What damage can we do to you? Undermining you is not what we are about. We have no desire to disrupt anything except, and that is only if, there are actions that have the potential to further hurt mothers of the EMS.

If it is one or two disgruntled, hostile trolls, then give it up. You are making yourself look ridiculous.  Grow up.

Okay, here goes, one more time. There is no need for us to get into pissing contests. You see things your way, we see things our way and so the best thing we can do is each take care of our own business and leave the others alone. We're not going away and we are not going to change the way we think. Unless you hire a hit man to take us all out, we are going to continue to share the same air, earth and Internet with you so we might as well keep our distance when talking about issues. None of us really like infighting, but we are not cowards, either. We won't back down and we won't shut up so why waste your energy?

I remember when I could be one of the mean girls, plotting vengeance and carrying out vendettas against whatever other group of mean girls was looking at us sideways. Ladies, that is so middle school! It's past time for us to realize that one issue does not fit all and let it go. Our philosophies differ. So what? Only years and the journey that society takes through those years will decide who is wrong or right. Who knows? It could be that we are all right. I know there are some things on which we do agree and that means it's just possible that we might all get some important things done.

We may succeed, we may not. But can't we at least be left alone to try? Our numbers are dwindling as we age. We have already lost EMS mothers who have passed from this life, and other have reached the age where they don't have the patience for the battle or the energy, anymore. With who we have left, we are trying to, at least, leave a complete record of what happened, how out of proportion to common decency it was and how we managed to learn,  if too late, just what really was behind it all.

This is American history. It is not Canadian, it is not post-1973 or pre-1945, it is our history and it is real and important. One way or another, it will be revealed and recognized. The EMS/BSE WAS.

Advisors and Advisees

I have had my share of advice in my lifetime..some asked for and some volunteered. The good advice seems to stick with me and the rest..well the rest can make for some good stories.

I remember one very good piece of advice that I received from my Aunt Eloise in 1970. My ex and I had decided to have another baby. I had lost two children to adoption, and we had our wonderful little daughter, but I wanted one more experience of becoming a mother. I was also still reeling from the unexpected and early death of my mother, and nothing is more life-affirming than pregnancy and birth.

To say that we were not financially prepared would be an understatement, but we went with the rule that there was always room for one more and I went to my doctor and had my IUD removed. My family, for the most part, was aghast. How on earth, when we were struggling to pay our bills, did we think we could afford another child. I reasoned that, if everyone waited to have a child until all things were perfect, very few children would be born. As my belly grew rounder, I could hear the mutters and see the heads shaking and the heavy sighs whenever the family got together. I spent hours trying to justify our decision to my family and to my ex's as well.

On one occasion, I was alone in my grandmother's kitchen when Aunt Eloise walked in. She came up to me and said that she had a crib my cousin had used if I wanted it and we made arrangements to go get it. Then she said something that has stuck with me all these some 40 years. "Robin," she said, "don't waste your time trying to convince anyone else that what you are doing is right. If you feel, in your heart, that it is the right thing to do, then do it and let the rest of the world stew in their juices." WOW. That was a light-bulb moment for me. I didn't HAVE to explain myself to anyone. It was our decision and we would bear the rewards and the consequences and no one else had a say in the matter. Sam was born on January 15, 1971 and I named him after my late, beloved, paternal grandfather. He's been a joy and he's been a trial but I am so glad that he IS.

The same thing happened when Rocky, our little RatCha, developed a Mast Cell Cancer Grade II tumor. We didn't know, until after our vet had removed it and had it biopsied, what it was. The news sent us into a tailspin. Because there were clean margins everywhere except on the underside (he couldn't cut any deeper without cutting into Rocky's urethra), and Rocky's age (7), he advised that we seek the opinion of a veterinary oncologist, which we did. After reviewing the records, Dr. Lurie advised a course of radiation and tests to make sure the Mast Cells had not spread. After much debating and thought, my husband and I gave the go-ahead.

Well, immediately, especially from MY family, we started getting some negative feed-back. "It costs so much and you two are retired," and "maybe it's time to let him go..all you've had is vet bills since you got him" and other like comments. What IS it with these people? I am 64 and my husband is 70. Since when have we lost the capability of making these decisions  for ourselves? I remembered Aunt Eloise (who, bless her, is now in a home with Alzheimer's) and her words to me that day in Grandma's kitchen. Rocky needed the best shot we could give him so it was full steam ahead.

As I sit here with my currently cancer-free little boy by my chair, I can't imagine us doing anything other than what we did. The point is, I also realized that I didn't have to justify it to anyone else. We did what we knew in our hearts was the right thing to do. The naysayers did celebrate with us when the treatments were successful, but reminded us how worried they were that we would completely deplete our retirement funds on a "mere dog."

This is an object lesson in following your own heart and best judgement and letting what others say roll off your back. Since the inception of the movement to bring attention to the EMS/BSE, we have had people, including other mothers, demanding that we explain ourselves, ad infinitum, ad nauseum. We are doing what we think  is the right thing to do. We don't have to explain ourselves or justify ourselves. We are not taking a thing away from anyone else. We are just doing what we know is right for us. We have grown tired of being required to justify our existence. And, according to the wisdom of Aunt Eloise, we don't have to.

Meanwhile, we are writing, talking, reading and planning and doing all we can to bring attention to a time when casual cruelty against young women was not only allowed, but legal...to a time when things were very different from what they were even a decade or two later. People age and pass on, but, if they have recorded important history, then that history lives on. Just like the skewed history of the American past has been researched and studied under the light of truth, so, we feel, will the EMS and all the pain it caused us and our children.

The hypocricy and propaganda of the past deserves a bit of outing. So, Aunt Eloise, thanks  for the reminder. I know it's the right thing to do.

1945

These two could be my parents..well they were off by a few months, and my father was an Army Sergeant and my mother was a office clerk in SC. They were married in 1942, right before my father was shipped out to Europe, where he was wounded in action. I was born on July 14, 1945, after the victory in Europe and a month before the surrender of the Japanese in the war in the Pacific.

As this picture illustrates, these boys came home glad to be alive and lusty as most young bucks are. Prior to that time, most unmarried mothers found havens in places like the Florence Crittendon Homes which were founded to help give these young mothers and their infants a better start in life, together. Adoptions did happen, but not on a large scale. Only later, as the numbers of unwed pregnancies began to rise and social work became a "profession," did Flo Crit and other such establishments morph into adoption-oriented clearinghouses.

With the emergence of the field of social work on  that scale, came the concept of adoption as we know it now. It was the "perfect solution" for the perceived problem of teen/unwed pregnancy and the increasing numbers of couples wanting to adopt. In many cases, hubby came home from the war with infertility issues due to a "case of the mumps." The mumps were not always what caused the problem for these fellows. But it seems that, by that time, rather than dealing with and accepting the fact of their childlessness, more childless couples wanted to adopt. Thus the rising numbers on both ends began the burgeoning adoption industry and the adoption-minded response from state agencies. Looking at it from this end of the time scale, it was cause and effect and the attitude that human beings could engineer anything. The good, old American way of supply and demand went into high gear.

Adoption, which was not the way most mothers before had handled pregnancies while unmarried, became, more and more, the Idea Whose Time Had Come. It was supposedly a win-win situation. The parents of the pregnant girl got their shameful secret swept under the rug, childless couples got an adorable infant and all was well. If the mother got a bit stubborn and wanted to keep her baby, well, she's the one who lifted her skirts and it was perfectly legal to mistreat these wanton girls to "rehabilitate them." We were isolated and treated like criminals, sneered at by medical professionals and sent home, broken-hearted, with the advice to say nothing to anyone about our terrible secret.

The numbers spiked as the war babies and post-war boomers started growing into nubile young girls and randy young boys. The hypocrisy of the times was ubiquitous and the autonomy of women was not even a spoken concept. The popular theory of the mental health profession at the time was that girls who became pregnant (i.e., had sexual activity) prior to marriage were psychologically defective, even delinquent, and gestating, laboring,delivering and surrendering their child in secrecy was a way to cure that emotional and psychological defect. The religious leaders saw the loss of our children as our way to redemption for our sin of fornication. The reason we were singled out is because we were the only ones whose fornication bore fruit. So it was either a shotgun wedding...hard to do if the father denied paternity and the burden of proof was on the head of the frightened mother...or a trip out of town to "visit an aunt," during which time, the "problem" would go away and the family honor would remain untarnished.

As the sixties progressed into the latter years of that decade, women started looking askance at the double standards and outmoded attitudes towards us, our contributions to society, our abilities and our sexuality. By the early 1970's, things started to change. Women became more outspoken, more in control of their own destinies and less inclined to allow others to make decisions for them. With the legalization of safe, medical pregnancy termination and the increasing availability of birth control for even the single woman, there were more choices for women. In 1976, 13 years after I had been coerced into surrendering my second child, I was invited to a baby shower for the daughter of a friend at work. She was single, in her freshman year of college, and had the loving support of her parents in HER decision to keep her child. The father had reluctantly signed an agreement to help support the baby. I attended for a short while, then went home and wept bitter tears, holed up in the bathroom so that my two raised children couldn't hear me. Keeping and raising a child by a single mother was no longer a horror and a shame to the majority of people.

As these new choices started appearing, the number of adoptable infants started declining. From what was a bounty of baby-flesh for the facilitators to market, it dropped to around one infant for every 40 potential adoptive couples. In pockets of backwardness and for parents who were still trying to present themselves as the progenitors of perfection, there was still pressure on young women to surrender and agencies and attorneys who made their daily bread from this were not about to let these isolated cases know their options.  It was also another way of after-the-fact birth control. For those who complain about abortion being used in this manner, this was seen as more "acceptable." For the religious, thus was born the adoption rather than abortion campaign and more social engineering to be had by all. Hooray. A lot of the newer mothers who "made the decision" to surrender are now in support groups, dealing with their grief.

A lot has come down the pike in the 65 years since that sailor smooched that pretty nurse in the middle of that huge celebration. Most of the women of my daughter's and granddaughter's generations would no more put up with what was imposed on my generation than they would shoot themselves in the foot. I have gotten a good bit of my information for this post from reading some books about the times, most notably Rickie Solinger's "Wake Up Little Susie" and Anne Fessler's "The Girls Who Went Away." I also have been able to read a lot of the articles written by Karen B. W. Buterbaugh who has done extensive and exhaustive research into the subject. But, more importantly, I lived it. I watched it happen. I saw the effects of repression and change, first hand. And I believe the evidence of my own eyes and ears.

I saw a president assassinated and another chased out of office for his own arrogance. I saw the first steps of a human being on the moon. I went from "My Little Margie" to the "Mary Tyler Moore Show" to "Murphy Brown." I was delivered by a woman doctor and always thought that was something unusual. Now, three women who have specialized in the OB field are delivering babies on TV. To anyone who says that women who came after us had no choices, I have to say, not knowing their family situation, horse feathers! I, myself, have helped mothers-to-be avail themselves of social programs to help them until they could get on their feet. I have also gone with one to the Department of Local Health to obtain birth control after she terminated her pregnancy. That was also more than 15 years ago.

I am not here to argue any of these points, what I know, I know. What I have seen, I have seen and what I have learned, I have learned. I cannot be forced to defend my position by leading questions with an eye to debate. As far as I am concerned, the issue is non-debatable. It happened...call it the EMS or the BSE or just "those days," it still happened and within those time frames.

So here you have it, as I have witnessed it. I won't argue it and it needs no defense. It is not our duty to justify or prove our facts to anyone. Most people can look this stuff up  for themselves. The truth stands up to anything anyone else might want to say. Again, I wish all people in this battle success in the areas they have chosen for activism.

Me, I'm all about us EMS mothers, aged into grandmothers and AARP members, who went away and came home, changed forever.

New Site For SMAAC

The main site for SMAAC (Senior Mothers Adoption Activism Coalition) can now be found in a blog format at http://seniormothers-smaac.blogspot.com/. I hope that the information there will satisfy any questions any might have as to who we are and why we are.

We have been very dismayed by those who have wanted to challenge and undermine our efforts in this area. I am glad to see that a "live and let live" attitude seems to be emerging and each of us are allowing the other to do what they think is important and realistic.

We are NOT against access to the OBC and records for adult adoptees. If the right to access can include mothers, we will fight alongside our children for these legislative changes. If the proposed bills do not put mothers in untenable positions, such as mandated medical and psycho-social histories and unnecessary contact vetoes, we will support the efforts of those who want to get the bills passed. We will not support any bills that carry stipulations that could make mothers liable for wrongful adoption suits or fines or other punishment for refusing to give up our right  to the same kind of personal privacy all citizens enjoy, especially the kind protected by the constitution and by the HIPAA regulations.

After many years in this arena, those of us who form the membership of SMAAC have learned that it is very unlikely any group can be all things to all people who have suffered from coerced surrender, separation and adoption. Just as we are all individuals, so are some of our issues. That is why we do not profess to be the voice for ALL women who surrendered during that era. We only speak for those who feel they were coerced and mistreated by a corrupt system who did what they did because they could and because no other choice was legally available. Over the years, much has changed and we feel we are not qualified to speak for the mothers of later years and today.

So, we are here because, whatever you call it, the Era of Mass Surrenders or the Baby Scoop Era, it was real, it happened, it is a shameful part of our nation's history and, just as other wrongs from the past have been addressed, it needs to be recognized and some sort of redress made. If adoption and loss to adoption is a tree, then we are at the roots, where it first became an industry and a social experiment. Weaken the roots and you weaken the tree. That is our goal and our hope. Will we succeed? I have no idea but I have faith in what we are working for. We can only do our best and try. But I will be standing for what I believe until my time here is over.

In the long run, isn't that all that anyone can do?