Beating A Dead Horse Can Be Good

You say either and I say eye-ther
You say neither and I say nie-ther
Either, eye-ther, neither, nie-ther
Let's call the whole thing off

You say tomato, I say tomahto
You eat potato and I eat potahto
Tomato, tomahto, potato, potahto
Let's call the whole thing off

But oh, if we call the whole thing off then we must part
And oh, if we ever part then that might break my heart

So, if you wear pajamas and I wear pajahmas
I'll wear pajamas and give up pajahmas
For we know we need eachother so we
Better call the calling off, off
Oh, let's call the whole thing off

You say ahfter and I say after
You say lauhghter and I say laughter
After, ahfter, laughter, lauhghter
Let's call the whole thing off

You say Havana and I say Havahna
You eat banana and I eat banahna
Havana, Havahna, banana, banahna
Let's call the whole thing off

But oh, if we call the whole thing off then we must part
And oh, if we ever part then that might break my heart

So, if you say oysters and I say ersters
I'll eat oysters and give up ersters
For we know we need each other so we
Better call the calling off, off
Oh, let's call the whole thing off

The battle of the "B" word has erupted again, on a Facebook group. It began, as far as I can tell, having entered the fray a bit late, by an adopted adult who was really angry at her mother and carried on by a mother or two who felt themselves to be the righteous voices of reason. It was impelled forward by hostility and a lack of understanding.

Now, if it were just a matter of pronunciation, as in this cute ditty, above, that Fred warbled to Ginger, I think it would be relatively unimportant. But, in this case, it IS important. I can refer many people to the article by Diane Turski, "Why Birthmother Means Breeder," or I could speak about the fight of African Americans to be referred to in a dignified manner, but there are always, it seems, those who want to push us back into our dusty niches.

Yes, to all. LANGUAGE IS IMPORTANT. Can you hear me? This is an issue brought about by the civil and human rights of the mothers being decimated, especially during the BSE. We were defined, then, as being deviant, delinquent, careless young sluts. Most of us were just frightened girls who loved, maybe not wisely, but too well. We were judged and found lacking by the evidence of our humanity and passion.

The author and serial adopter, Pearl Buck, first used the term "birth mother" in the 1950's. The early founders of Concerned United Birthparents left out the space in the middle of birth and mother and thought they had settled the issue. What happened, however, is that the industry and society took off with the term and the meaning became one that is anything but dignified and respect-worthy. It is used against us to reduce us as mothers and women. It is used to pre-define a surrendering mother before she even thinks about surrender. It is a tool and a ploy of the industry and social engineers. It is a way for those who adopt to deny our motherhood as many would like to deny our very existence.

It's funny that they also apply the word to unwed fathers. A man can't be a "birth" father because he didn't give birth. Ergo, as one mother pointed out, wouldn't that make the males in the equation "Ejaculationfathers?" It is, and always will be, a term of denigration. There is no way you can take the term, as the adoptees were able to do with "Bastard," and make it one of "in-your-face self-respect." Perhaps, if we were to call ourselves "Sluts," that would have more of a ring? No, not really. A bastard is not responsible for the circumstances of their birth. We were forced and coerced and we need a sobriquet that recognizes that fact and the fact that we require respect. "Slut" just plays into the stereotype.

If Gandhi, Martin Luther King and many others realized the importance of how language is used, why is it such a battle for Natural Mothers to insist on being referred to in a dignified and respectful way? We are only trying to claim that which was ours before we were stripped of all autonomy and thrust into a cycle of grief and shame. Shame is not acceptable any more. Self-respect is essential to anyone making a mark in the battle for inquiry and redress and reform.

So save your, "it doesn't matter" speeches for to-may-to/to-mah-to. I am not a walking uterus, a breeder for the infertile or a non-mother. I am a Mother, or, if you insist on differentiation, a Natural Mother.

You can call me a birthmother all you like. But I will not answer you.

All About Dad

Father's Day isn't the best day in the world for me. My own father, now deceased, was not exactly the picture of the ideal Dad. Father definitely did NOT know best in our home.

I was abandoned and lied about by the father of my oldest child and raped and abandoned by the father of my second. The first was poor judgement on my part in loving someone too immature to hold up his end of the relationship. The second was just being in the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong person.

While our marriage wasn't the best, my ex-husband was and is an excellent father to our two. My current husband is a wonderful step-father and was a very loving Dad to the only child he had of his own, now deceased. Father's day is rough for him.

My own father was a narcissistic, pathological liar, bigamist and serial adulterer. The last few years of his life were, unfortunately, the best for us. He had retreated into a fantasy of being a good man who never hurt anyone and slowly ate himself to death. He died of congestive heart failure complicated by extreme Type II diabetes at age 72.

For nine years, from age five to age fourteen, I wondered about him and why he left. When he came back, I would soon come to believe it would have been better had he stayed gone. My mother and extended family were my sanity and comfort...well, at least until I "went and got MYSELF pregnant."

I have seen many adoptees becoming the champions of the natural fathers, but they weren't the ones who were in the relationships with these guys that led to their conception. For every girl who "got pregnant, deliberately, to trap a man," I can show you ten who just loved a guy too much to realize that he was not going to hang in for the duration. For every girl who "didn't tell the father because she was mad at him," I can show you twenty who, when they told their beloved the news, were coughing from the dust of his hasty departure. There are two sides to every story and Mom is NOT always the villain.

To me, the kind of father that deserves the accolades on Father's Day are the ones who took the responsibility for their actions and stood fast to give their child a name and the ability to stay within the family of origin. I would have been OK with a quickie marriage and divorce, even with that odious animal who inseminated me against my will, for the ability to keep my child. That's what it was all about, back then. No husband, no Mrs. in front of your name, no right to your own child. Illogical but then this society has never been real good with that logic thing, in my opinion.

I think the two hardest pills to swallow were learning the true nature of my own father, and being abandoned by the father of my first born and mistreated by him. I truly loved both these guys, the first with the innocent love of a child and the second with the first intense love of a young woman, and they both gave me a major kick in the gut. You know what's funny? My first love couldn't stand my father. I think he saw himself in my old man's philandering ways.

So excuse me if all I do for Father's Day is give my husband the loving support he needs and thank my ex-husband for being a good Dad. The rest is up to everyone else to do as they see fit. I don't think I feel much like celebrating.

What Adoption Can't Do

(This is Jocelyn. She thought she could improve on nature.)

It is amazing what people believe about adoption and what it can accomplish. Those of us in the arena already know that it doesn't guarantee a child a better life. We can only hope. We have to wonder, "better, how? More toys, money, and things?" Some people have searched so long and hard for "better" that they have ignored the good they have. Sometimes, you just can't improve on Nature.

It certainly is no longer a matter of saving a child from the scandal of being born to an unwed mother. Even today, many adults who were adopted as infants call themselves "Bastards" with pride. Of course, that is a good, English word that has been in effect for centuries and means, strictly, one who was born out of wedlock. It is unfortunate that it has also been used to mean a bad or cruel man. "Adopter" is also a correct, English word that has been around for a long time and means just what it implies...one who takes on someone or something to themselves as if it were theirs to begin with.

That egregious term, "birthmother" has only been around for a few decades and there are many of us who have engaged in a battle against it for years. Where has everyone been that some don't know this? We were given so little respect as single, pregnant women. Who does it hurt if we ask for a bit, now? Just an aside...back to the subject.

No, adoption is all about saving the ones who adopt...from what? It's about social engineering and making money. Here are a list of some things I wish my parents and I had known and that I wish everyone knew about adoption and what it cannot accomplish.

1-Surrender for adoption does not restore one's virginity or remove one's status as a mother. Once you give birth you are a mother and you cannot regenerate a hymen by signing away rights and responsibilities.

2-Adopting does not cure infertility. A couple can adopt until the seams of their McMansion bulges and, if it is either or both of them, the infertility is still there and the children they wanted of their union will never exist.

3-Adoption does not "create a family." Nature does that. Saying that a man-made institution can go one better on Nature is like patching together some polyester fabric and calling it a silk duvet cover. It can create attachments and generate loving relationships but that is the people involved doing that...NOT adoption.

4-Those who are adopted do not come to those who adopt as tabula rasa..a blank slate. They are who they were born to be and, if anything, adoption confuses and warps that. Personality, talents and physical characteristics are inherited, period. This idea causes so much harm to adopted children and people still insist that it doesn't. Grrrr.,

5-There is no such thing as a "birthmother" and having a child taken for adoption does not create one. For nine months, a woman's body, emotions and mind are conditioned for motherhood. Not being able to fulfill that function creates unresolved grief and escape into denial for the mother. Even the notable exceptions to the loving mother rule are, non the less, mothers. Nothing anyone calls us can make us less than the mothers we are.

6-"As if born to" is a crock!

7-Heritage and bloodlines DO matter and ARE important to the individuals. Our children had theirs stolen and we, or the image of a few of us, are being used by the industry and those who benefit from the industry, to try to place barriers in the way of our children recovering that heritage.

And what adoption CAN do is;

1-violate the civil and human rights of the mother...

2-violate the civil and human rights of the adoptee...

3-enable those who adopt to never face their issues in reference to their infertility....

4-make a lot of money for the Industry....

5-give smug satisfaction to those who wish to be social engineers...

6-tear apart a potentially viable family to meet the needs of others with more money, a marriage license or the right connections......

That's my list, can and can't. It saddens and sickens me to see it still causing rifts and wedges in the ranks of those who should be working together for the benefit of both the mother and the adoptee. As I get older, I lose the incentive to keep fighting. I get tired and I get frustrated and I want to chuck it all and say, "you're on your own, Kiddos!"

For instance, lumping together all mothers and calling us all barfmuggles is not right. Yes, there are some who are decidedly un-motherly, a minority to be sure, and it is sad that some of my adopted friends had to draw the bad ones. But tarring us all with the same brush is the same as saying, say, that all teenagers are irresponsible just because some of them are. It is demeaning and untrue. We all deserve to be judged as individuals and not by the lowest common denominator in our populations.

You see, in the battles for records, recognition, redress, and the disagreements concerning terminology, it seems to escape the notice of many that we are all just asking for the same damn thing....respect. Is it too much to ask or do I hang up my activist's hat and enjoy San Antonio with my friend as a vacation?

Do we just let adoption, which cannot do so much, win this one?

Pissed Off And Proud

Yeah, I'm angry! What about it? You think it's "not nice?" Well, too freakin' bad for you. In many situations, anger is not only the appropriate response, it is the strong and righteous one! Do you agree? You might want to check out "One Million Pissed Off Women" on Face Book.

I have a good life. I have a wonderful husband, terrific children, raised and reunited, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, fantastic friends and family and two little terror..er, terriers to lighten my days. So, most of the time, things are copacetic and I am at peace. But then I turn on the news, read my Internet news feed or read on FB and I reach a state of fury in seconds.

Anyone who denies that the reactionaries and the theocrats are waging a political and cultural war against women, with women in their ranks for Crissakes, is in deep denial doo doo. The way to control a culture is to control the family and the way to control the family is to control women and their ability to determine their own reproductive choices. Women have been repressed for thousands of years because we can do something men can't..we bring forth life.

Now, one might wonder what this is doing on a page that centers on the injustices done to unmarried mothers in the last century. Well, isn't the right to keep one's infant and raise it also a reproductive choice? That is the alternative that is never mentioned in the old "abort/adopt" argument put forth by the anti-choice faction. I have NO doubt, whatsoever, that the adoption Industry is standing by and watching this, egging it on, greasing palms, doing a bit of creative directing, and rubbing its avaricious, stained hands in glee.

If we want justice, then we have to be aware that we are struggling, right now, against being taken back to square one where a woman's personal autonomy is concerned. Redefining rape, questioning culpability in miscarriages, defining "uterus" as a dirty word and cutting off access to birth control would send us back to the bad old days of housewives in pearls and heels, subjugated by hubby while Peyton Place seethes in the background.

For those who long for those "good old days" when things were simpler and they had cigarette ads on TV and twin beds in the movies and sitcoms, know that Grace Metalious wrote about the parts of life that no one acknowledged. It took me decades to see the hypocrisy of those days. We were taught lies in American History in school and Communism was Satan's tool and "Under God" was added to the Pledge of Allegiance. Meanwhile, in those legendary, smoke-filled rooms, the witch hunters and the fat cats did their business. McCarthyism was in full bloom, generals advocated use of the Big One, paranoia and discrimination were rampant, but, yeah...those were the good old days, right?

Those were also the days when millions of young women, mostly middle-class, white teens, were shipped off to "stay with an aunt" and prepped to surrender their precious cargo. We were the object of scandalized whispers. No matter what goodness and decency resided in our makeup, we were seen as deviant and delinquent while the boys who were 50% of the conception process got off with a wink and a nudge. It truly sucked to be female, single and pregnant in those days.

There are those who would argue that it's not that much better, today. But, whether anyone wants to admit it or not, women DO have more choices available and less criticism if they choose to be single mothers. Those choices are precious! They are part of the awakening from the Victorian blindness of the early part of the 20th century. They are milestones in the progress of the rights of women that were denied for so long.

Bit by bit, state by state, we are being forced back into that old mold of the compliant wife, responsible for our virginity even if it's taken by force, and prized only for that little piece of tissue being intact when we reach the altar. And it is all because of that same old issue...FEAR. Men don't want women running any part of the show. We scare them because we bring compassion and social awareness to the arena. If they don't control us, I think they fear we will control them. I don't know what to say about the women they have enlisted in their fight that stand by them except that I know some of them, care deeply about a few of them and am appalled and confused by their actions.

I really wish that NOW weren't so laden with those who adopt. Perhaps, if they weren't, they could see our plight as a valid reproduction issue rather than concentrating on birth control and abortion rights. It is interesting that they list adoption as a reproductive right, which it isn't, and yet leave out the right of the single mother to keep and raise her child. NOW has disappointed me badly and I question their leadership in the light of what is going on now.

To me, it looks like we are going to have to roll up our sleeves and keep a sharp eye on what is happening. The only weapon we have is our voice. Speak up, speak out and don't let them get away with this horror. Write letters, emails, talk to people, discuss the issue and be careful with your vote.

Help stop the War On Women.

If Anyone Wonders Why.....

This past weekend, my oldest child's paternal grandmother passed away. She was a sweet lady who always treated me with kindness and a gentle respect. The same was true of her late husband.

I don't know what happened to her son. We were both teens, close together in age, and my family was adamant that there would be no marriage. So was my errant lover. He was scared to death. I wonder if my family had allowed it, would his folks have made him marry me? From what I know of those fine people, yes, they probably would have, if only to give their grandchild a name.

But it had already been decided, on my family's part, that there would be no marriage and that "the baby" (MY BABY!!!!!) would be given up for adoption. They decided that, not me.

When my daughter contacted me in April of 1993, I was ready with any information she wanted, including the name of her father. For her, it was important that "the circle be closed." I knew that, where her father was concerned, I was persona non grata, especially to his wife. So, we decided we would contact her paternal grandparents.

No one could have been sweeter or more welcoming to her than her grandparents. They considered her family, at least until her father decided that he didn't want that happening. She had met him only once and he was not eager to acknowledge her even though she could tell he knew she was his daughter. He eventually cut off all contact with her.

She sent a floral arrangement when her grandfather passed but the family had it removed. He spent years denying that she was his to anyone who would listen. His family knows better. However, they ARE his family, so my daughter is a subject not to be discussed because he wants it that way. He has a sister that is kind and open to her and to me, but her loyalties are, first and foremost, to her brother.

So if anyone wonders, this is why I get frustrated with the "good old Dad" stuff that I hear from a lot of adult adoptees. When I say that many of us were abandoned in our time of need, know that the "putative" fathers were usually the first ones out the door and running down the road. This didn't just happen to SOME of us. It happened to MOST of us.

Remember young love? Remember the lovely ache of it, deep in the chest, the fire in the belly and the stars in your eyes? Remember the sweet dreams and the joys of just being held and kissed and hearing those sweet words? I would have carved out my heart for him, back then, and handed it to him in an ivory box lined in silk. I lived to see him look into my eyes and smile.

The reaction of my family and some of my former friends really hurt. Being sent away like a dirty little secret hurt. Being a social outcast hurt. But one of the things that hurt the most was that uncaring rejection, that being kicked to the curb like so much rancid garbage by the one I loved. The only other thing that hurt worse was the loss of my child.

He spoke about me to others in the most disparaging of ways, hinting that I was easy and promiscuous. He lied like a politician who was losing. And, stupid me, I still loved him! It took me years to get over him and, when I  finally did, I felt a thousand pounds lighter. Obsessive masochism is a heavy load and he wasn't worth the damage it did to me.

He is now doing the same thing to our daughter, kicking her aside and refusing to acknowledge her. She offered to have a DNA test done just to still his protests, but he refused. And the ultimate insult to her is his refusal to allow her to join in the mourning for her grandparents.

I remember them both stumbling over words, way back when, trying to make excuses for him and apologies to me. I was, and still am, grateful to the core for their kindness. Their hearts were in the right place and the world is poorer for their passing. I see the best of them in my daughter.

I lit a candle for Hazel. I hope there is something there, on the other side of death, and that she is with her husband again. I hope they both are at rest.

I just wish my daughter didn't have to mourn, alone.

A Word To Cowards and Other Rejecting Mothers

I just read a blog by Real Daughter that brought me to tears like few blog posts have ever done. I have felt this way in the past about my sisters who live in their fear and shame and trauma without ever searching for a better way. When they do that, their adult, surrendered children are the ones who suffer from their mother's trauma as well as their own. I want to take these Nmoms by the shoulders and shake them until their teeth rattle.

I have watched this spirited woman as she made the journey from the possession of her adopters and the object of rejection by her Nmother to a person, whole within herself. When we make that journey, we don't find perfection, but we do usually find a nice person, no worse and no better than anyone else, with whom we can live. I wonder, if I had not made that hard journey to self-acceptance prior to reunion, would I have been one of the mothers who rejects? I know that the burden of grief, guilt, shame and fear was with me for a long time until I got sick and damn tired of carrying it. I hate it that some mothers hide within the depths of that burden, content to continue sitting in their safe, warm pile of shit and ignoring the smell.

I have preached a lot, to adopted adults, about understanding their Nmoms and letting go of the blame and hate...about not tarring all of us with the same brush, and trying to put themselves in our shoes. If we don't do the same in return, we can't really call ourselves mothers. No, I still won't accept the "abandoner" crap or the "I hate all Nmoms because of mine," mindset. But I do understand it a lot better. Fortunately, this particular adoptee sees personal growth as positive and has the courage to pursue it. "Nuff said on that side.

Now! To those recalcitrant and cowardly mothers, WOMAN UP!! This is the child of your body. The past is gone. It can't hurt you anymore. If your near and dear are condemning of the fact that you surrendered a child, then their love must come with some pretty harsh conditions. If you have kept a secret for all those years, the truth will set you free, literally! Reunion isn't an easy road to travel, but those that do usually don't regret it.

Your baby is gone, forever, but he/she didn't die. That adult, standing in front of you with their hand stretched out to you is your new reality. How can you not enjoy the resemblance and wonder at the synchronicities? You still carry cells of that person inside you. Your DNA is in every one of their cells, bone, blood and sinew. They need answers, and, whether you will admit it or not or even know it, SO DO YOU! What can it hurt for you to make a new friend? And what better friend to have that the blood of your blood?

I wish there weren't so many of you out there. You damage our image and put barriers between people that don't even know you by your coldness. Your fear is misplaced and your shame is in your head, only. To quote a book that helped me immensely, when you grow and accept yourself, "...you will neither regret the past nor wish to turn your back on it." There lies the way of sanity.

I hope some of you read this. I hope you might want to have some dialogue with mothers who accepted and even searched for their adult children. We can tell you that the fear goes away. The suppressed grief does surface but it was doing you no good down there where you had buried it. You can go through it with support you didn't have back then. Yes, you might find some anger emerging, but anger is just an emotion. It's what you do with it that is the important thing. And, for me at least, the best part is saying goodbye to that stupid, frakking scarlet letter of shame. We never deserved it. C'mon...grow a set of cast iron ovaries and meet your adult child halfway.

You might learn something. I can't promise that it won't hurt, but it can, most definitely, help heal.

(We'll talk about the adult adoptees who reject their Nmoms on another day.)

Logic 101

Today, we will have a short review of simple facts that should be common knowledge but are not, due to the way the adoption industry, greedy agencies, PAPs and their government toadies have of twisting things. Here goes another attempt to replace mythology with reality.

FACT: Being unmarried and/or young and/or financially dependent and/or still in the process of getting an education does not make any woman or girl less a real mother.

FACT: If a young lady is old enough to have a baby, she is old enough to be called a Mother. Babies do not have babies. At age 14 and up, our bodies are the bodies of women capable of fertility, passion and all the other things parents don't like to admit exist.

FACT: Antiquated religious beliefs and reactionary social mores have criminalized the act of love and the birth of a child outside the man-made institute of marriage.

FACT: Illegitimacy is a man-made concept for the benefit of the patriarchy and really has nothing to do with an innocent child or the marital status of that child's mother. Every child has a right to be here, whether the name he/she bears is the mother's or the father's.

FACT: Adult Natural Mothers and Adopted people can handle the same rights as everyone else and the freedom of association that will allow us to pursue or not pursue relationships as we choose.

FACT: Natural Mothers and Adult Adoptees do not need self-appointed spokespeople...especially from those who support the adoption industry.

FACT: Most Natural Mothers are NOT fragile flowers needing protection, anonymity or avuncular concern from institutes and organizations.

FACT: While we might disagree among ourselves on certain points, we all agree that closed records are a violation of our human rights.

FACT: It would cost less to help a new mother and her child than it takes to supply adopters with subsidies. A hand up is different from a hand out.

FACT: Coercion, conditioning and social mythology that bring about surrender are real problems that can only be solved by massive doses of truth.

FACT: If you accept your adult child/natural mother into your life, openly, your nose won't fall off and the world won't stop turning.

FACT: Blood ties DO matter.

FACT: NO ONE is entitled to the child of another woman by "virtue" of infertility.

FACT: The major causes of infertility are delayed childbearing, STDs, obesity, smoking and other lifestyle choices.

FACT: There is no such thing as a "Triad" in adoption. Natural Mothers and Adoptees have no power or equality. That commodity belongs to the agencies, brokers, adopters, workers and others who profit or benefit from our loss.

FACT: Those who adopt are not perfect saints nor or they better people than the majority of natural mothers.

FACT: Too many people don't want to accept or even know these simple, true facts.

FACT: It seems everyone who is not directly connected to adoption "knows someone" who adopted or who was adopted or surrendered a child who is just deliriously happy about it all.

*sigh

Good Girls Did

I am downloading Patti Hawn's book, "Good Girls Don't" to my Nook reader. I was just a couple of years ahead of her in age and giving birth, but it seems that she tells the story of many a Senior Exiled Mother. One thing about the book review I read that really resonated with me was the phrase, "(Hawn) tells of a time and society that young women of today find hard to visualize." Hell, the generation directly after ours finds it hard to comprehend the oppressive nature of the burden we bore to stay "pure."

I had several pairs of white gloves. I think they were reminders to us of our need to never sully our hands or ourselves with the dirt of the human animal's nature or we would be tainted, forever.

I have also been reading "The Purity Myth: How America's Obsession With Virginity Is Hurting Young Women" by Jessica Valenti. Same Stuff, Different Day. Now they have "Purity Rings" and father-daughter "Purity Balls"  and abstinence-only pledges. While young men are invited to make a pledge, it still seems the emphasis is on the girls.

That little bit of tissue carries a lot of importance in this Puritanical society of ours. I know for a fact that many "Good Girls" did have sex before marriage and, unfortunately, some of us got caught with an unplanned pregnancy. During the course of those pregnancies, most of us fell in love with our little passengers and the real pain was just around the corner.

I remember asking a guy why he hadn't called me back after I refused his advances on a date. He told me then (1964), that there were "two kinds of girls, the kind you married and the kind you f*****." It was his opinion, since I was no longer "pure," that I was of the latter variety. Needless to say, I did get married, I had children I was allowed to keep and raise, but it took me decades to believe in my own basic decency and worth again. I had received that hypocritical message once too often and the shame stuck with me for a long time.

To give the younger generations an even more graphic picture of the kind of horror that greeted our painful confessions of fertility, a dear friend's mother put her in a tub and made her douche with Lysol. I  wonder if she thought she could wash any previous activity away with a disinfectant?

Patti Hawn was sent away to a relative. Many of us were warehoused in maternity homes. The goal, for our families, anyway, was a daughter returned to them "re-virginized" and purified. I so wanted to be loved by my family. I wanted them to see the good in me. I wanted a lot of things, including the love and loyalty of my older daughter's father. I got nothing and had my babies removed from me, to boot.

I'll be interested to read Hawn's story. I hope she found peace and self-worth in her journey. It's a tough road to travel and none of us intended to make the trip. But few of us managed to be the person our purification was supposed to produce. Tragedy, loss and ostracism at a young age can change the course of a person's life in a big way. Many of us are now in our 7th decade of life and have come to terms with something that no one from the recent generations can even begin to understand.

It's funny. I see young girls at the Mall and out and about elsewhere wearing clothes that we were only allowed to wear at home. We would have been expelled had we ventured to school in a pair of jeans. Of course, we would be either withdrawn from school or expelled once our pregnancy became known. Girls were the property of their fathers and then became the property of their husbands. It took a bit of bitching to gain what autonomy we now enjoy. Anyone who thinks we have it made just has to read Valenti's book to see that we still have a struggle to overcome the prevalence of unrealistic, patriarchal expectations. It would be a total tragedy to see any more progress made in the effort to undermine and obliterate Roe v. Wade.

It's scary that there are those that want to take us back there. I wonder if white gloves and dresses would come back into fashion? Have you ever tried to keep white gloves clean?

Clorox would make a fortune.

Aw, Ya Done Gone and Got Yerself Pregnant!

I have had it! I am so sick and tired of the careless, uncaring, thoughtless and even nasty things being said about Natural Mothers. When it comes from a member of your own family, it hurts. Even if the thing that was said wasn't directed at you, it can hurt. It gets especially vicious when they go after teen moms, but any young woman who dares to conceive without the dubious benefit of holy deadlock is fair game. Here are a few of the statements, made by those who have no idea what it's like, that set my dentures on edge.

"Babies having babies." RIDICULOUS! I'll admit it isn't the most ideal situation in the world, but most teen moms are not infantile and make great mothers with a bit of support and understanding.

"You've ruined your life!" HOGWASH. The idea that the young, single mom is going to be on welfare for life, will never have a good relationship, career, education or fulfilling events in her life is bullshit of the smelliest variety. I only have to look among my contemporaries to see the erroneous nature of that idea. And I really have to hand it to some of the newer moms who are finishing their schooling, working and raising a child and not complaining. We are a confused and spoiled culture that keeps our children in a state of infancy post-puberty.

"Your baby deserves TWO parents who can give them more." More what? More love? More care? AAH. More MONEY. And the fact that there IS a father who should be contributing to the care of his child is not considered? I wish I had a ten-spot for every adopted adult who has said they would not have minded not having the pony and the toys and the dance lessons if it had meant they could have stayed in their family of origin. I could go on a nice vacation.

"You're the one who spread her legs." Why is it that a girl's sexuality is condemned while a boy's gets a wink and a nudge? I can also tell everyone, from hard experience, that many times those knickers didn't come off without a lot of urging and cajoling from a horny guy along with false protestations of eternal love. And, in a few cases, those horny guys just took what they wanted without permission. It's just sex, for Pete's Sake and it doesn't make a slut out of a girl who gives in to passion. It's the loose talk and the labels and condemnations that do that. How about offering sex education and available birth control instead of unrealistic expectations?

"Haven't you ever heard of birth control?" It's awfully hard to hit the Health Department for the pill or insist on condoms when you have Dad and Mom preaching 'aabstinence only' and believing that their little girl would never let a nasty boy touch her like that. This willful forgetting of their own teen years spells disaster for the sons and daughters who are too human to measure up. AND, condoms fail and even the pill can fail if a dose is missed or if there are certain other factors such as a short illness and other medications in the body.

"You cannot give your child a good life. They will be messed up and never amount to anything." I have seen numerous people who were adopted by well-meaning, affluent people who turned out to be addicts, thieves, bad with family and relationships, and even murderers. There are no guarantees. You just do your best. On the other hand, there are many people raised by single mothers who had succeeded in making good lives for themselves. And several of those people credit their mother's influence as the reason behind their success. Among them are Bill Clinton, Barack Obama and Olympian Michael Phelps. Whereas, among adopted people, we can include, Ted Bundy (adoptee lite), Jeffrey Daimler and David "Son of Sam: Berkowitz. It's not the family structure but the quality of family love and guidance and that can be a crap shoot.

"You can always have babies after you're married, have a home and are settled in a career." OK, this one is the old promise that we can have it all. Yet it has been proven that delayed childbearing is the leading cause of infertility. A study in the UK concluded that women lost 90% of their viable ova by age 30. That doesn't mean you can't become pregnant after 30. It just means it is a lot harder. And a mother in her late teens to early 20's does seem to have a monopoly on the energy it takes to keep up with toddlers and small children. That is hard work. But I know a few young mothers who, while raising small children, pursued their education and a career. One became a cardiologist while raising twins on her own. Don't set limits on those who find themselves pregnant at a young age and single. They take the things you say to heart and you may be creating a self-fulfilling prophecy.

"She went and got herself pregnant." Yeah Buddy. I picture women raiding sperm banks or knocking out young men to procure sperm, then getting out the old turkey baster and doing the deed. What tripe. In most normal pregnancies, it takes two, a male and a female, both equally responsible for the act and the outcome, to make a baby. Has our species not evolved far enough to cease this demonetization of women? Will we always be judged by a two-millenia-old patriarchal myth about our worth and our sexuality?  We have stood on another planet. We take pictures of distant galaxies and have working computers no bigger than our palms, but we still are sexist, racist, ageist and operating from a questionable idea that a certain religion has a lock on morality.

I am a mother who became a mother when it was the worst possible thing a girl could do in the eyes of society. I have managed to grow past the fear and shame and realize what is behind this denigration of the single, young mother. It sickens me, saddens me and, when it comes from a loved one, it gives me a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. Even natural families don't seem to get that unconditional love thing.

Yesterday, I got a facetious invitation from Baskin-Robbins to celebrate my "half birthday" (I became 65 & 1/2 on the 14th) with a buy one cone, get one free deal. Time is flying by and I am educated more and more every day. OK, so at the grand old age of 65 & 1/2, I see something very clearly. The problem isn't the pregnant teens. That old chestnut just won't fly anymore. The problem is social engineering and the demand for healthy infants by the "right kind of people." It isn't a "win-win situation" and it isn't caring for the mother or her child. It is bottom-line flesh trading and religious arrogance and manipulation by the self-anointed. It is heartless, covetous, greedy, elitist and painful.

And it stinks to high heaven.

A Nation Of Sheep

If you have ever watched a dog herding sheep, you know that the dog uses his/her ancient predatory instincts to frighten the sheep into running in certain directions. The sheep, natural prey animals, respond with the natural fear of attack and move as directed. It is unfortunate that I see this tendency towards knee-jerk reactions to fear-mongering in our general populace.

Going back to our Puritan progenitors, run out of the United Kingdom for their zealous excesses, fear of Hell and damnation was used to keep the colony in check. The more ignorant and uninformed the person, the more easily they can become alarmed by the specter of gloom and ruin. The biggest supporters of the status quo, the Tea Party and the rantings of Beck, Riley, Limbaugh and Gingrich are the ones who don't realize they are being robbed blind by the financially elite who propagate this fear-mongering.

It disturbs me to realize that our power structure is comprised of the wealthy, the social engineers and the dogmatic. Back when I was a pregnant teen, I was as unaware as anyone else of what was being done to the general citizenry. Religion and psychology joined forces to make a perceived threat out of unmarried mothers and their children. We were doomed to poverty, reliance upon the taxpayers and to raised damaged young or so they said. We were also, in the male-dominated society in which we still, unfortunately, live, damaged goods, unworthy of a "good man" or a normal life.

Our parents, families, communities, preening, newly-professional social workers and the general public saw nothing wrong in using us for breeding stock for the more deserving, wage-earning, married infertile couples. The sheep ran as the dogs directed and it was seen as a win-win situation all around. As sad as it is, that is still often the case with the unmarried mothers of today, especially with that stupid idea of "born-again virginity."

People fear things that they don't understand or that are not part of their life experience. I look at the Tea Party and the Christian Conservative Machine and see them using every fear card in the deck: racism, sexism, homophobia, radical nationalism...you name it. Just like the BSE, I am hearing the sheep bleat in terror as they run in the direction the powerful wish them to go. The ability to think for oneself is not valued in the areas of religion or politics. There lies danger and sedition in the eyes of the herders.

I am a sheep that morphed into a person when I learned that I was sold a bill of goods when I was young enough, dependent enough, ignorant enough and vulnerable enough to buy into it. Once I questioned the nature of what was done to me and to my children, it led me to question a lot of other things, among them the Capitalistic nature of the adoption industry in the "free" world. What I have seen in my quest for answers has frightened me a lot more than any barking pundit. The arrogance of the shepherds is starting to cause quite a few cases of morphing from sheep to real people.

I was raised to love my country, to be loyal to my government and to adhere to certain standards of "acceptable" behavior. I love my country. If questioning the efficacy and honesty of my government is disloyal, so be it. And while I still have standards, I am not the blue-nosed prude I was, even towards myself. Talk about your split personalities. I did have sex with my boyfriend and felt guilty as Hell about it, every time. No wonder I never enjoyed it.

I hope that more and more Americans will get tired of being herded, marked, shorn and scared. I don't have HIGH hopes, but I still have hope. A human mind should never take on ovine characteristics. It defeats the definition of human.

Privatizing Our National Conscience

Landlord Shocked To Find Children Living In Garage

CANYON LAKE, Texas -- A Canyon Lake homeowner told News 4 WOAI he was shocked to find out  six foster children were sleeping in the garage of a home he was renting out to a couple.

Charlie White showed News 4 WOAI's Jozannah Quintanilla the 2-car garage where he says the couple had the grade school-age foster children sleeping. White said they had no air conditioning or heat in the garage, and the children were sleeping on homemade bunk beds in the crowded room. White believes three other foster children were living inside the two bedroom home.


"They had a wall built across the garage under this beam, and a wall across here," said White.


A neighbor who lives next door sent White a letter, letting him know how concerned the neighborhood was for the children.
"I showed up the next day to ask them what was going on and where they were keeping all these kids," White told us. "They told me my house was a therapeutic foster home."


White walked into the garage and told the foster parents it was no place for the young girls to be sleeping. That's when he also found out there was a 30-year-old mentally challenged man living in the garage with the girls.


"I told them they needed to get the kids in the house and tear these walls down," White said.


When asked why he told them that, he explained. "Because a fire could break out in here, and these kids would have no way of getting out.


Soon after White and his neighbors reached out for answers.


"All of the neighbors were concerned. Several have called CPS," explained White. "They couldn't understand how nine children could be living in the home."


"Thirteen people using the toilet," White added. "The ceiling is caving in. It's got mold in it."


With more than a dozen people living in the home, White said every room in the house was damaged. He immediately went to court.


"They refused to take the walls down and to move the kids in," White told us. "That's when I told them they have to go."


A judge evicted the family last month. Since then, White has contacted the agency responsible for the children.


"Because they allowed this many people in the home, they've done this much damage," added White. "They're not concerned and seem to be covering it up."


White says he and the other neighbors are concerned about where the children are living now, but he is also thousands of dollars in debt from the damage done to his home.
News 4 WOAI found the family living in a home a few miles just down the road. We knocked on the door but got no answer. We then contacted Child Protective Services.

*******

Thanks to Sandy Young, who lives in Texas, for putting this story out for the rest of us to read. I felt it was an appropriate follow-up to my previous post. It seems that, for many adults, the welfare of children is forfeit when it comes to the bottom line. I would love to hear from the CPS in Canyon Lake and hear what they have to say about this execrable situation.

Why do we decry orphanages and yet allow this kind of cruelty in the name of a "family home?" A clean, warm, well-run children's home would, in my mind, be head and shoulders above foster care as it is, now, in our nation. While there are many who provide decent and caring foster care, the system is too top-heavy and overloaded and corrupt to avoid situations like this and many others.

Unfortunately, our profit-based culture puts the funds into the pockets of the already wealthy, big business, "defense" contracts and perks for elected officials while the most vulnerable among us go begging.

Not only did we Natural Mothers get sucked into the system because we were not legally the chattel of a husband, but also because too many of us were financially dependent on our parents or unable to make enough money, due to the inequity in pay scales between men and women, to provide for a child. The bottom line, here, is tragedy.

Note that a wealthy woman, such as a famous actress, etc., can raise a child as a single woman without an eyebrow anywhere being raised. Many women who have reached an age when the biological clock is ticking loudly, will quietly opt for single motherhood because they can afford it. They can usually fly under the radar of the agencies and the coercers because they are financially comfortable.

This concept is attributed to many different sources, but the fact remains that the might of a nation is judged by how it treats the weakest of its citizens. The US scores low on this one.

Now, I don't hate the rich. I look at Warren Buffett and Bill Gates who are giving away huge portions of their personal fortunes. Then I look at Pat Robertson who is very wealthy in his own right and he is not putting his money where his loud mouth is. He professes to be both a Christian and a patriot. Neither Gates nor Buffett make any comments about their religion or lack of it. I wonder if Robertson would be willing to provide a safe and comfortable home for needy children without requiring indoctrination into his brand of religion? Naw, I didn't think so.

But the drive to have money = power = control has reached a new low when a CPS agency allows little girls to live in an unheated, non-air-conditioned garage with mold, dirt and a 30-year-old man.

It's frustrating, but my question is, it is fixable?

PART DEUX!

It is very convenient and coincidental that WOAI pulled this story from their website at the same time that it was announced that the Texas state legislature would be addressing the expansion of privatized foster care in the state. This particular case was a privatized foster arrangement through the Baptist Children's Home. Curious, isn't it? Calls to the station have resulted in less than full disclosure other than impugning the veracity of a source. BTW...the landlord and the neighbors DID call CPS and CPS investigated and said they couldn't see any problem. Now isn't that strange? Of course, would it really be in the best interests of the CPS to have verified the complaints? And why is the Baptist Children's Home also investigating if there is no reason to doubt the findings of the CPS? Just asking...........



Man Rescues Dog..Dog Rescues Baby Girl

This is supposedly a true story from the Mother Earth News. It seems a farmer in Scotland found a litter of puppies alongside a country road. Only one of the puppies was alive. She was bleeding from the head but was breathing and had a strong heartbeat, so he took her home and nursed her back to health. The puppy grew to be a valued member of the family and gave birth to a couple of litters of her own before she was spayed. She took care of her people and all the farm animals.

One day, she returned to the farmhouse with a bundle in her mouth and deposited it in her bed. The farmer took a look and was amazed to find a little, human baby...a girl, suffering a bit from exposure but otherwise healthy. The little girl went on to grow up and become a nice young lady. Her farmer friend and canine savior had long since passed away.

When I was born, my grandparents had a female lab, shepherd mix named Smoke. She was a really bright and well-behaved dog. From the minute they moved my crib in and placed me inside it, her place to sleep was under my crib. If I awoke, she alerted the household until someone came to see about me. She worked guard duty when I began toddling, pulling me away from the stairs by my diaper. My memories of her are blurry, but the stories told to me by my parents and grandparents are precious to me. I have a badly faded photo of baby-me and Smoke under the Christmas tree with bows on our heads.

It has recently dawned on me that, for these deluded mothers of today who are "choosing" specific adopters and "adoption plans (yuck)," that they might want to make sure that the PAPs have a dog. That way, since Mommy is being edged out of the picture, they could check out the canine family member and be sure that their little ones are getting unconditional love of the highest order. My Grampa once told me that Smoke would have fought off a grizzly bear to save me.

She didn't adopt me. She didn't see me as a replacement for pups she didn't have. She saw me as her human responsibility and a pack leader in the making. My mother would cringe when Smoke gave me a kiss, but I would just chortle in delight. Smoke fetched my cup, my blanket and my toys and would present them to my mother to wash off and return to me. I first walked holding on to her back. She was Nana, Lassie and Rin Tin Tin all in one. Her love for me was uncomplicated by her own needs and fiercely protective.

I was a lucky kid. I was 9 when she died. I do remember that as a very bad day. She stayed with Gramma and Grampa when we moved to SC because she was already getting on in years and the trip would have been hard on her. It was a tearful goodbye and would have been worse had I known it was our last time together.

Perhaps the smart thing to do to screen PAPs, better than the home study, would be to have them adopt, YES, ADOPT, a dog that really needs a home from a local shelter or rescue group. These canine babies come with issues and that would test the unconditional love factor. If they pass that test, then MAYBE, if there is a child that needs the guardianship of others not of their kin, then they could assume that legal responsibility. But no game playing.

Oh, we call ourselves, "Mommy and Daddy" to Dolly but we have better sense than to indulge in a fantasy that she is our real child. Indulging in that fantasy with children born to other families is just as dumb and very damaging in the long run. When the need to fulfill that "as if born to" impossibility becomes obsessive, you have very screwed up children growing up with a lot of heavy baggage. What we do to our children in adoption, we wouldn't do to a dog.

Right now, there are more domestic, companion animals needing homes than there are homes for them. Thousands are euthanized every week. It is such a simple thing to spay and neuter our little friends. It is such a simple thing to teach our adolescent children about birth control. It is such a simple thing to put the money we were putting into 5-figure tax breaks for adopters and tax cuts for the affluent into helping a mother and her child get a fair start in life. It's such a simple thing to honor the mother-child bond without bringing judgment and Victorian attitudes into it. It's such a simple thing to recognize and address the crimes committed against these mothers and their children over the years.

It's all as simple as a dog's devotion to people that would move that so-called "dumb" animal to rescue and guard a human child. Nature's wisdom seems to beat out the assumed wisdom of humanity every time.

Thanks, Smoke.

That "N" Word (Natural)

A very nice mother in Canada got a very rude email which took her to task over her use of the term "Natural Mother," to describe those of us who had our children appropriated for adoption. The writer of this malicious missive was, of course, an adopter. Now many disagree with me, but for reasons of my own, I don't apply parental titles to those who adopt. I have certain principles that make it impossible for me to bring myself to call an adopter a mother or a father.

In my mind and my philosophy, each person born gets one mother and one father. That is how biology works. But to identify ourselves as mothers who were not given the right to raise our children lost to adoption, many of us prefer the term "Natural Mother." It used to be the correct and legal term until some adopters and others decided that by calling us that, it was implying that women who adopted were not natural mothers.

Well...uh...that's nothing more than the simple truth. There is nothing natural about adoption. It's a man-made, legal construct that, as with all things man-made, tries to overrule nature and the power of nature that is conferred on the females of all mammals to give live birth to our young. The term "birth mother" was first used by author and adopter Pearl S. Buck, and passed through the network until it became the title it is today, one that is used to distance us from our motherhood and make the adopter more comfortable.

For as long as there have been human beings, there seems to have been a fear, on the part of patriarchal societies of a woman's sexuality. Our genitalia is internal, a little dark cave that performs a miracle. We bleed every month but don't die from it (although there have been times many of us wished we could) until that miracle is conceived and then we do something no man can do. We produce life. Yes, it does take the cooperation of a man to conceive, but, with donated sperm, we can, if we wish, do the entire thing ourselves. A man still needs our wombs, presence and cooperation in order to have offspring.

The patriarchs have done all in their power to subdue and conquer our female nature. It seems to be the way of all men. If there is a river, bridge it or dam it. If there is a hill where he wants a road, then he levels the hill. He builds levees to hold back rivers and swamps and builds his artificial nests on the infirm soil. If there are minerals in the earth, he must go after them. Man seeks to control and mimic what he cannot be...that natural creator. Often, Nature gets back a bit of her own. Hurricanes, floods and the simple impermanence of human construction will  often roll over these man-made barriers like a Juggernaut, destroying in minutes what took months and even years to build. Even the pyramids are crumbling in spite of constant upkeep.

It is also the patriarchal need to control women that has led generations of women to believe that their only worth is in their fecundity. From that precept comes the old, "give me a child lest I die" school of thought that drives the potential adopter. Many segments of society still look askance at a woman who can bear children yet chooses not to do so. Yet, let a woman decide to bear a child without the active oversight and last name
of a man and she is scorned and seen as unworthy. And on this curious dichotomy, Man has created a lucrative industry that uses female fertility and restricted autonomy. Then he uses the onus of infertility to create the market. Due to the oppressive idea that a woman is less than worthy if she cannot produce a child for a man, they have their customers and "proper" women for their social experiments and engineering.

So adoption is not just unnatural. In its concept, it is sexist, anti-woman and done for reasons that have less to do with the ultimate welfare of a child than the idea that a child should be provided for a woman who is unable to bear her own....a child for a home; NOT a home for a child. Women are commercial objects and/or consumers and because of this, women predate on other women, can't cooperate or get each other's backs and that leaves men still pretty much in charge. They run the world while we wrangle over who should raise children.

To the woman who wrote that irate email to my friend, learn your biology. Adoption is NOT natural and giving birth is. I am a natural mother. You are an adopter of a child in order to fulfill your own desires. And while we are giving biology lessons, I'd love to give Rosie O'Donnell a heads up. Babies do not grow in our "tummies." That would be very uncomfortable. They grow in our uterus which is made just for that purpose.

So the adopters of our world can throw that "birth" word and that "tummy mommy" idiocy around all they like. That child you coveted and took as your own is created by the genes and the body of a NATURAL mother. This Natural Mother and many others I know would have given anything to have been able to rush a sick child to the hospital and sit with them while they healed. We would have sold our souls to be able to kiss the boo-boos and change the dirty diapers because, if you care for a child, that's what you do. Doing it confers no special honors on you that change the fact that you are not the natural mother of the child you possess.

It's not nice to fool with Mother Nature.

A Thanksgiving Tale

Once upon a time there was a woman. She had a mother, a father, sisters, a husband and a little girl and a huge extended family. She loved all of these people most dearly, especially the little girl and the little boy she would have a few years later.

Because there were so many aunts, uncles, cousins and a special grandmother, everyone got together for every holiday. At Thanksgiving, there was so much chatter, the wonderful smells of a feast being prepared, the shouts of children playing and it was a picture worthy of Norman Rockwell.

The woman smiled and hugged and held conversations and helped fix the food and behaved as if everything were perfectly normal. She had a hard time understanding why she felt such a hard knot of sadness inside herself. After all, she had moved on, married, had children she could keep and raise and had the approval of her family. So why was it always lacking something? Why was there the feeling that there was something missing? They told her it would get better, that she would forget.

So she tried to do just that. She pushed it all so far down inside herself that she wasn't even really aware of anything except that the edges were off the holiday joy and the champagne of celebration tasted a bit flat. Emotionally, she was like a mouth after a visit to the dentist...partially anesthetized. She stuffed food into that empty hole but it never was filled.

It took years for what was buried to emerge and to be recognized for what it was....grief. For all the normality of the family holiday gatherings, something very abnormal had happened to the woman and it would affect her for the rest of her life. There was abundant love in her for many children and she loved both her raised children very, very much, for who they were. But she also loved two other children and they were not with her, were taken from her and she didn't know where they were or how they were or if they were even still alive. But her mother's heart bled and ached most heavily when there were family events and there were two family members missing. For the sake of the children she was raising, she acted happy and content.

When someone in a family is lost, there is grieving to be done, but the woman was not allowed to grieve openly and receive comfort. When she reunited with her two lost children, she finally gave voice to her mourning and it was heard. That was when she realized that, behind that Norman Rockwell picture of her family gathered at the table, was an 800-pound gorilla being ignored by everyone. In the living room, where the parades and football games played on, an elephant sat square in the middle, also ignored. It was as if, to the rest of her clan, her two lost babies didn't exist.

Today, turkeys will be roasted, pies will be baked and families will exchange hugs and kisses and it will be a very pretty picture, worthy of a painting. But one wonders how many women will sit at those feast-laden tables feeling that sadness and incompleteness? I pray that there will come a day when no woman will feel that way.

The End.

The Death of My Innocence

Forty-seven years ago, today, I was a shadow moving in the world of the living. I should have been preparing for graduation with the rest of my class, but was, instead, studying for night school to get my GED, all hopes of college gone. My parents couldn't afford it and I had blown my chances at scholarships by loving the wrong guy and being in the wrong place at the wrong time with another one. Less than six months before, I had surrendered my second child to adoption. Hope for what life might have in store for me or for any of us was dwindling.

I had just finished washing the dishes and making the beds in our house and was getting ready to do a book report for night school when my mother called me from work and told me to turn on the television. I sat there, in shock, as I watched reports stating that John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the 35th president of the United States, had been killed by an assassin's bullet while riding in a motorcade in Dallas, Texas.

There were actually some ignorant, bigoted, thumb-sucking, hate-mongering right-wingers who celebrated this tragedy. But they kept it low-key once they realized that their nation was in mourning. No matter what side of the aisle you supported, OUR commander-in-chief had become a target for, well., it is believed, a single nut job. There are still questions on that one. But it seemed that what sun there was in my sky went behind a big, dark cloud. I was already in deep depression and this sent me even further down that road.

JFK was the youngest president we have ever elected. He represented change, progress, tolerance and, most of all, HOPE, a commodity I had trouble holding on to. I never realized how much of my meager, personal store of optimism was held in this man's term of office. I had to wonder what kind of world this was that people could celebrate the violent death of a great leader, could take babies from the mothers who wanted them just because those mothers were not married and could label, as unworthy, so many people just because they were not White, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant MALES. For all the stories of mistresses, Marilyn Monroe and human failings, I still honor and respect the man.

A few years later, I was in the break room at lunch and people were talking about the deaths of JFK and his brother, Robert F. Kennedy and the tragedies that had befallen that family. I remember one of my co-workers, known for wearing cross pendants of different gems and metals every day to work, saying that she had no sympathy for Rose Kennedy. After all, she opined, she was rich and could have whatever she wanted. The buried bits of me that could be offended struggled to the surface long enough for me to say, with gritted teeth, "You show me the amount of money that would compensate any mother for the loss of her children, F******. I don't think there is that much money on earth. Are you so jealous of her financial status that you can't identify with her as a mother?"

I don't know what the reaction was because I stormed out of the room and went out into the parking lot to get some air. A couple of the ladies came up to me later and told me that they were glad I had spoken to the issue. That was 1970. I was married with a 5-year-old daughter and expecting my youngest son. Even then, and even married, I was required to resign in my 5th month. It was unseemly for a woman with a large, fecund belly to be seen in the workplace. And THAT was right before the stigma of unwed motherhood began to lose its grip on our society.

I can think of all the milestones, personal and national, and the tragedies and triumphs of the past 47 years that have affected me. But, like everyone else, I most clearly remember all about that awful day in November, 1963. That was the day that a grieving, hopeless, soul-sick, childless mother watched her hope for her nation die, and be buried. That was the day I knew that love, honor and decency were in dreadfully short supply. I don't ever want to forget that day or the days of national anguish, shock and sadness that followed.

I just have to wonder what we have learned. After all, it's been 47 years.

Where Is True Brilliance and Charity?

Both qualities seem to have left us and we are forced to deal with the popular and the politically expedient. I am thinking, especially, of two very opposite personalities, today. While the name of the Florence Crittenton Homes can conjure some pretty lousy memories for many a natural mother, the original mission of this service was not as a clearing house for adoptable infants in utero. Kate Waller Barrett, who, with businessman Charles Nelson Crittenton, created this service, was trying to help the young mother with child care instruction, medical care, good nutrition and all the thing that would give any young mom a good start. It never entered her mind to do anything but help these young women keep and raise their children and give them the consideration and caring they could not find in society at large. It was only after WWII that the punitive and avaricious practice of using maternity homes to produce infants for adoption began in earnest.

I did a little research at the behest of a friend and wrote a short essay on Ms. Barrett for publication. This was a woman who was filled with the right kind of compassion, who saw a wrong and wanted to right it. I wonder what she would think if she viewed the adoption industry as it is today. I wonder how it would make her feel to see the organization that she and Charles Crittenton formed and named after Crittenton's late daughter turned into an arm of that industry. Some of the Crittenton services are trying to get back, a bit, to the original purpose, but the Industry looms large.

Kate Waller Barrett didn't qualify her charity by judging the worth of the mothers she helped according to their marital status. She knew that it took two to create a child and she knew that men often left a woman to deal with whatever happened once he took what he wanted. She recognized her good fortune and wanted other women to experience it. She didn't charge these young women if they didn't surrender their children. She didn't try to sell babies to the well-heeled. She didn't do any of the things that many who styled themselves as "charitable" have done. That kind of honest charity takes courage and determination, not a desire to make a fortune off the pain of others.

Any kind of honesty takes courage. I have long admired the comedian and philosopher (yes, I consider him one of the most brilliant social minds of our time), George Carlin. His one-liners usually made more sense than all the most learned tomes of Kierkegaard, Adams, Sartre or a host of others. I love his jaundiced view of authority, such as, "The real reason that we can’t have the Ten Commandments in a courthouse: You cannot post “Thou shalt not steal,” “Thou shalt not commit adultery,” and “Thou shalt not lie” in a building full of lawyers, judges, and politicians. It creates a hostile work environment." It's funny that he mentions the people who are the arbiters, supporters and technicians of adoption. It's hard to find one of that crowd on the side of the single mother.

I consider George Carlin to have been brilliant and another who was ahead of his time. He didn't back down to the networks and he showed us that personal integrity could be hilarious.

I am going to take a page from Carlin's book and be honest about something. I have watched the fight between the Vaughns and the natural father of the little boy, Grayson, they wanted to adopt. I watched as the self-entitled adopter wannabes defied one court order after another. People were lauding the judges who ruled in favor of the rights of the father. I applaud the outcome, but have one question. When are these judges going to favor the rights of the mother who is conned out of her baby?  Benjamin Wyrembek fought the good fight, but so did Stephanie Bennett and her family and they were just SOL. I saw no one making a move to honor the original order to return baby Evelyn to the Bennett home. It's still a man's world. Grayson's mother was required, by her husband, not Wyrembek, to surrender her son. I pray she will have an opportunity to play a positive part in his life.

I'm also glad to see eye to eye on many of George Carlin's observations about organized religion. He once said that he was happy for people who had a relationship with a deity that would tell them what to do. What he didn't like was these same people using what they got from their deity to tell others what to do. The church and its influence on our society has made us one of the most judgmental, prudish national cultures on earth. And the concern is not on hate, disease, poverty, famine or any of those ills. No. It's all about who got a BJ while in office and who is qualified to keep their children based on their marital status. The nose of the pious is stuck in the private bedroom of us all. Sex is the great Satan but sending our young people to some dessert thousands of miles away from home to be killed is righteous?

So, what would I say if I were able to speak to both these people, today? I would tell them that they and their efforts and ideas are sorely missed. I have yet to see anyone with the heart and the backbone to take their place. Meanwhile, the tears of untold numbers of mothers and their children still flow, inequities are still unchallenged and the beat goes on.

Hmmm, what would Kate do and what would George say? It's something to consider.

Getting Out The Vote

....In more ways than just one. We are at the deadline for voting for the Demons of our choice. The following is borrowed...well, blatantly stolen from Musing Mother.

4th Annual Demons in Adoption Awards Nominations

Each year Pound Pup Legacy presents the Demons of Adoption Award to raise a voice against adoption propaganda and the self congratulatory (specious and vomitous) practices of the Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute's annual Angels in Adoption Awards(TM)

Until October 30 you will have the opportunity to vote for the recipient of this year's award. To vote, go to:

http://poundpuplegacy.org/node/45564

The nominees are:

LDS Family Services: for being the most secretive of all adoption agencies, using coercive tactics in obtaining infants for adoption and having no respect for father's rights; (my personal favorite and I protest by finding those "missionaries'" bikes, chained to a light post and let the air out of their tires)

Gladney center for adoption: for being one of the most profit-centered agencies around and blocking open record efforts in Texas; (Wonder if Mexico would like this part of Texas back?)

Christian World Adoption: for their involvement in "harvesting" practices in Ethiopia and their blind ambition to "save" each and every "orphan" in this world;

Larry S. Jenkins: for his involvement in nearly every case where father's rights were violated;

Joint Council on International Children's Services: for promoting the interest of adoption agencies at the expense of children, and pushing agency friendly legislation in Congress;

Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute for giving their seal of approval to persons and organizations that promote the interests of the adoption industry and pushing agency friendly legislation in Congress;

Council on Accreditation: for their lack of research done on inter-country adoption agency histories prior to giving out Hague accreditation;

American Adoption Congress: For failing to remove state reps who were openly working against open access for adult adoptees;

American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey: for opposing open records for adoptees and "protecting" closet moms, based on a "stack of anonymous letters" claimed to be from "birthmothers".

Christian Alliance for Orphans: for promoting the business interests of adoption agencies through churches.

Southern Baptist Convention: for passing resolution no. 2 , pushing the business interests of adoption agencies to the members of their church;

Adoption.com for systematically banning voices that oppose current adoption practices and their continuous pro-adoption propaganda;

Scott Simon: for his vomit-inducing book “Baby, We Were Meant For Each Other” and his grotesque crying and blubbering about his purchasing of another human being;

WE TV: for their hideously exploitative series ‘Adoption Diaries,’ turning what is a highly emotive and complex topic into ‘reality’ show fodder.
 
And the adoption-affected ask, because the adoption-affected dare, "WHO will it be?"  I can't wait for the results.

The Bully God, And The Unwed Mother

"...the Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord."-- Job 1: 20-21 (KJV) People have used the image of the Judeo-Christian God to intimidate, justify war, condone torture and intolerance....you name it. Those of us who have lost children to the adoption industry know this God on a first-hand basis. For some of us, his name was never invoked, but he was there, in the background, in the minds of the families, social workers and everyone else during the BSE. Just like Torquemada, the engineer of the Spanish Inquisition, many of these folk felt they were doing God's work by systematically divesting unmarried mothers of their infants. They might as well have put us to the rack.

That this idiocy lingers to this day speaks to the arrogance and ignorance of a lot of people. I remember the feeling I had in Sunday School when I was taught that the Jews were, supposedly, the chosen people of God. Where did that leave us? "Well," said the teacher, "Jesus came along and fixed that."
 

So now the Christians think they are above everyone else by virtue of their belief and they even have trained beemommies to pass that thought along. Everyone seems to have a need to not only feel superior, but to feel that they are safe from whatever scares them. The problem is that, when philosophers and prophets began coming up with explanations for the things they didn't understand, they seem to have created the Creator in their own image, as a bully who has his representatives on earth to police, judge and correct. I wonder how Jesus would react to the people using his name and his teachings (as they are available) to condemn, adjudicate and correct those whom these worthy folk think are "sinning." Right...I think so, too.
 
In the present day, the message is delivered in mass doses via the media, polished by spin doctors and financed by ovine believers. You'd think that, after 2000 years, we would have outgrown the superstition and the intolerance and moved on to the message of love. Nah...how would people have power over the minds of others without a little blind faith? So, in the name of God, the Big Bully, the LDS, Bethany, and others are still running the social engineering game, taking from the unwed and vulnerable and giving to "the right kind of people" and, Goodness, No! No one gets a penny for this! Yeah, right again.
 
I am not a Christian, however I am a Theist and a spiritual person. I really hate to see perfectly good teachings used to justify this crime of taking the babies of those who just need a little help. I hate that this dogmatic drivel is being used to create Stepford Beemommies who, with wide, glazed eyes, insist on telling other young women who are expecting how glorious it is to surrender your child in the name of the Most High. There is still the judgement against overt sexuality and the shaming still goes on and on and on.
 
Take a look at the Westboro Baptists who protest at military funerals. They proclaim that "God Hates Faggots!!" I didn't think that God hated anyone. When did God become so obsessed with human sexuality that he ignores war, famine, child abuse, human trafficking, slavery, poverty and disease to go after people being who and what they are? I dunno, but that seems a bit one-sided of the Almighty to me.
 
Now, I know that there are Christians who are not into either forcing their personal beliefs down the gullets of others or caring about what two (or more *giggle) consenting adults do in their bedrooms. But they don't shout as loud and are not as intrusive and abusive as their more fundamentalist, evangelical brethren. But, only a few have the courage to speak out against these pious preeners. Jim Wallis, and the Sojourners publication, available on line, are trying to get the message back to love and caring for one's neighbors but they have enough to do just fending off Glen Beck.
 
Meanwhile, as it was in our day and is to this day, God is still the Big Bully In The Sky, throwing down thunderbolts and smiting whoever dares to cross the arbitrary line drawn by the pundits in the pulpits. I refuse to blame anyone for taking my children other than the ones who did and, while they professed to be God's people, I don't believe it. I really have no description of the God of my Agnostic lack of understanding, but I am sure that he/she wouldn't approve. I would love to see these arrogant proselytizers step out from behind their protective assumptions and take responsibility for their actions.
 
That would be refreshing. It would also be honest and I don't think that they are there, yet.