Formal Notice

Please see Musing Mother's (Sandy's) blog post with this title. We are becoming tired of being stalked. We have ignored, even when the stalking has invaded our homes and mailboxes and phones. Now we are seeking legal advice. We've really had enough. It is time for the Comments Section Stalker to go bye-bye.

The Paradox Project

A friend, an adoptee, is gathering ideas for a blog on paradoxes and I am going to send her to this blog for another entry. I am going to concentrate on one of the first paradoxical shocks to my system..the humanity of the adopters.

You see, when we were in the maternity prisons of the EMS/BSE, we were really given the old hard sell where the potential adopters were concerned. We were given information that made all who adopt resemble a combination of Donna Reed, Mother Teresa and Florence Nightingale for the ladies and Ward Cleaver, Saint Peter and Ben Cartwright for the gentlemen. How could we, mere mortals, young, alone and vulnerable, hope to compete with these paragons? That was one more nail in the coffin in which the SW's hoped to bury our motherhood.

Whenever I found myself beside myself with worry over what might have happened to my two lost children, I would remember the glowing descriptions of the PAPs I received all those many years ago and would find a small measure of comfort in that and in my prayers for their welfare. I had to believe they were in the best of all possible worlds or go crazy.

Coming out of the fog was a shock to my system in more ways than one. I learned that those who adopt are no better than any of the rest of us. They divorced, had substance abuse problems, went bankrupt, had affairs and abused, yes abused, the children they adopted in proportion to those who raised natural children. It has even been postulated that the incidence of abuse is higher in adoptive situations. I know that one of my children endured it, physically. I know of more who were abused emotionally, physically and, to my rage and disgust, sexually. Even when there is the best of all possible situations, there is still a form of emotional abuse in the fact that these children were adopted, not because they needed to be, but because they were intended to fill a gap in the lives of the adopters. I also found that adopters can be very insecure.

I am sorry, but I think that being made to bear the burden of an adult's emotional well-being IS emotional abuse. I saw the results of conditional love. I saw the pressure, the lack of acceptance of the adoptee as they were and are. I saw the frustration, confusion and pain of the adoptee. I saw the lies the adopted were told. There was either the specious, non-sensical, "she gave you up because she loved you," (huh?) or we were dead (I was killed in an accident..yeah, right) or uncaring sluts or an amalgamation of all three. Hey, they had to find a way to get the kid's mind off that woman!

I know that there are exceptions in adopter-land, but to me, they only prove the rule. The biggest paradox of all is that, as it is stated over and over again, adoption is NOT about a home for a child but about a child for a home. Adopters are human, the are prone to the same shortcomings as any other person and they seem, for the most part, to have an extra "self-entitlement" gene from somewhere. Most of the ones I know are convinced that they deserved that child more than the child's natural mother did.

This is a paradox from the view of the Exiled Mother. We who have tip-toed through the eggshells, taken whatever was dished out by adopters and our children in the name of the adopters, and done anything else we could do to keep that found, adult child in our lives, see clearly through the fog of lies and fairy tales we were told as we struggled to find anyone who would help us keep our babies. That clarity is something with  which we are cursed. Our tongues are scarred from the biting we do to keep the peace.

Just as all the general public has to do is look around them and the women going about everyday lives to see what an Exiled Mother looks like, all they have to do is look around them at the same people to know who the adopters are. Oh wait! With the adopters, there may be a slight glimmer of a halo.

They are saints, after all.

Living On The Bottom Rung

For those of you not familiar with Margaret Atwood's dystopic novel "The Handmaid's Tale," it's about an America in the not-too-distant future where conservative Christians have taken over the government and restructured the society into a highly stratified, totalitarian theocracy. The handmaid is a fertile woman assigned to a house of one of the leaders of this society in order to produce a child for that household. Along with an intolerant society, infertility is rampant and these women, rather than being treasured, are used as breeding stock for the elite. Each handmaid is not allowed her own name but is given the name of the man who heads the household to which she is assigned.

The heroine of the book is Offred (Of Fred) and she is required to submit to sexual intercourse on a regular basis while being held in the lap of the Commander's (Fred's) wife. In the story, Offred is offered an opportunity to have a "better life" by becoming the pampered, secret plaything of the Commander. It's an interesting story and resolves itself in a very different way. I won't be a spoiler for those who haven't read it. It's worth reading, but is very difficult for mothers of adoption loss to read through without feeling a certain amount of discomfort.

I have had a really good look at where the feelings of the natural mother are on the scale of importance according to...well, just about everybody but us, but especially our children. First come the adopters. They are at the top of the ladder. Down below are the adoptee, just below the adoptee are any siblings they might have discovered and, at the bottom stands the mother, lucky if she has made the first rung. As I mentioned on my FB page, I am getting tired of standing at the bottom of the ladder looking up a stranger's skirt.

We seem to be required, by our adult children, to respect the feelings of the adopters, even when those adopters are no longer among the living, but be damned if we should expect that same respect for ourselves. Who decided on this hierarchy? Who decided that we were mere brood stock afterthoughts and the adopters were to be revered? Who said that we should even care and who the HELL said we should accept disrespect from the adopters and our children and never say anything about it?

Try turning the tables. What if, once the natural mom appeared back in the adoptees' lives, the feelings of that adoptee and their adopter became immediately secondary to hers? What if they were expected to be told what they could and could not do in connection with the adoptee/mother relationship. Suppose THEY were told to butt out and leave our children alone?  And try imagining the adoptee showing total disregard for their adopter's feelings and constantly defending the nmom? Imaginge being told to call the adopter by their first name and treat that adopter as a "friendly acquaintance." It wouldn't feel too good, would it?

But with most reunions, that is the routine to which we are expected to submit. Who made these rules? And why should we follow them? The entire construct of adoption is built on a legalized lie. The methods used to take our babies from us were criminal, cruel and extremely disrespectful. After talking to many of my sister nmoms, I have discovered that we have fought like tigers, over the years, to regain the sense of self-worth that was methodically take from us along with our children. And these same sister moms and I will be DAMNED if we will ever let it be taken again. We are not the handmaids to the more worthy. We are not the fallen and redeemed nor or we non-mothers with no feelings to be respected.

When you look at it, the idea that we owe our adult children anything is ridiculous. I don't see our raised children acting like we owe them anything and we never lost our parental rights and responsibilities to them. Since, legally, we are nothing to the adult adoptee, why should be be constrained to do anything for them? We do what we do out of caring and decency...not because we are compelled to by any sort of sense of obligation, legal or (questionably) moral. Who decided on what is moral here, anyway?

I say it is only morally and ethically right that the natural mother be treated with kindness and respect. It is my considered and educated opinion that we have earned the right to that respect. We can remember being banished, abandoned, scorned and betrayed by all around us and we can remember it with acute clarity. It was the stuff of nightmares. That nightmare reached its climax with the taking of our infants. Then, without us knowing it, it continued for years behind our backs with lies, stereotypes and more lies. Yes, there are a few really nasty moms who reject the adult adoptee, but they are not US. I did not abandon YOU. YOU are not my main concern. The child I gave birth to and was coerced into surrendering is my main concern.

I love my children...all of them, whether I raised them or not. My heart is the heart of the mother and it can be broken just as easily as any other person's heart. The only difference between me and the others is that I am expected to have my heart broken and accept it as my due. What is decent, fair, equitable or respectful about that? I am sick of the erroneous accusation that we CHOSE to give birth (most didn't have a way to avoid that without putting our lives in the hands of a back alley butcher) and that we CHOSE to "sign those papers." When that is your only option, that is not a choice, it is survival. All we could do is hope and pray that the honey-tongued social worker was telling us the truth about the kind of life our child would have. And I damn well refuse to accept any guilt for loving someone and expressing that love and I sure don't apologise for being raped.

I also strongly object to the arrogance of pro-adoption entities such as the NCFA and the EBDI presuming to speak for us. They are playing a dangerous game when they try to hide behind our skirts and turn adoptees against us. We are becoming more vocal and more people are listening. We've had all we can take of this kind of bait and switch PR.

Oh, we will support the right of the adopted person to their original birth certificate, but we also will demand the same for us. Yeah, we'll be there for the marches, but we will be there as exiled mothers seeking justice.

And we expect to be respected as human beings and mothers. If we aren't respected, we don't go. We're climbing that ladder and we are not going to stay on the bottom rung any more.

And In That Same Vein.....

Up Against The Wall

You were mine for a little while,
And I held you and watched you, in awe,
Of the minute perfection that had come from me,
Of each little movement,
Of each little sound.
For a few short weeks,
You bore the name I gave you,
With thought and with care.
You were the mystery of life made clear,
The reason for love,
The reason for pride.
Unarmed and unaided,
My battle was lost,
Before shots had even rung out through the air.
And the paper I signed,
Bore spots from my tears.
I could not hold back,
I could not retreat,
The wall at my back was uncommonly strong,
So they took you away,
So then, you were gone.
To wait for the new ones,
To claim you as theirs,
To make me a handmaid to their needs and desires,
And they are the ones,
Who hold you now.
Even though they're gone,
You are still theirs.

Robin Westbrook (c)
8/14/2010

Speaking Ill Of The Dead

I have heard this old adage more times than I can say in my life. "Never speak ill of the dead." I have never really seen the logic behind it. Why is it that once a person dies, they become candidates for sainthood?

I did some research and found that the saying originated in Ancient Greece. At that time, people believed that the spirits of the dead could hear what you were saying and punish you if you maligned them in any way.

In modern times, most people think that it is just good manners since the deceased are not present to defend themselves. In any event, I fail to see how death erases any of the damage done by people while they were alive. What about Hitler, Stalin, Jeffrey Dahlmer, Ted Bundy and other famous villains? Did all the damage they did just go away when they met the Reaper?

•George Carlin referred to this phenomenon in a routine on his album On the Road:
"Hey, when you die, you get more popular than you've ever been in your whole life. You get more flowers when you die than you ever got at all. They all arrive at once, too late. And people say the nicest things about you! They'll make shit up if they have to! "Oh yeah, he was an asshole, but a well-meaning asshole." "Yeah, poor Bill is dead." "Yeah, poor Bill is dead." "Poor Tom is gone." "Yeah, poor Tom." "Poor John died." "Yeah, John." "What about Ed?" "Naw, Ed, that motherfucker, he's still alive, man! Get 'im outta here!" "
 
It seems that when a person shuffles off this mortal coil, a nostalgia filter suddenly snaps into place and everything a person did that was wrong or harmful during their life is forgotten. My parents are both gone and I loved them. My mother was a very good woman, but she made a very bad mistake with the way she handled me when I became pregnant. I will never forget the pain I felt when she wanted me put into the maternity prison as soon as I started showing because she was afraid I might corrupt my younger sisters. This was the same loving mother who told  me I didn't have a right to a white wedding. My father? Well, he was a womanizer, an underachiever and a pathological liar (and those are the nicer things). Gee...I am speaking ill of the dead. But that is who he was.
 
Now don't get me wrong. I loved Mama and and there is much about my memories of her that I cherish. I also know that she did love me, but also thought, erroneously, that she was protecting me and my sisters. But she missed the boat with this one. I once had a friend tell me that "your mama was a rose, but a rose has its thorns." I had a conversation with my mother in a therapy session..well, the therapist played the part of my mother..and I think the truth set us both free...me to realize that I was not a bad girl for life, and Mama had the burden removed from her shoulders of being some kind of picture of perfection. If anything, the fact that she died at age 46 prevented a lot of the mellowing that comes with aging. She was just a woman, a mother, a human being and she wasn't perfect or, in the case of my unwed pregnancies, right.
 
I posted about reunion, yesterday, and about how those who adopt can sometimes wreck a budding reunion relationship with their insecurities and demands and I cited my own experience. Whoops! Someone read my blog who really shouldn't read my blog and now I am, again, on the down slope of the roller-coaster. Well, what am I supposed to do? Lie? I got a heated lecture on "speaking ill of the dead" and I say WHY? Death ends a person's mortal life. It does not erase the harm they have done in their lifetime. The people I spoke of were adopters who acted like, well, adopters.
 
Don't get me wrong. I do, honestly respect the feelings the adopted people have for those who adopted them. However, I don't feel that I am under any obligation to feel the same way. I don't necessarily hate adopters. I know a few that I actually like and it leaves me torn. But I do hate the act of adopting and the sense of entitlement that accompanies that act. That is a long-established fact about me and one that the person in question knew. Hell, anyone who know me, knows that. To be honest, I think she was just waiting for me to do something to give her an excuse. She has never resolved her anger towards me. And, I am not one of those "good barfmuggles" who apologise for what they didn't do and lay down like a rug to be walked on in the name of motherhood.
 
So, I have to choose between being honest and being "polite." I choose honesty. And if the truth hurts, then so be it. The most respectful thing anyone ever did to me, when I was in my own LaLa Land, was to treat me as an adult and tell me the truth. For that, I will be eternally grateful.
 
There is a thin, fine line between caring about feelings and ignoring the truth. I guess I crossed that tenuous barrier and the bitch of it is that I am not sorry.
 

Reunion and Expectations

I watched as an old friend and her surrendered daughter took their seats on the reunion roller coaster this past weekend. They are already learning why it is called the roller coaster. It is a combination of exhilaration, fear, mild to moderate nausea and many ups and downs.

I call what happens first after the initial pink cloud, "hitting the wall." That's when the realities start to sink in. For the mother, it is knowing that the relationship is never going to be 100% mother and adult child because the adult child has a history with other people she considers her parents.

The mother has to deal with decades of suppressed grief. We were denied the opportunity to mourn our children when we lost them. When all that grief bubbles to the surface, it can take us down like a blow to the gut. Finding peace and acceptance of what is and what was while building a new relationship with the adult child of our body is a difficult task. The fact that we also have tried to make lives for ourselves and often have other loved ones who need our attention can further add to the emotional weight.

For the adult child, there is the realization that there is no "closure" or resolutions of emotional problems with reunion. We can't fix each other. It causes a severe case of anti-climactic shock for many. Add that to the problems of loyalty and sense of obligation they can feel for their adopters and you can easily see why the adoptee is torn, confused and looking for something more. My friend's daughter is in the stage where she wants to be with her mother all the time. She wants to make up for lost time and that is something none of us can do.

That time that is missing is gone forever. The young woman who gave birth to the adult child is no longer young, is often plagued with the various annoying medical problems of the middle-aged and aging and has a journey of her own to take. We get shocked back to that young woman who was so abandoned and desperate and sad beyond belief. That's quite a trip to take when you are getting up in years.

The adoptee has to deal with the reality vs. the feelings. Even though they know, with their adult minds, that most were neither unloved nor abandoned, there is still a small child inside wondering why mommy didn't want them. If they were told lies during their years growing up, it is hard to decide who to blame or if anyone is to blame. They also have to deal with, in some instances, hostile and insecure adopters whose love might, unfortunately, carry conditions.

Often, the adult adoptee finds it easier to deal with found siblings than with the mother who has such a bigger-than-life presence in their psyche. They have their fantasies about the mothers just as we have ours about our children. On both ends, we usually find normal, fallible people with all the baggage of life. Each of us, mother and adult child, have a power to hurt the other without even meaning to do so. Many of us are guilty of trying to read things into what the other says without accepting that they might just simply mean what they are saying. We're as tender as new growth in the Spring. Hyper-sensitivity can become an issue.

The stories of their conceptions and births can often also cause an adoptee extra angst. That especially goes for those whose mothers were raped or were the victims of incest. Knowing that their fathers deserted their mothers in their time of need and that their grandparents were not receptive to keeping them in the family can hurt. Again, this is something they can understand intellectually, but is a hard emotional blow.

Even if the mother welcomes the adult child with open arms and heart, there might be others, usually the father and some extended family, who are uncomfortable with reunion and don't care to participate. That can cause heartache for both mother and adult child. People are still awfully funny about adoption mythology.

Then we get back to the adopters. They can deep-six a reunion faster than anything going. The insecurities, the fact that they could not give the gift of life to the adoptee, the fears that the adoptee will like the natural mom more than them can, many times, make them behave in a hostile, demanding way. I remember my daughter's adopter saying "Thank you for S***. Now this reunion nonsense will cease!" I quietly told her that I was going to leave that up to my daughter. She managed, for a while, to really mess with our reunion. Like it or not, the adopters are all the adoptee knew and they fear losing the only anchor in life they ever felt they had.

We never know what we will find at the end of a search. For some, on both ends, it can be rejection. For some, it is a grave and that is very hard to take. For many mothers, we have found damaged adults who were either physically or emotionally abused or were in a very dysfunctional situation. We were promised two full-time "parents" for our babies and we learn, years later, that there was divorce, infidelity, alcoholism, financial problems, distant, cold adopters..in other words, the exact opposite of everything we were promised by the ones who did the emotional coercing. We often also find that there was no truth to the blithely told tale of adopters waiting at the agency to immediately take our children. Most, if not all, were in foster care for months before they were placed in adoptive homes.

The biggest injustice the mother or the adult adoptee can do themselves is to look to the other to fix or resolve their issues. That resolution comes from looking within and taking time to work through things. A little honest but respectful communication helps. Even our raised children learn that there comes a time when they have to find their own answers.

We can give each other information and reassurance. We can give each other unconditional love. What we can't do is fix each other. Reunion is valuable but it isn't the answer. It isn't the end of the road but the beginning of a new one.

If I were to give any advice it would be to not take yourself too seriously while on this reunion journey. It's dramatic enough without adding to it.

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.

Watch Out For That Windsh...........!!

One of my favorite new truisms is one that came to mind a few days ago. To quote myself, " the windshield was never the bug's original destination." Another fact that bears noting is that the bug doesn't hit the windshield. The windshield hits the bug.

Down here in FL we have a bi-yearly plague of little black monsters, so noxious that even the birds and dragonflies won't eat them. They leave purple stains on your pants if you happen to sit on one. Their corpses are corrosive and will eat through the paint on the front of your car, where they often are killed en masse, just by being in the wrong place at the wrong time. They bear a slight resemblance to fireflies but without the pretty phosphorescent tail. Their only objective is to mate and die, and many die before the job is done. They are called "Love Bugs."

Drive across a bridge over a lake or slow-moving river, like the St. John's, and you will encounter clouds of midges, non-biting mosquitoes, that sound like sleet hitting your windshield. They, too, have emerged from the waters to reproduce. They are, like the (eeeeewwww) Love Bugs, just doing what they were born to do.

So there these little aviators are, just doing their thing, looking for a mate or enjoying the purpose of their existence, when along comes this big, fast, shiny thing and Bam! Bye bye, Buggsy. The driver usually mutters a curse or two, turns on the windshield washer, and keeps rushing to whatever destination they are so  bent on reaching.

Now isn't that a slice of life straight from the land of the exiled mother? We were just minding our own business, giving and hoping to receive the love of our fellas and bang! Out of the blue comes this behemoth of an industry, and we are smashed flat, dispossessed of our infants and left to wave feeble limbs in the breeze.

A couple of days ago, a number of us, at the invitation of the National Council For Adoption (the NCFA) who says they love to hear from (natural) mothers, posted our stories and our opinions at their Facebook page. Bug, meet Windshield. It only took them about 36 hours to remove some of the discussion comments, ban some of us from posting and make their page safe again for the entitled and the brainwashed. Wonder what they were afraid of? They invited us and we mothers and some adoptees, tired of the arrogance of this organization in presuming to speak for us, took them up on it.

Just yesterday, a very clever and witty woman decided it was time for the Bug to become the Windshield. There is now a Facebook page entitled "The National Council For Adoption Sucks." There is a lot of satire, sarcasm and timely truth to be read at that site. If the truth is not allowed at warm, fuzzy NCFA-Land, then we will tell it where we can. We have our blogs, our groups and now we have NCFAS. One way or another, we are going to be heard.

There was a time when I believed that this nation suffered from selective hearing. But the truth is that it also suffers from selective information. There is that which is allowed and that which isn't. Only the "good" beemommies with the party line etched into their brains are allowed to speak at the NCFA site.

There was this pearl of wisdom that really sent me into a choking fit, straight from the NCFA. They claim that "most (natural) mothers and adoptees are highly satisfied by their adoption experience." Yeah, right. And the Stepford wives loved being replaced by androids. There is so much truth denied in that one specious statement that I can't even begin to list the inaccuracies. It is an insult to every mother who ever mourned her lost child and every adopted person who felt a part of them was missing.

I think it is time that the industry, the NCFA, the Evan B. Donaldson Institute and the government of the US of A realized that the bug is morphing into one mother of a windshield. The more they try to discredit us, the more they try to speak for us rather than listening to what we have to say, the more we are going to press the issue.

I think the season of the windshield is upon us.

But Then There Is This...

Out of over thirty photos taken yesterday, this one made me cry. Just when I get so tired of all the frustration, infighting and roller-coaster riding, something happens to make me remember why I am in this activism arena. It about the disruption of the most sacred bond there is...that between mother and child.

This is just a woman giving her mother a kiss on the cheek. What makes it so bittersweet, is that this kiss has been delayed for 47 years. The mother was just 17 when she was railroaded by  family members and the SC Children's Bureau into surrendering her newborn daughter. She was allowed to hold her baby girl for 10 minutes before she was taken away.

What was done to these two women, one a girl, the other an infant at the time, was heinous. It was wrong then, it is wrong now and it will be wrong in the future. I have known this mother for most of my life and we shared an experience that changed us forever. She, another friend from our hometown, and I have been doing a lot of catching up, lately. No matter how new into reunion my friend was, we found ourselves all talking the same language...the language of lies, loss, grief and anger. They are still at the "beemommy" stage, but the lies in the non-ID my friend's daughter received got her cranked up about how things were handled.
After 47 years, she is seeing how badly we were used and how emotionally damaging the actions of those who forced and coerced were to us and our children.

They both have a way to go before they can see beyond reunion to wanting to do anything about the crimes of the industry. But, if daughter is like mother, they are both fighters and will have their say. I already know they were using the term, "bullsh**" as they read through things yesterday. There is an old saying  that it doesn't take a PHD in crap to know when it smells. I think, along with all the wonder and love, they caught a whiff of the odor of injustice. Time will tell.

Meanwhile, enjoy the pink cloud, gals. You have both earned it.

The Drama Of It All

There are times when I think if I hear or see the word "adoption" one more time, I will scream. I don't think there is any other sanctioned, supposedly warm and fuzzy institution in the world that has caused as much dysfunction as adoption, American-Style, and I include organized religion in the group of contenders. To beat that one out for top disruptor of sanity, it has to be bad.

No, we're not all nuts and wackos...just most of us, mothers, adopted people and slavering PAPs and the God-like facilitators. Once I used to worry about whether or not our nation and our world could survive nuclear proliferation and ecological dangers. Now, I just figure that, like the big businesses that pollute, the adoption industry will keep growing and gorging itself on trafficking in human flesh. Its titanic weight will eventually crush the reproductive rights of women and destroy families just as polluting industries are destroying our planet's ecology.

All the pain, anger, frustration, dysfunction and grief have become a way of life for mothers and adopted people. There is always something about our lives that is just a little bit "off," even for the most stable  of us. I have to step back from it at times or I honestly believe I will go under and never come back up. The emotional demands of the situation, the obsessions and fears sometimes are like a tsunami, just waiting to drag you down and keep you there. Hey, it out does any soap opera I've ever watched.

There are people in this muck and mire who will exhaust you with their angst. Reaching out to them is like inviting Dracula in to dine. By the time you can break away, you are drained. There are times when I have wondered if taking up drinking or drugs would help. We can't fix each other, yet I sometimes get the feeling that we are latched on to the idea of being fixed by each other like a leech on a Hippo's butt.

I don't have any answers. God, how I wish I did. For me, using the 12-step approach has, at least, allowed me to retain my sanity. But what we have here, with the aging-out of the EMS mothers, our adult children approaching middle age, is a whole new ball game for the mental health community. Certainly, no one seems to want to do any real, in-depth research that might help the mothers who had their self-esteem put through the wood-chipper or genuinely question the identity issues of the adopted. For some, adoption is a sacred cow and, for others, the goose that lays the golden egg. It means that what research is done by the mental health professionals is done by just a few timid souls who will try to lop off a few diseased branches of a sick tree while ignoring the fact that the roots are rotten. Anyone who really digs in is challenged, vehemently, by the posturing industry and those that industry benefits.

Basically, if anyone sees through the hype and mythology to see the giant cluster-fuck this institution has generated, they are called crackpots and dismissed. There has to be someone, somewhere who will listen and seek answers with an open heart and mind rather than acting as an apologist for the industry that has thrust so many into the maze of adoption confusion. I keep hoping that some brave, highly credentialed,  mental-health researcher with a lot of grant money and a nice-sized staff will jump in and save the day. I can dream, can't I?

Until the hero arrives, we have only each other and ourselves as tools to give us  the best chance of healing. The 12-step program says that when you get sick and tired of being sick and tired, you will do what you need to do to find recovery. Well, I'm sick and tired, all right....tired of the lies, the enmity, the predation, the ones who wallow in their misery and the cause of the misery itself.

I am sick and tired of all the damn drama.

The Appointment of Chuckie; An Open Letter to Chuck Johnson

<---------"Quick! Call me a few more times and pretend to be a biological parent!"

Well, the NCFA has made it official. After a time as acting CEO, Chuck Johnson is now the real deal. He follows in the "illustrious" (sarcasm intended) footsteps of Bill "Over My Dead Body" Pierce, Tom "We're The GOOD Guys" Atwood and Mary "Who?" Robinson. Chuck undistinguished himself in a recent CNN interview that also featured Adam Pertman, adopter and the voice of the Evan B. Donaldson Institute and Jennifer Yurfest, NATURAL mother, of CUB. He isn't as slick as Pierce or as ingratiating as Atwood. I found him to be wooden, unimpressive and with a bit of a guilty edge, sort of like even he didn't believe what he was saying.

Chuckie will undoubtedly continue to tout the NCFA as being on the side of ethics in adoption (ding-ding-ding! oxymoron alert!) while also claiming to speak for mothers and adult adoptees. Well, Chuckie, I'm sure you're a real doll but you do not speak for us or our adult children. The more you try to play Edgar Bergen and put words in our mouths, the worse you are going to look. Charlie McCarthy, we ain't. Plus, you are making these facetious claims in such a way as to make yourself look ridiculous.

How about making some kind of documentation available to the legislators that honestly shows how many natural parents have contacted you? I am a natural mother and I have scores of friends who are natural mothers. Not a woman among us is afraid of our adult, surrendered children. We are all wearing our big girl panties and can decide matters such as contact and further information for ourselves. Has it ever occurred to you or your Industry's pet legislators that we don't need a law to say "yes" or "no?"

Franky, I am surprised that you and the NCFA are puzzled by the anger of mothers and adult adoptees who are tired of you assuming the right to speak for us. Is there any other group of responsible, voting, reading and writing adults in this nation that require an organization such as yours for a mouth piece? Back off, Chuckie! I am sure you will find that we have both the vocal chords and the necessary vocabulary to make our own statements....if you would really listen to ALL of us instead of calling on a few who drank too much adoption Kool Aid.

Honestly Chuckie, I don't see you as evil. I just see you as a shill for evil. Your hesitant manner and puppet-like delivery makes me wonder if you really mean the message.We NATURAL mothers have the right to know how our children fared. We also have the right to protest the new laws that keep the mother in a stranglehold, legally, until that baby is in the hands of the facilitators and/or adopters. We have more of a right to protest and seek acknowledgement of the high-handed and, often, illegal way the mothers of the EMS were treated.

And our adult children have the right to get the story of their beginnings and the piece of paper that says they were not sprung, fully-formed, in some judge's chambers.

Oh, and I doubt if there will be massive coronary infarctions if a few adoptees are able to finally say, "Hi Mom."

I am adding the email I sent to the NCFA, Attention: Chuck Johnson

Dear Mr. Johnson,

I am writing in regards to the statement you made about "biological parents" contacting you, in fear of being found through open records. I have several issues with this statement and other actions of the NCFA.


First, I am not just a biological entity. I am the original, natural mother of ALL my children, including the one taken for adoption by a very corrupt industry during the Baby Scoop Era. The terms "Birth" or "Bio" or "Biological" reduces a mother to the classification of a walking uterus. If you must differentiate, "natural," "original" or "first" are all acceptable.


Second, I would love to see some kind of verification, other than the word of a pro-adoption organization CEO, that you are receiving a flood of calls expressing fear of being found by adult children. I know too many natural mothers who have NO problem with their child finding them and asking questions. I know, for certain, that they are not calling you. We have no fear of our children. We do have a problem with nasty little anti-mother paragraphs that call for state-mandated medical and psycho-social histories and contact vetoes. Even if the original birth certificates stay sealed, there are ways for us to find each other. I know because I have been in reunion for 17 years. Keeping the records closed is not going to protect anyone.


Third, as a mother of adoption loss, I can verify that we are all capable, as are our adult children, many in their 40's and up, of speaking for ourselves. You only have to go online and read our blogs to find that many of us are quite articulate and aware of how the government is implicit in the drive for more infant adoptions. Again, as a minion of a pro-adoption group, it is ridiculous for you or any members of your staff to try to speak for us. We don't like it and really wish you would refrain from doing so. As adults, we really don't like people that don't know us trying to make public statements concerning our likes, dislikes, so-called fears and other issues. We can handle our own PR.


Fourth and last, it is past time that the entire construct of infant adoption was re-examined and reconfigured into something that is more child-friendly and less a matter of filling the needs of the childless. Adoption in the USA is not an altruistic endeavor. It is about a baby for a home rather than a home for a child. Yes, I feel for the infertile. I also have sympathy for a blind person but I am not going to allow anyone to require me to give them my eyes.


Regards,
Robin Kinney Westbrook
Sanford, Florida
Senior Mother of Four
SMAAC
Motherhood Deleted
"Neither society nor the (adopter) who holds the child in her arms wants to confront the agony of the mother from whose arms that same child was taken." (Margaret McDonald Lawrence)

Different Strokes........

Everyday People
(Sly and the Family Stone)

Sometimes I'm right, but I can be wrong
My own beliefs are in my song
The butcher, the baker, the drummer and then
Makes no difference what group I'm in


I am everyday people
Yeah, yeah


There is a blue one who can't accept the green one

For living with a fat one trying to be a skinny one
Different strokes for different folks
And so on, and so on and scooby-dooby-doo


Ooh, sha, sha
We got to live together


I am no better, and neither are you
We are the same, whatever we do
You love me, you hate me, you know me and then
You can't figure out the bag I'm in

I am everyday people

Yeah, yeah

There is a long hair that doesn't like the short hair

For being such a rich one that will not help the poor one

Different strokes for different folks

And so on and so on and scooby-dooby-doo     


Ooh, sha, sha
We got to live together


There is a yellow one that won't accept the black one
That won't accept the red one that won't accept the white one
Different strokes for different folks
And so on, and so on and scooby-dooby-doo

Ooh, sha, sha

I am everyday people

 

 

From top to bottom, we have Bhudda, Jesus, Madalyn Murray O'Hair, and Krishna (in a cartoon, no less). I would have had one of Mohammed but we know about that no pictures thing. In every one of these pictures, these people are doing the same thing..laughing,  being happy, enjoying themselves. WHAT A CONCEPT!!!

 

I have noticed that many adherents of different philosophies, religions and political idealogies tend to take themselves too darn seriously at times. Some take themselves too seriously ALL the time. See, I've watched us moms take it from all sides, of late. On Facebook, we Natural Mothers were hand-slapped by a good Christian and we know you can't be good unless you are a Christian, according to that contingent. I made a joke from the funny status bar and caught hell from some conservative loved ones who thought I was advocating gun control. Actually, I am in favor, but not rabid about it.

 

Then I was taken to task by my beloved son for voting the Democratic ticket in the last presidential election. Talk about rabid! He's been knowing that I lean to the left for quite a while. He must have had a burr up his butt last night.

 

It makes me wonder when people take time off to just enjoy being themselves, to learn to live and let live and realize that it takes all kinds to make a world. Everyone is too busy making boxes with labels and then trying to put everyone they know and quite a few they don't know into what they think in the appropriate box.

 

Look around, folks. So far, until we know there is life on other planets, we are all in the same box. Our individuality is what makes us interesting. And laughter is what makes life worth living. I'm really finding it funny that I got so pissed about this. Has anyone ever noticed that you make more typographical errors when you are mad?

 

This goes along with the post from yesterday and Musing Mother's excellent blog from today. Anger has its place in our lives and can be a wonderful tool if used correctly. But you can't stay angry all the time and have a balanced life. Hyper-sensitivity is a sure-fire avenue to a miserable existence. I am devoting today to love, laughter, a good DVD and snuggling with hubby and pooch.

 

Life is too short for taking exception to small stuff and it's getting shorter every day. Laugh it up.

 

 

Don't Kill The Messenger

About 2500 years ago, Sophocles wrote a play about a young women named Antigone (portrayed, romantically, at the left). It was a tragedy of the first order, filled with incest, betrayal and death. It was also where the phrase, "Don't kill the messenger" was first used in written history.

It never seemed to take. It was Leonides of the Spartans who slaughtered the messengers of Xerxes, the Persian conqueror. A Roman emperor or two had the sword used on the hapless bearers of bad news.

In the current society, it is done more subtly, with words rather than swords. PR firms make millions by re-directing the attention from the validity of the message to the foibles of the messenger. No one is so pure that there is not something these muckrakers can't find and use.

The adoption industry, PAPs, adopters and good beemommies and adoptees have found their weapon of choice to be the sobriquets "bitter" and "angry" whenever a natural mother expresses her displeasure and indignation at the lies she was told and the damage that was done to her and her child. Just as the Far Right spent years turning the label "Liberal" into a dirty word, now we have people who want to make a character flaw out of a simple emotion such as anger.

I've blogged on this before. I have used the example of Jesus going postal on the money-lenders in the temple in Jerusalem. I have quoted psychology text and common sense and it seems to just pass through the brains and out of the ears of our detractors.

Today, Musing Mother found a very inspirational piece that echoes our view of the righteous indignation we express. The Daily OM published a very smart and concise article about anger and intensity. The article, entitled, "Compassionate Intensity, Balancing Your Warrior Spirit," is all about what we have been saying. We do not spend out days in  angry, teeth-gnashing fury. We have balanced lives and families and fun and interests that don't have a thing to do with surrender and loss. Hey, we even laugh!

For the detractors, or the "messenger killers" to accept that we are not these irate harpies they insist on calling us, they have to accept that our message is true. If the message is true, then they have to accept that we are, as many have been since time began, indignant over a very real injustice. If they understand the injustice but don't like the parameters of our story, then we are "stuck in our anger and making no progress."

Sometimes, I think it would be easier and more honest if these folks came at us with swords screaming that they don't like what we have to say. The Industry's spin doctors seem to be doing pretty well with sharp-edged words that are designed to discredit and denigrate. The general public image of the natural mother is very warped by the media and the popular mythology.

Along comes this group of normal, grey-haired, respectable, intelligent women and they can't keep using the "crack whore" analogy so out comes the "bitter and angry" barbs. Well, you can use a sword so much without sharpening it and it becomes too dull to even cut butter. Now, I am going to take my bitter and angry old self to the kitchen, have lunch with my husband, pet my dog and call a friend.

She is also a natural mother. I sure hope she isn't bitter and angry today.

Mending Broken Spirits

Beannacht

("Blessing")

On the day when

the weight deadens

on your shoulders

and you stumble,

may the clay dance

to balance you.

And when your eyes

freeze behind

the grey window

and the ghost of loss  

gets in to you,                                                                                  

may a flock of colours,

indigo, red, green,

and azure blue

come to awaken in you

a meadow of delight.

When the canvas frays

in the currach of thought

and a stain of ocean

blackens beneath you,

may there come across the waters

a path of yellow moonlight

to bring you safely home.

May the nourishment of the earth be yours,

may the clarity of light be yours,

may the fluency of the ocean be yours,

may the protection of the ancestors be yours.

And so may a slow

wind work these words

of love around you,

an invisible cloak

to mind your life.

~ John O'Donohue ~

 

Today another broken spirit started on the journey to healing. A friend, a woman that I have known since we were both 14, finally gathered the strength to reach out through the dark veil of secrecy and lies and find her daughter, taken for adoption on New Year's Eve, 1963. My ex-husband, then just a friend of hers and unknown to me, drove her and her mother to the Flo Crit where she stayed until her daughter was born.

She contacted me through her raised daughter's Facebook page. She has been through a few rough years and her health is failing. She has a pacemaker and other ailments and she was feeling that primal urge to make sure her daughter was well and to let her know of health issues that had arisen since the surrender.

 

It didn't take me long to find out her daughter's adoptive name and where she lived. She had registered in several places. There were a few complications that called for the input from a third party, but a search that began on Friday morning has culminated in a 3-hour phone conversation between my friend and her daughter, this morning. They will be meeting, face to face, on Sunday. Rather than a happy ending, this is just the beginning.

 

I've tried to tell my friend that it isn't called the "reunion roller-coaster" for nothing. She is, as I was, still in the grips of the good beemommy mode but is emerging from the fog. I was pleased to witness her anger at the lies both she and her daughter were told. To me, that is a  healthy and appropriate response to this farce that we remember in our nightmares as the EMS/BSE.

 

The pacemaker my friend wears keeps her heart beating at the correct rate. Hopefully, learning about her adult child's life, meeting her grand-children and great-grandchildren and realizing how helpless she was to fight the monster that separated them will lead her on the road to healing the dark hole of loss in her heart.

 

Beannacht, Sylvia and may all the peace of truth be yours and your daughter's.

A Note To A New Friend

Dear L****,


A few days ago, I wrote a blog entry that made me feel like I was typing it in my own blood. The tragic story of the ordeals we suffered as we were coerced and forced to Surrender, during the Era of Mass Surrenders, keeps being told but so few want to listen. Too few want to realize that, though it is more slick and subtle these days, it still happens. Read  "Surrender Is A Bitch" and other posts of mine and those on Musing Mother's blog. Until adult adoptees realize that it isn't just about them, they are not the only ones who hurt, and the ones who adopt are not the only ones deserving of respect and compassion, then we are going to continue to work at cross-purposes and there will continue to be contention.

We are, as I mentioned to you on the phone, aging out of our fighting years. We have carried grief, anger, sorrow and the burden of society's views of us for too many years. Now many of us just want to rest and enjoy the self-esteem we worked so hard to regain after we became exiled from our children. Our pain is not worse or less than that of the adoptee, just different and no less important. Our place in the lives of our adult children has been usurped. Why should our pain be denied as well?

The women who adopted my daughter and my son did not bleed for weeks and burn every time they emptied their bladders. They did not suffer agonizing physical and deep psychological pain while strapped in a bed, ignored by the medical professionals who were helping the "good, married" moms through their labors and deliveries. They didn't have towels and sheets placed over their faces while a nurse ran from the delivery room with the child still wet from our bodies in their hands. Their breasts didn't grow hard and hot and painful because there was no little mouth to suckle the best food God and Nature provides for all children. They didn't have to hear the sounds of babies crying and wonder if it was their child. They didn't have to go home to a family who refused to discuss the loss of their child with them. They were not ordered to keep silent and smile. They did not have to bury grief deep inside until it became a cancer in the soul.

They were not made to feel like they did not deserve the right to be married in a church in a white dress, or gradutate from High School with their friends. They didn't have to suffer the grief without a grave, not even a place to lay a flower. Their joy was our greatest sorrow. Why should we let them and their needs keep us from having, at least, a peaceful and respectable retirement in our later years? Nothing that anyone, including our children, thinks or says can take our rightful motherhood from us. We will take that with us to the grave.

That sorrow we suffer was not mitigated by time, by having other children, because you can't replace one person with another, or by trying to "forget." Even those of us who are reunited have had to mourn our babies because they are gone forever and in their place is a familiar stranger, an adult who pulls at our heart like the moon pulls at the ocean. So, if it seems right to anyone that disrespecting the mother of adoption loss by calling her a "birth" or "biological" mother is OK, then know it is just OK with you. It is NOT OK with me. I choose what I will be called and it is NOT "birthmother." I am a mother by an act of God and Nature...not by the penstroke of a mere human in black robes.

Please, if we talk again, try not to use that term. It was painful and frustrating for me. My pain might not mean much to the adopted or to those who adopt, but it is damn important to me. I talked to you about SMAAC. Those of us in SMAAC are hoping for redress and justice and recognition. We are also hoping for, at long last, respect and understanding. It seems that commodity is taken by those who adopt, as well. It just doesn't seem fair when you look at it from our end of things, does it?

As long as you know where I stand and I know where you stand and we try to respect the other's concerns, then we can work on what needs to be done.

Peace,
Robin, Senior Mother of Four
SMAAC
Motherhod Deleted Blog
"Justice is hard to obtain and too precious to ignore. If there has been an injustice, fighting to right that wrong is more than noble. It is necessary."

PAPs Say The Silliest Things

This is not new, but seems to have had a resurgence of late. It isn't bad enough that voracious PAPs have made their way into labor and delivery, just waiting for "their" barfmuggle to spit out that womb-fresh product. Now they want to intrude on the one part of the process they can never really claim. Paper pregnant? And on a tee shirt...How special.

Let's see...does that mean that the baby is a paper cut out? Won't that make you a "paper parent?" Is this era of self-entitlement gone to such an extreme that PAPs think they can invade the very body of the mother they are predating and take over the process?

This would be sad if it weren't such an insult. If  you can't be honest about the fact that you are waiting for a tragedy to happen so that you can pretend to be Mommy and Daddy, at least be honest about the fact that the child you covet is NOT the product of anything you did and certainly not of your body.

Adoption and separation of the mother and newborn is a painful and unnatural action. This kind of insensitivity makes it even more heinous. Those who adopt whine about insisting that "sensitive adoption language" be used that, basically, attempts to erase all traces of the mothers and the biological facts from the equation. One of our own has countered with "honest adoption language" and there is no reference to "paper pregnancies" there, at all. Just the facts, Ma'am.

This specious idea for a garment really makes the PAP who wears it look ridiculous. They might as well strap on a false belly and wear maternity clothes and lie down and moan and groan when the natural mother goes into real labor. It would really do all of these paper preggos a lot of good to read Margaret Atwood's, "The Handmaid's Tale." A little humility is in order here and a bit more sensitivity to the pain of the mother wouldn't hurt, either.

So, to the avid, covetous PAPs who circle the pregnant woman like vultures, try to have a little kindness in you and do the following; Don't force pre-birth surrenders. Stay out of the labor and delivery rooms. Don't show up at the hospital but wait for the mother to have a chance to be with her child for a while. Don't try to assume the mantle of a bereaved mother should the real mother change her mind and keep.

And for Pete's sake, stay out of our pregnancies!

And What Is It That We Have Been Saying???

There was an article today in the Bucyrus, Ohio Telegraph which really pleased me and made me fume at the same time. The article was about some relatives who took in two small children when they might have wound up in the foster system. A local official was quoted as saying, "We saved $700,000 this last fiscal year that ended June 30 by placing children in kinship care instead of foster care."

Well, now golly gee! Why didn't someone think of that before now? Hello! They did! We did! It was just that the adoption industry made sure the idea wasn't spread around where families could latch on to the idea. I remember when my father left, my Mother, Grandmother my aunts and uncles got together to make sure that we would stay together and with my mother or other kin while she worked. That was the good, old idea of family. Extended family was a working situation...close contact and a wonderful support system. Too bad they came to that place where what the neighbors thought was more important that family ties.

It makes me wonder why that doesn't come up when a young, single woman becomes pregnant, now? Why the mad dash to adoption? What about her family lending a helping hand or family members taking over custodial care until mom is on her feet? If the mother is incapacitated, wouldn't it be better for the child to be with family? This is a direct quote from an adoptee. "I love my (adopters) very much but I would much rather have been raised in my family of origin."

We've spoken, our children have spoken  and now Bucyrus, Ohio, has spoken. It is time for our families to stop sacrificing their newborn family members who are born to mothers in crisis to the adoption machine. It is past time for grandparents, aunts, uncles and other close family to step up and fight for the right to take their own into their homes and hearts. Kinship guardianship/care (and legal guardianship in lieu of adoption if no relatives are available) are ideas whose time has come.

Let's strengthen our families rather than disrupting them by coveting their children.

Dissension

In researching some points about our Puritan Heritage, I learned about this lady. She was an early voice against the patriarchy and the power of the clergy in religion. While deeply devout, she was of the opinion that faith was an individual and private matter between a person and their God. Interesting concept, since it evolved within the atmosphere of the most repressive religion in our history.

"Born in Lincolnshire, England, Anne Hutchinson immigrated to Massachusetts Bay with her husband and family in 1634. She was initially highly regarded in the community because of her intelligence and caring nature, but later ran into difficulty because of her religious views and outspoken nature.


Deeply fascinated by intricate theological issues, Hutchinson began to hold weekly discussion groups in her home following Sunday services. Attendance at these meetings grew rapidly and included young governor Henry Vane as well as several of the colony’s other leading citizens. After establishing her skill as the discussion leader, Hutchinson revealed her support of the efficacy of faith alone (the covenant of grace) as they key to salvation, as opposed to the standard Puritan emphasis on good works (the covenant of works). She also expressed her belief that God revealed himself to individuals without the aid of clergy.


John Winthrop was leery of Hutchinson’s views and cautioned that women could do irreparable damage to their brains by pondering deep theological matters — a view not uncommon for the day. Winthrop and John Cotton led the opposition to Hutchinson and charged that she and her followers were guilty of the antinomian heresy. She was brought to trial before the General Court in 1637, found guilty and banished from the Bay Colony.


Hutchinson joined other dissenters in the establishment of Portsmouth, Rhode Island."

And so it goes as those with the power, money, connections, etc., continue to discredit the voices of the victims of social injustice...in our case, coerced surrender. The hurtful thing about it all is the ones among our own number who support this patronizing view of our issues. How better to silence dissension than with derision?

Thus we get the "bitter and angry" sobriquets that divert attention from our subject matter and focus it on our credibility. As can be seen with the story of Anne Hutchinson, the more intelligent the dissenting argument, the more vicious the protectors of the status-quo become. It becomes a matter of personalities rather than issues. I know of a couple of people that I don't really like very much, but whose views I support and with whom I agree for the most part. I have friends I love with whom I have major disagreements in certain areas.

It's sort of like the way the conservatives tried to make a dirty word out of the simple designation "liberal." Names like "socialists," "tree-huggers," and other denigrating labels made what should be a debate of issues into another personality conflict, only this with groups rather than individuals. It's like using the name "birthmother" to identify a woman before she even considers surrender in order to send the message that she is undeserving of her child. With activists, it seems that those who don't agree with us would rather talk about our anger than our issues. To cloud the message, it seems de rigueur to discredit the messenger.

It is especially troubling to some that we indict the US government as being complicit in our coercion. It is no secret that the adoption industry is sanctioned by our government. It is no secret that there is big money in this industry, accomplished lobbyists and powerful allies. It can't really be called a conspiracy because that would imply something hidden. The industry, in my eyes, is arrogant and overt, sure they can head us off and beat us down. Meanwhile, our elected officials keep their jobs by pushing the warm, fuzzy but misleading message of infant adoption while ignoring the EMS and the legalized crimes committed against an overwhelming number of young women and their infants.

While not especially religious, I have to admire Anne Hutchinson's courage and conviction. She was tried, convicted and exiled.

I wonder what the government and the industry will do to us?

The Bride Wore Black

Actually, it wasn't a black wedding dress, but a dressy, black tweed winter dress with pearls and black pumps. It was the only dressy outfit I had.  I didn't have a bouquet or even a corsage. My former husband and I stood, a couple of shaky 20-year-olds, in front of the Hart County, GA Ordinary, a colorful old fella named A. E. Ertzberger. His home office was in a house  behind a railroad track and a junkyard. There was a hydrangea bush with white blooms on it, next to the porch. The side to the porch bore brownish blooms, dyed with the tobacco juice this guy would spit while sitting in his rocker. But, if he married you, it was definitely official and legal.

This was definitely not the wedding of my dreams. I was no different from any other girl who wanted the white, flowing dress and veil, music, flowers everywhere, a troop of attendants and a young man waiting at the altar who would be the love of my life. But I was told, when I became engaged, that a church wedding in white was "unseemly" considering my recent past. It was suggested that there be a "nice, little" gathering at the parsonage with just family and that I should wear a nice, ice blue in recognition of the fact that I could not presume to the exalted state of virginity. My mother later told me that some of our family had stated that they would be too embarrassed to attend my wedding if it were held in a church and if I wore a white gown.

So, what I got was a sleazy elopement with a nice guy who was willing to overlook my scandalous past. I liked him well enough but he was not the love of my life and that would make the next 24 years very hard ones for us and our children. And that was what I wanted from him..respectability and children I could keep and raise. After all, the social worker had told me that I would forget my two oldest children, lost to adoption, once I had "children of my own." Now I wonder...what made my two oldest NOT children of my own?

In any event, though my two raised children have brought me so much joy, the formula didn't work. You cannot replace people with people. Mother's Day was bittersweet because I gloried in the sweet attention of my two youngest and silently grieved for the two who were not with me.

I would have dreams where I was getting married in a white dress to the father of my oldest child. I would get halfway down the aisle only to see everyone looking at me in horror. The music would morph into the sound of an infant's wail and when I looked down, the beautiful, beaded white lace of my gown would have turned black as pitch. When I looked up towards the altar, my groom would be gone and there would be the social worker from the SC Children's Bureau waiting for me with a blanket-lined basket.

That dream turned nightmare stayed with me for a few years. When I finally gave up, after 24 years, on a marriage that had been torture for both of us, I think all of us breathed a sigh of relief. I had already met the man who would replace my former boyfriend and then tower above him in every way as the love of my life. We were married in 1989 and I wore white and carried flowers. It wasn't a full-blown church wedding, but is was sweet, pretty and appropriate without looking like a "settled for" wedding. The music was the Pachelbel Canon.

I had worked hard for the few years prior to my second marriage, to regain the self-esteem that was stripped from me by the treatment I received from all who were responsible for the loss of my two oldest children. I had obsessed, for years, over the father of my oldest who really didn't deserve a single one of the tears I had shed over him. I had felt I didn't deserve all the things that were part of a young woman's life. I didn't even graduate with my friends, or the few I had retained, because I was forced to withdraw from school before they could expel me when I became pregnant. Expulsion from school was routine at that time.

I had taken the test for my GED and even taken a few college courses, but the course of my life was forever changed by the loss of my children. I entered into rape crisis counseling to deal with the assault that resulted in the conception of my second child and I started realizing that, maybe, just maybe, I did deserve better. No cap and gown, maybe, but self-respect would be wonderful. The self-loathing I had carried with me for years became limestone and hope was a river running through it, eroding and cutting away at it until it collapsed.

With the reunions, in 1993, with my two adult children surrendered in 1962 and 1963, and acknowledgement of the grief I had carried with me for over 33 years, the learning and growing process accelerated. To help with the mourning process, I wrote reams and reams of poetry and prose that were all about loss, rediscovery, hope and, finally, anger. I had a couple of good friends with whom I was able to share my grieving process and then I discovered the Internet and struck gold in the form of online, natural mothers' forums.

Now I sit here at age 65 and wonder at the years I lost to self-hatred, to the grandiosity of seeing myself as the lowest of the low. I have a solid, wonderful marriage and I am grateful. I have four children who are alive, fairly well, and fighting their own way through this jungle we call life. I have grandchildren and even great-grandchildren and family I love. I have made friends online, a fact which makes me smile, and some enemies, a fact that doesn't bother me near as much as it used to. I also have a fantastic little dog and laughter. And I have the ability to take that intimidated, coerced, insecure young mother and hold her in my arms and reassure her that she deserved better.

She deserved to keep her babies. She deserved to wear white.