The Flip Side of The Flip Side

My friend, Musing Mother, posted an interesting blog about the best and the worst among us. She cited my previous blog about Liza Minelli. She then went on to speak about the ongoing battle between the PAPs who are presently in custody of the boy, Grayson Vaughn and his natural father, Benjamin Wyrembek. This battle is gone into with more detail over on Firstmother Forum, by Lorraine Dusky and Jane Edwards.

There is a lot being said about father's rights, these days. I certainly have respect for the father who steps up to the plate, admits paternity and want to be included in the responsibility for his child. I guess that number is increasing but I find it odd that, now that unwed mothers are no longer seen as shameful sluts, the number of fathers that come forth has gone up. In my day, very few fathers had the respect they should have had for the mothers of their children. In the case of Musing Mother and a few other friends, that was there. Her boyfriend came and tried to rescue her and their son. Quite a few dads stuck by their girlfriends even after they had been coerced into surrender and eventually married them. To me, that was all too little too late, but it was more than I got from the fathers of my two surrendered children.

Let's get that second baby out of the way first. There is no more disrespect any male can show any female than to take what she doesn't freely give. That is a no-brainer. He saw me as soiled goods who had the temerity to say no, so he felt justified in asserting his manly might. Yeah, right. Thank God for rape crisis counseling. The pain of the loss of my son that was conceived of that encounter far outweighed the pain of the violation. Besides by the time it happened, I was at the point of believing I deserved no better.

The real story for me and for many disillusioned and abandoned unmarried mothers of the EMS is the one concerning the father of my firstborn. When I saw the movie, "The Dark Knight," of all the villains involved I was disturbed the most by Tommy Two-Face played by one of my favorite actors, Tommy Lee Jones. Yes, Heath Ledger created a memorable Joker, but Tommy Two-Face gave me chills for a while. His constant battle with himself was classic. I realized that he reminded me of the father of my firstborn and that was some insight I would rather not have experienced.

I really think that, in his own way, he loved me, but he was young and a mill hill bad boy. His values were the same as the rest of his Bible Belt neighbors even as he flaunted his disregard of them as the teen rebel. That meant that, in his mind, there were girls you married and there were girls you f*****. I started out as one of the first and wound up the latter, in his estimation. Even though he was the one who pushed the idea of a sexual relationship, when I caved in and said "yes," I became unworthy of his respect. He was, I think, confused by his own feelings. Even though he denied paternity, and lied about me and tried to convince everyone that I was promiscuous and untrustworthy, he kept popping into my life, wanting to see me, I thought just to use me, but I know, now, that there was a little bit more. He was having trouble reconciling having real feelings for "that kind of a girl." Well, didn't it just suck to be him? When I was in the hospital awaiting surgery to remove a congenitally defective kidney, he called to make sure I was OK. How he found out I was there, I will never know.

But, I learned, after a lot of hard work, that being wanted and loved is great, and it is even nice to have someone concerned about me, but it doesn't mean diddly if there isn't some respect on the plate, as well. When I got married the first time, it was to someone who was grateful for the attention of an attractive female. His self-esteem was pretty low, as well. We didn't respect ourselves or each other and that made for some pretty nasty early years until I started getting a handle on what I really wanted to be for my children and for myself. We are both better off and have more respect for each other now that we are divorced.

I had very little trust for men. Add in the fact that my father deserted us for 9 years of my childhood, and you can see how the behavior of the father of my firstborn really compounded the problem. I'm not really sure how I regained it and, perhaps, I still hold some trust back, but I am comfortable now, in my own skin and with my husband. I can feel his respect and consideration as well as his love and desire. It's a killer combination.

So the fact that fathers are stepping up to the plate, now, is great. But they have a long way to go to make up for how things were and they are going to have to prove themselves to me, big time. When the men who participated in the engineering of our tragedies from the EMS stand up and take responsibility, then I might regain all my trust.

We have been the ones to take the brunt of the punishment, grief and pain. We are the ones who are seen as the "abandoners" by our adult children when most of us just flat had no frickin' say in the matter. We are the ones who receive the anger and vilification of our adult reunited children, even as they say they love us. And the fathers? Well, it seems the double standard is alive and well and many of these adult children think they are just the bee's knees. Many times, this comes at the expense of the mother. It wasn't beneath the father of my child to lie before she was born and it wasn't beneath him to lie, again, when they met at reunion. Luckily, she believes me.

So c'mon Daddies. I'd like to see more than just caring for your offspring. I'd like to see you do them the great service of showing a little respect to their mothers. I've had passion and I've had respect. I'd rather have both but if I had to choose, I'd go with the latter. Thank Goddess and my wonderful husband, I don't have to choose.

Somebody Give That Lady An Award

Liza Minelli Chose Helping Children Over Adoption

What a concept! On the "Larry King Live" show, the late Judy Garland's talented daughter stated, "I couldn't have them (children). No (I never wanted to adopt). What happened was that I realised that if God didn't have that in mind for me, and I couldn't have my own, what do I do with these maternal feelings? Maybe there's somebody I can help. Maybe I should concentrate on other areas. And I got involved with brain injured children And that was fascinating."

It's true that Ms. Minelli has led a very interesting and eventful life, with ups and downs in it just as in all lives that are less in the public eye. But she made a very good, very unselfish, decision, in this case, and gave of herself to children rather than helping herself to children. Now THIS is a deserving recipient for an "Angel In Adoption" award. She deserves it, purely for choosing not to adopt.

I've told this story before, but it is worth repeating. I had two aunts who never had children. They accepted that as their lot in life and showered all their nieces and nephews with attention and love. They lived full and happy lives without ever having anyone call them "Mommy." They never cast an avid eye on the infants of others and certainly, never felt more deserving of those children than their own, natural mothers.

There has been an interesting mini-debate on one Facebook page concerning the "sin" of coveting. One person opines that it is silly to condemn anyone for envy and wanting. He states that it is acting on the covetous feelings that makes it wrong. Bob, you won't get any kind of argument from me on that. I look at people, every day, that have something I would like to have, and I guess that is envy. What would make it a serious character defect would be taking what I would like to have, especially if I felt I deserved it more than the person to whom my desired object belonged.

So, with all their justifications and denials, adopters choose to actively covet. This is not an industry that can be like, say, Apple, who can manufacture the desired product. If you see another person with an Ipod and you want one, they make more and you can buy your own. You don't need to steal it from the person you saw using one. You felt covetous, but you chose to go the honest and honorable route and buy one for yourself.

The adoption industry can't turn out newborn, human infants on an assembly line. Children are conceived and born to their genetic parents as a pure act of Nature. The only way the coveting of the adopters can be satisfied is by the Industry finding a way of taking the children from natural parents and "selling" them to the adopters through the act of adoption. Thus has been born Big Adoption, the government and church-sanctioned industry built on coveting. I am sickened by the fact that human babies have become just another consumer product. I am dismayed by the self-entitled covetousness that drives this industry and creates the market. I am righteously indignant that we who were vulnerable lost our infants to this ravenous beast.

I have also cited this salient thought in previous blogs.It's something that was said by a sister mother many years ago when asked if she felt no compassion for the infertile. She admitted that she felt badly for those who couldn't conceive, but she also felt badly for the person with no legs. Does that mean, she asked, that she should give the legless person her legs? A human baby is not an Ipod or a Hummer or a boat or a backyard pool. That infant is a part of the people who conceived her/him, cell, blood and sinew. Separating that newborn from the mother is like an amputation...one that continues to deliver phantom pain long after the actual loss.

Yeah, yeah...and I know all about the crackwhores and abusers. I also know that stats have been skewed and assumptions made about single mothers' potential for abuse and neglect that are incorrect and over-stated. That's not what I am addressing and I am tired of hearing it. NOTHING entitles anyone to the child of another. It is the CHILD that is entitled, to care and safety, and who should not be there to meet the emotional needs of adults.

Liza Minelli chose not to make a child responsible for her emotional welfare. She chose to take her love for children and put it to use by helping children who needed the help. To me, that one fact makes her life one that has been well-lived.

Covet THAT.

Time Out For Best Friends

For the past few months, I have referred to our ongoing battle against Mast Cell Tumor disease that has been diagnosed in our little RatCha, Rocky. It was discovered in April and we thought we had it under control until he started sprouting new tumors, two within a month of each other. We are about to embark on the good ship, Chemotherapy, and I am not looking forward to the trip, for the Rockster or for us.

I have placed a logo, information and a link in the sidebar of this blog for anyone who would like to learn more about canine cancer and learn how you can help. No donation is too small and they are very up front with where the money goes. The Magic Bullet Fund is not able to pay for everything, but they are helping us out as much as they can and for that, we are grateful.

It is estimated that 50% of all companion dogs will develop cancer in their lifetime. It usually shows up at or after age 7. The types of cancer run the gamut from lymphoma to osteosarcoma. The Veterinary Specialists Clinics are full of anxious pet owners and their brave doggies having surgery, radiology and chemotherapy. Some are just there to get palliative care and comfort as their best friends lose the battle with the beast. Cancer is now the leading cause of death in companion dogs.

Unlike humans, dogs react differently to chemo and other procedures. They are stoical and often you have to look closely to see if they are in discomfort. On the upside, because they will get back on their feet as soon as they can, their recoveries can be remarkable. The treatments they receive are the same as those a human being with cancer would receive, and just as expensive, in comparison. Often, as in our case, pet health care insurance cannot be acquired due to a dog's tendency to certain diseases. Some breeds are more prone than others, but it can happen to your sweet little mutts, as well. The cost, so far, for Rocky's treatment has eaten into our IRA and left us stretching every penny.

Why, some may wonder, don't you just put the animal to sleep and get on with things? It's simple. We love our dogs and, with the advances in Veterinary Oncology, many dogs are beating the odds and going on to a good quality of life. Shouldn't they also be given their chance? There are no guarantees, but we have made a plan for our furry kiddo. As long as he has quality of life and is responding well to the treatments, we keep fighting. If the disease keeps showing up, we go to palliative care and make sure what time he has left is full quality and when it is his time, we will do what we have to do out of love. He is not only our baby and our joy, he is also our responsibility. He looks to us for all his needs and we have to do what we think is best for him.

Just like the damage caused by adoption separation is a message that many don't want to hear, the message about the vulnerability of our family pets to this monster disease is a downer. Next to justice for EMS mothers and our adult children, this is the cause that has become nearest to my heart. One day, down at the AVS clinic, where all is state of the art, I held a big guy, over 6 and 1/2 feet tall, in my arms as he fought the sobs making his body shake. He had been forced, by a very aggressive case of nerve sheath carcinoma, to release his Lab from any further pain. Stooge had gained an extra 2 years of quality life before the cancer started winning and his "Daddy" knew it was time. If our Rocky can gain those 2 quality years, we will feel blessed.

Mast Cell Tumor cancer in dogs is often called "The Great Pretender" because it can show up in many different ways. We are fortunate that Rocky's disease is, so far, confined to his skin. But, the poor pooch can't even develop a normal skin tag without us getting a bit panicky. You never know what it is going to look like, how big it will get...it changes size and even color. His first tumor appeared directly over his neutering scar as a thick, disc-shaped mass that looked bruised. That is one of the worst places for a dog to manifest MCT. That was in April, and we are still fighting.

If you have a healthy, happy dog or more in your home, give them a hug and a treat for me and thank your lucky stars. And if you have a dog that has been diagnosed, read, research, ask questions, get second opinions and find a veterinary oncologist, pronto. There is hope.

A Sure-Fire Hit On The Country Charts

I get bombarded with other mothers instructing me on how "IT" should be done, clobbered with causes on Facebook and deluged with the drama of dozens and dozens of the damaged and the deluded. I don't watch the news anymore than I absolutely have to because it is depressing as Hell. I have dear friends who are posting photos intimating that the crowds for the "One Nation" rally were non-existent which is riling me up, big time. I try not to even be in the same room with the Wall Street Journal and I think my husband and my vet are ready to block me from all canine cancer sites.

All this caused a surge of some sort in my synapses and I was delivered of the perfect lyrics for a country tune for my creative labors. I will share with you my bucolic poetry.


One Heartache At A Time

Well, I only got room for just one problem,
At a time.
You say you have pain and some real bad worries,
Well get in line.
I can't pick up your load and head up the road,
When I'm staggering under mine,
'Cause I only got room for one big heartache,
At a time.

I can just imagine that you think I'm heartless,
And I'm rude,
I don't mean to sound insensitive,
Or be so crude.
But the most I can offer is a pat on the back,
And a glass of wine,
"Cause I only got room  for one big heartache,
At a time.

Oh you're running around with your debates and causes,
Every where.
One of you says we need to go over that way,
Another says over there.
Have you ever thought that the shortest way through,
Is one straight line?
Besides, I only have room for one big heartache,
At a time.

Chorus: Well, I guess I'm a fool, I keep riding that bull,
              And every muscle groans.
             My ass is sore, from hitting the floor,
             But I climb back on.

Now aside from all the feuding and fussing,
I have a family.
And I'd only spend time paying them attention,
If it were up to me.
But I've up and hitched myself to my own little red wagon,
And it fits me fine.
And it only can carry just one heartache,
At a time.

Robin (Mindy-Lou)  Westbrook (c)
10/05/2010

"Them That Has, Gets"

I just love it when something happens to show just how big a farce a supposed representational government can be. I think of ours when I realize that it is the rich and the elite that get the representation and the average citizen or the oppressed pretty much have to fight for themselves. Well, the good voters of Sao Paulo, Brazil pulled one off that is making international news. They elected a genuine clown to congress!. Not only is Tiririca (meaning "Grumpy") a real clown, but he is also rumored to be illiterate. Let's see how common sense measures up to the ideas of the educated elite. And ya gotta love the hat, the smile and the tee shirt.

Tiririca ran on such slogans as "It can't get any worse," and "What does congress do? I don't know, but elect me and I'll tell you." Hey, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert! If this guy can do it, so can you.

We have been decrying the fact that, from Illinois to New Jersey, OBC access bills are being introduced and voted on that are filled with Catch-22's and facetious, invasive, unfair requirements and contact vetoes. It would be so simple to just open the records, make the original birth certificates available (and the amended birth certificates available to natural mothers) and let every one involved deal with it in their own way. But nooooo. This is when Rep.Special Interests steps in and lets us know that the adopted person is still a child, the natural mother is fragile and demented, sure to run to the noose or sleeping pills if she hears from her adult child, and the only people worth protecting in this whole mish-mash are the adopters and the facilitators.

Maybe we should elect Smiling Bob and give every one a supply of Enzyte(tm). I have noticed that, with all the smiling, there is nary a child to be seen. He and Mrs. Smiling Bob are too busy having great sex to be bothered with adopting or bearing children. Something tells me, when looking at the two of them, that they are doing any unborn or adoptable children a biiiiig favor.

It is no secret that special interests and the bottom line grease, not only the wheels of commerce in the US, but also the palms of our elected representatives. While engaging in their own perversions and peccadilloes, they decry the incidence of unwed motherhood as if it is something of which to be ashamed. This way, they get the votes of the churched folks (do you ever wonder how a priest can justify pedophilia while objecting to abortion...?)  who are way more interested in who's doing what with which body part to whom than they are interested in ministering to the poor, the sick, the imprisoned and the troubled. The mentally ill have been turned out on the streets, unmedicated, unsupervised and have become a police problem when they should be the responsibility of a compassionate society. Yet these Scriptural Legalists want to call the US a "Christian Nation." Yeah. Right.

If single mothers and adoptees were the industrial and financial giants, the attorneys who profit or the ones who paid the Industry, you can be damn skippy assured the records would have opened long before now. In fact, there probably would be no adoption at all because mothers would be respected. As my grandmother used to say, "Them that has, gets."

For all the good our votes do, we still have that small bit of power. And it is noted that the 'Restoring Honor" rally, in response to the tea-baggers and Beckophiles drew a larger crowd that Beck did. Why isn't the media making more of a note of that? Hmmmmmm? Them that has, gets.

There are so many good issues getting short shrift out there that ours, justice and openness for mothers and adoptees, is just one in the crowd. We could all try to open our minds....nah, that won't work, especially in Utah. What about seceding from the Union and forming our own country? We could have a purple house rather than a white house, and we would deny citizenship to anyone who wants to let Big Business run things.
The cast of SNL could sit on our supreme court and, unless any candidate could tell a good joke, she wouldn't get elected. Well, I can dream, can't I?

If it sounds like I am totally fed up with the system, the machinations of the Industry and its toadies and the self-entitlement of the self-ordained elite in this country, you are spot on. I am wondering now, about the cost of living in Sao Paulo.

Any place that would elect a real clown to office has got to be interesting, at the very least.

Unmitigated Gall and Execrable Rationalizations

Musing Mother also posted this bit on Machiavellian Tactics and propaganda and twisted stats to encourage social engineering. I copied it here so that everyone who doesn't think that the industry is out to brainwash and coerce single mothers and who ignore facts while justifying injustice can see the proof, no matter what blog they read. This is what they really think they should do. They wrote it, I didn't.

 So, it does seem that Mr."Chucky" Johnson, in lock-step with and using the words of Mr. Tom Atwood, and his adoption posse, the NCFA, DO believe that single women and less affluent people don't have the right to parent and that all should be done to "educate" (subtly coerce) mothers into surrender of their newborns. Therefore, he presented the manifesto written by Tom Atwood, NCFA's former president, almost as if his own. Oh...and they lobbed the "bitter bomb" as well. It's easy to dismiss our righteous indignation that way, ya know?

And, when citing the increasing number of foster children in the system (at the time...the number has actually decreased as of this year), he had ignored the avid child-snatching of state DSS agents who ignore the edict that family reunification should be a primary concern. No, Chucky/Tom insinuates that the number of children who were in the foster system was directly related to single mothers choosing to keep and parent their own babies. There is also the fact that Mr. and Mrs. Entitled Adopter don't want these older kids with a history and problems. They want that womb-fresh baby, preferably born to the homecoming queen/class valedictorian.

I have some questions for Mr. Chuck Johnson (who is a medium and channels Tom Atwood, still living, I believe,) and the Industry he supports.

HOW DARE YOU MAKE THIS JUDGEMENT? HOW DARE YOU INTIMATE THAT MOTHERS ARE UNFIT JUST BECAUSE THEY ARE SINGLE? HOW DARE YOU IGNORE THE VOICES OF ADULT ADOPTED PEOPLE AND MOTHERS WHOSE CHILDREN WERE APPROPRIATED FOR ADOPTION FOR THE SAKE OF THE BOTTOM LINE AND ELITIST SOCIAL ENGINEERING? WHO GAVE YOU THE INSIGHT INTO WHAT WE ARE FEELING SO MUCH THAT YOU CAN LABEL IT?

Oh, and that's not bitterness, Tommy/Chuck. That's boiling, blistering anger. That's the righteous indignation of huge numbers of mothers and their adult children who have been adversely affected by this crap you spew so vigorously. You pompous pundits have denied, in one page of tripe, the truth of the experience of so many. Who died and made you the arbiter of who should and should not be allowed to parent their own children?

Dear Reader, You might have to increase your screen zoom level in order to read this piece of elitist garbage. This also comes with a warning. Keep a barf bag or bucket handy.



CHUCKY AND YOUR PREDECESSOR,  YOU DON'T KNOW JACK SH**!!

I See Cowardly, Misinformed People

*Gasp! They are everywhere and they have targeted anyone that doesn't revert back to outmoded thinking and reactionary mores. That, of course, leaves those of us from the EMS who are mad as hell and not going to take it anymore, wide open to be haunted by these nameless Trolls. Oh the horror of it all....Not.

In a way, these ijits (that's Southern for idiots) do us a major favor. When they come out sounding so uninformed, twisting ideas, taking statements out of context AND refusing to go by any other name than the good old "Anonymous," they are discrediting themselves. Now, they have accused Musing Mother and, I guess, the rest of us EMS moms of teaching the young people of today to get pregnant and live off the state. Gee, I didn't know that 2+2=5.

We only relate our TRUE experiences and point out the failings of society, government, church and family that resulted in our unresolved grief and a lot of confusion for our children who were appropriated for adoption. I have to figure they are either adopters or facilitators or adoptees who are pissed at Mommy. Who knows? What I do know is that they are cowardly and spouting reactionary unrealities out their rears.

Let's do a little bit of imagining, here. Let's imagine that there are two candidates for a public office. They are both speaking in the same town hall. One talks about her personal experiences, tells who she is and why she feels the way she does about the issues. She has facts and figures and the experiences of others to back her up. She puts forth good questions to the current power structure and points out the results of failed policies.

The other candidate wears a mask, will not give her name, and spends her entire time on the podium attacking the other candidate without ever standing up for what she believes or giving good reasons for her stance. She uses scare tactics, designed to frighten the ignorant, the biased and the dogmatic. (Gee, is that Sarah Palin under that mask?)

Which one of these speakers would get your vote? I hate to admit it, but those scare tactics have been working pretty well for some for quite a while. Such non-issues as unisex bathrooms defeated the ERA. What that has to say for the general IQ of our population is not good. But scare tactics are how these cowards operate. We are still waiting for the hurricane to flatten Orlando because of those bad, old rainbow flags.

These nudnicks don't even see the contradictions  in their own positions. They claim to revere the "nu-que-lar" family (one of my favorite Dubya-isms) yet will works their buns off to separate a mother and child. They proclaim deep religious faith, yet seem to feel that God might have made a mistake by giving a child to a single, young, financially challenged mother. They regularly confuse a "hand up" with a "hand out," and whine about teen pregnancy while refusing to allow realistic and helpful sex education and access to birth control to young people. They preach love while practicing intolerance and judgmentalism, ad infinitum and ad nauseum.

Guess what, Anons Everywhere? We aren't concerned with the issues of today except for wishing society were advanced enough to really support single mothers. We are concerned with what was done to us and to our children during the EMS. We care, but we have our own agenda. Unlike you, we are not obsessed with everyone else's sexual activity. C'mon, admit it. It's the sex thing that really has your knickers in a knot, isn't it?

So go peddle your anonymous arrogance elsewhere. We have a message to convey and work to do.

The Courage Of One's Convictions

When looking for an image to demonstrate my title, I realized I already had one of the best possible illustrations going. Dian Welfare stood up, in public, using her own name, for justice for the mothers of Australia's BSE and for open records. She didn't sneak in here and there with anonymous comments or criticisms. She laid herself right out there for all to see. I try to emulate her in that area. The name on this blog is mine. The opinions are my own. The picture on the profile is, indeed, me, although I don't remember getting that old. I guess it had to happen at some point.

But, I digress. I hate just about everything the likes of Glenn Beck or Rush Limbaugh or their ilk have to say, but at least they say it in an overt manner and take the flak for what they say. While I despise their message, I defend their right to deliver it.

But don't you just hate the people who criticize and judge, safely ensconced in their little "Anonymous" cyber-world? Take this message received on my comments late last night: "Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "I Plead 'Not Guilty'": So, basically, you take no responsibility for your actions or for your decisions. It's all everyone else's fault and everyone else's responsibility. Interesting..."

Frankly, Anon, I don't give a tinker's damn what you find interesting or how you choose to twist the message. I know what I did and did not do. I know what I did and did not choose and you weren't there, were you? I find it so amusing when people who are totally unfamiliar with the social mores and demands of that era, who were not in our shoes and have no experience to compare, try to judge us by their own limited understanding. Some body's all mad at mommy and is doing a little generalizing.

I've been through some rough times and I have learned the value of humility, of being able to admit when I have erred or when I have wronged someone. I have also learned the value of standing behind what I know to be true. So, if I am wrong, I apologize. If I know I am not wrong, if I know what I'm talking about, then I kiss no adoptee, adopter or any other ass, especially that of someone without even the courage to identify themselves.

When I was in the sixth grade, I had a teacher, recently widowed and mentally ill, who really shouldn't have ever been allowed in a class room. I lost my writing workbook and I told her that I had lost it. She gave me a cruel, verbal reaming out, which I took because I felt I had been careless, and followed her instructions and went to the principal and asked her to get me another book. She told me that they were out of those particular workbooks, but that she would let me know as soon as they got in. I told my teacher and she let it go for that day. Two days later, I still didn't have the workbook and she shouted at me in class and sent me back down to the Principal's office to, again, request the book. I got the same answer and an apology from the principal and I went back to tell Ms. J. She took me out into the hall, accused me of being a liar and when I denied it, she slapped me so hard my ears rang and harangued me until I told her she was right, I was lying, just to stop her because I was terrified. I swore, when that happened to me, that I would NEVER again take the blame for what I did not do or be called a liar when I wasn't lying.

Ms. J is dead, now...and I doubt many mourned her. She didn't finish out that school year because of complaints from parents. So, Anon, Old Sock, you will also be in the ground as will I, one day. And the words I have published and stand behind will remain because the written word never really goes away. Your cryptic and pointed comment will always look like what it is..the accusations of someone without the ovaries or testicles to own what they say.

Once again...I was forced, coerced and had it demanded of me, a teenager with no support, to surrender. Maybe there are those who did make a "decision" and feel they were right in apologizing. That's fine because I didn't walk in their shoes. AND they didn't walk in mine. I took enough of the shame and blame for years until I realized what had really happened. And no anonymous, mother-hating, pseudo-superior anyone, including other mothers and adopters, is going to tell me I am wrong about what happened to ME.

Now, if a "Ms. J Type" tries to take me out in the hall and slap me for telling the truth, I am going to slap back, harder and make sure that the truth is heard. I am no longer 11 or 16 and helpless. I don't whine, I fight.

I've got enough to worry about with my real life to have any patience with such dogged determination to refuse to believe the truth. And I don't kiss your derriere just because you have erroneous, pre-conceived notions about me or any other mother. I'm finished with you and your ilk and I will continue to delete argumentative, insulting and hostile comments. So, talk to the  hand.

I Plead 'Not Guilty'

You know, I was starting to like Nancy Verrier a little bit, when I read her first book, until she up and opined that we Natural Mothers needed to apologize to our adult, reunited children. I want to ask why I should apologize for something I didn't do? Am I responsible for the conception of my surrendered children? Well, yes and no. I was deeply in love with the father of my first born so I will claim my 50% of the responsibility for her conception. I don't think being sexually assaulted by the sire of my second would allow me to claim that responsibility. But so what? NO CHILD ASKS TO BE CONCEIVED. I didn't, unless I was extremely precocious and could send out messages via uncombined DNA.

The biggie with angry adoptees is the act of surrender. It seems to be very difficult for a lot of adopted people to understand the situation and the social climate in which their mothers lived. It wasn't very long after our losses that women became a bit more empowered and the social stigma of single motherhood lessened.

But we have all told those stories and I think that most of the population of adopted people from the BSE have heard it. Those who choose to do the research and face the facts are aware that we were railroaded into losing our children to the adoption machine. Those that don't accept it are, in my opinion, holding on to their anger because it is the devil they know and they don't care to grow past their own pique. The few who actually had uncaring, unnatural natural mothers (oxymoron time) seem to want to lump us all into that category.

I hear that, at the recent NY Conference, both Verrier and B.J. Lifton had opinions on this and also had a field day with the use of the "b" word. I hope you had fun ladies. Those folks that walked out did so because you refuse to respect Natural Mothers. Angry adoptees, adopters and ovine beemommies are going to find that those of us who have fought for and regained our self-respect are not going to sit and listen to the careless disregard people such as these two speakers showed for Mothers.

I remember the agonizing guilt I felt when I became pregnant the first time. I was made to believe that I had shown myself to be loose and amoral, shamed my family and disgraced their name. It took me years and a lot of hard work to see the fallacy behind those feelings, to discard that mantle of guilt and shame for something that most people were doing anyway and were lucky not to get caught. I loved my daughter's father, whether he deserved my love or not. I refuse to feel shame about that. I have even learned to stop feeling chagrin at the fact that he used me.

So that takes care of "you didn't have to spread your legs," and we can move right on to "nobody held a gun to your head." SINCE WHEN have people been unable to understand the concepts of emotional  pressure, coercion, brainwashing, implied threats and ultimatums given by our parents and families? WHY IS IT so hard for some to see how terrifying it must have been to be young, banished, isolated and with no resources? WHAT IS SO HARD TO UNDERSTAND about being so beaten down that the only option left was surrender? Yes, I would have made a good mother, even at that young age. BUT I WAS NOT ALLOWED TO DO SO. I was never told of any social programs (and they were few and hard to get) to help me out and I was told I could expect no support whatsoever from my family.

The social workers were very clever in persuading us that we would be toxic to our babies, that if we kept and raised them, we would ruin their lives and destroy what was left of our own lives. We had it pounded into our brains that our children would thank us for surrendering. Did we cave? Hell yes. To my younger sisters and adoptees, if it had been you, living under the social and familial structure that we did, you would have waved that white flag as well.

So here is the bottom line. I am sorry that things were so f***ed up when you were born. I am sorry that your grandparents couldn't think past what the neighbors might think. I am sorry I was young, helpless and without resources. BUT I refuse to apologize for that which I am not responsible. I will not apologize for the fact that we were the victim of the Great Adoption Lie. There is an industry, a government and the people who power that industry who need to do the apologizing to both Mothers and adoptees.

Another trip that some adopted people are trying to lay on me and on others that are not in favor of OBC access at any cost is the mistaken notion that we are against adoptee access to their records. Not guilty! I am totally in support of open records. I am not in support of dirty bills that allow contact vetoes, call for mandated medical histories in violation of our HIPAA protection and that take hundreds of pages to say what the Oregon bill did in a few paragraphs. Be careful what you take out of context.

Above all, remember that we Mothers are human beings and we don't take kindly to being sold down the river, especially for something for which we are not responsible. So don't expect a door-mat variety apology from me. I will not relinquish the dignity I fought for so tirelessly. I and many others like me deserve an apology for what we suffered. Our children deserve one as well, but not from the majority of the mothers of the EMS. Look for the real villains.

And to Mss. Verrier and Lifton, take your suggestions and your "B" word, find an orifice on your person, and stuff them.

One Lie Too Many

Musing Mother posted a pithy piece about the dumbing down of the American population and the lies we live with on a daily basis. I couldn't agree more. I see a very bleak future for the US, especially since history tends to repeat itself. Look at all the great and powerful civilizations that have crumbled from the weight of their own avarice and arrogance.

The Incas were conquered but the Mayans, supposedly a greater and more accomplished group, simply disappeared. Rome wasn't built in a day and it didn't die in a day. It just slowly eroded with power struggles, revolts, leadership difficulties and the weight of self-indulgence. Even the British Empire is no longer the world-wide, powerful entity it once was. The USSR crumbled like that wall, beaten down by simple economics and the mistakes of past despots.

Rome was so magnificent in its day as was ancient Egypt, enlightened Greece and all the other great empires and nations that are only shadows of themselves. While we crawl through various ruins on a tour and marvel at how accomplished these people were, we fail to look at them and see our own future. We still see ourselves as leaders of the free world and that is fast becoming major hogwash.

We have a literally crumbling infrastructure, a decimated economy, an educational system that is a slave to test scores and fails to teach independent thinking skills and a system of self-indulgent lies as the foundation for many of our most cherished institutions. And yet the Ugly American lives and shoot his mouth off with impunity.

We are self-indulgent, self-entitled and would rather let someone else think for us than to think for ourselves. If anyone dares to challenge the status quo on any level, they are dismissed as members of the lunatic fringe, yet we don't dare challenge the idea that Capitalism is the only way to fly. We worship the nuclear family, yet think nothing of destroying families to create that dysfunctional ideal. We have a constitution based on the separation of church and state, yet, in 1950, we went from "E Pluribus Unum" (one out of many) to "In God We Trust." (Anyone see a little bit of church invading state, here?)

Those of us who have suffered from the lies of adoption, mothers and adult children and our families, are seen as the losers, the lunatic fringe, the bitter and the ungrateful for challenging one of the biggest, legalized, government and church-sanctioned lies going, that of the beneficial, warm , fuzzy idea of adoption. While the human wreckage caused by this lie is all around, in every community and every neighborhood, the general population of the US refuses to take off the blinders and the rose-colored glasses and LOOK AT IT.

We challenge the lies and are called the liars. We talk of our loss and are told we did it to ourselves. We question the ethics and are looked at in shock. Adoption is the golden calf and Moses can't scream loud enough over the worshipers. The only thing we have going for us is the truth and our voices.  That sounds great until you try putting that up against money and corrupt power. Even with laws in place against discrimination, this nation discriminates against people every day.

I don't have a crystal ball and I don't claim to have precognitive powers. But I know we learn our greatest lessons about who we are and where we are going from our own, human pasts. If I am a decently educated student of History, then I have to say that what was a possibility has become a probability. What with our disregard for the natural wonders of our nation, our discrimination against single mothers, adult adoptees, gays and lesbians, the poor and aged,  the non-religious, we are on that slippery slope.

And the great US of A is going down in a whimper of lies.

Duck!! Incoming "Bitter" Bombs!

It never ceases to amaze me how easily others judge our entire lives based on the time we spend on the Internet. Someone found an obscure theory by a German psychiatrist and cleverly (not) sent me the link in my comments section. Once again, we have to dodge the "Bitter Bomb." It reminds me of those bomb drills in school...duck and cover. Here is the link to this theory called "Post Traumatic Embitterment Syndrome."

Now, according to this esteemed shrink or group thereof, this syndrome makes the sufferer barely able to function. Let me educate someone, here, whoever you are. (Doncha just love people who post anonymously?)

(1) Angry does NOT equal bitter. Anger is just an emotion and, as such, can be dealt with and channeled into effective action. Debate is healthy and disagreement is allowable in the general, shared arena (not here).
(2) There is such a thing as righteous (right·eous/ˈrīCHəs/Adjective1. (of a person or conduct) Morally right or justifiable; virtuous. 2. Perfectly wonderful; fine and genuine.) anger or indignation. That's not "bitter."
(3) I doubt that a psychologically impaired victim of such a "syndrome" would be able to maintain a marriage, a job, raise children, write, paint, have friendships and all the other things that I and my sister Mothers have managed to do, quite well for many years.
(4) We are more than just our cause or one-dimensional people. We have lives. To judge any of us with such an obscure theory by what you read on the Internet is shortsighted and malicious on your part. Or, are YOU living on the "Net?
(5) Usually most people dislike and criticize in others the things that they like least about themselves. I just thought I would throw that in there.

A lot of adopted people responded to that last post so I wonder who you are calling "bitter?" I also know that these ladies are very functional in their daily lives...well, one or two are cheerfully silly but that is a plus.
Psychiatrists are already alerted to the number of adopted people, especially when they enter their teens, that suffer from very REAL identity problems and confusion.

Although many mothers have recognized, in themselves, the symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, the mental health community has failed to recognize this effect on Mothers whose children were appropriated for adoption. We have, more or less, with a little professional help, here and there, diagnosed and treated ourselves. Well, gee golly gumps! Now how on earth would a person "barely able to function" accomplish THAT? Maybe we could and we did because we have been through the fire and gained a pair of blue-steel ovaries?

Some of us coped the best way we could until we learned more about the whats and whys of our pain. Some still experience disassociation, occasionally but still function. Some have broken free of agoraphobia, eating disorders, addictions and a lot of other things that would have destroyed us. Most of us have made it and have good lives...not perfect, but as good as any of the rest of the world out there and better than some. Those few who haven't...well some are gone, now. Losing a living, breathing child is not an easy thing to live through.

As far as the adoptee is concerned, I can't speak to their concerns. I am not one, although I do understand feelings of abandonment. But I look at the adopted people who have posted replies to the preceding blog and I see very successful, functioning people. I see people who don't deny their pain and frustration but who examine it and try to deal with and overcome it. That sure seems healthy to me.

No matter which, Mother or Adoptee, we have a right to our anger. We have a right to refuse to keep silent about injustices that violated our human rights and the civil rights of our children and the people behind those injustices. And if it bothers you or anyone else, then keep on lobbing those old Bitter Bombs.

But maybe you need practice because you haven't registered a direct hit, yet.

Uh, Yeeaaah, Right

I read an interesting viewpoint on The Declassified Adoptee, this morning, about telling adopted children they are adopted..what to say, what not to say, etc. Being neither adopter nor adoptee, I've not been privy to the emotions surrounding this action, but I have been told things that were said that gripe my gizzard to the max. I have also been told things that were said that any child with a brain would question..even the younger ones.

I mean, look at what mine were told. How many children are going to miss the contradictions in a statement such as, "Your mother loved you so much she gave you up?" They don't understand coercion and social pressure and understanding that "she wasn't able to take care of you so she gave you to us" is also hard to swallow.

My oldest's adopters had one of those saccharine, little books about how special it is to be adopted and they read it to her at an early age. Rather than having the desired effect of her happy acceptance of the situation, she was full of questions. She never could understand why I didn't come see her and she would wait for me on special days, thinking that, surely, I would come to her. I guess she didn't understand closed records and secret adoptions either, or see the sense in any of it.

She did learn, at an early age, that she shouldn't talk about her adoption outside the home. That, I am sure, gave her the impression that being adopted was, somehow, shameful. She has never been able to accept the fact that the lies and fantasies she was told were generated BY her adopters. She blames the state agency.

I did a good bit of digging and found out a few things. The people that adopted her pulled a few crony strings and made sure that, should I ever ask for information, I would be told that no records of her birth and adoption even existed. I was told this AFTER it became legal to gain access to non-identifying information. Finally, in the early 90's, after persisting and persisting, my daughter received non-ID on me that, while not entirely factual, was enough for her to find me.

 Years earlier, when my daughter turned 18, she went to the agency, accompanied by her adopters, and was told a few facts along with a plethora of lies and twisted data. Although I cannot reveal my source, I was later told, by my source, that the information she was given was arranged between the state agency and her adopters. Insecure, obviously, and tired of her questions, the adopters (NOT the agency) told her I was dead, killed in an auto accident. She searched for a grave for many years.

When she went to see the adopters, excited and happy to have found me, she was greeted by this from the woman who adopted her. "We were told this would be impossible." I learned that this was a requirement from the get-go with these people...that there would never be a natural mother to muddy the tinted waters of their as-if-born-to fantasy. I also saw a picture of a very insecure woman who needed her dream world protected and reality kept at bay. I have managed, after many years of resentment, to feel a modicum of pity for her. My daughter has never accepted her adopters' culpability in all the flim-flam that went on. When I shared, as part of my own experience, here on my blog, what the woman who adopted her said to me after we reunited, she called an end to our 17-year reunion. I love her, but I can't continue to ignore facts and suffer lies. I certainly will not honor people who lied to my child for their own purposes.

My son has never shared what he was told and how he was told. He has kept his relationship with me on a very surface level, for the most part. The fact that he is a repeat offender with anger management problems does tell me more than he realizes. I do know that there was a lot of physical "discipline" involved in his rearing.

While both of my adult, reunited children were told of their adoption at an early age (I think I would have really blown up if they had not been told), I question what and how they were told. As soon as my raised children were able to understand, I told them about their siblings and tried to explain things to them. I had a lot of tough questions to answer from them, as well. One was, "why can't we go get them and bring them home?" Oh Lord, did I ever wish.... Then I had to deal with the one about, "why didn't you give us up for adoption?" Try explaining the sexual mores of the EMS to young teens in the early 80's. They couldn't believe that, as a child, I watched a black and white TV with only 3 channels and that we had to use a roof-based antenna. And how do you tell your children that their mother was raped only four months after losing her first-born to adoption?

Kids are smarter than we often give them credit for being. Our thought processes, as we age, become more and more convoluted by gray areas and situational semantics and all the blah, blah, blah of the adult world. A child cuts to the core with no side trips. For anyone to think that they can give a child a pat, canned answer like, "she loved you so much...." and that will suffice doesn't live in a real world with real kids. Kids need straight answers and all the facts.

Better yet, keep the child in the family of origin, preferably with that child's natural mother, and they won't need all those contrived answers.

Religions, Anti-Choice, Adoption and Other Oppressions/ Personal Opinions

It has annoyed me, personally, to no end, to see how the religious establishment has involved itself in matters of law, influence of lawmakers and the reproductive rights of all citizens. I am sick of hearing that we live in a nation founded upon "Christian values." I am sick of those seeking election to office who woo the fanatics, the dogmatic and the arrogant in order to be elected and who seek, then, to sneak some fundie's interpretation of Biblical law into the law of the land.

An avowed atheist, agnostic, deist or pagan, no matter how morally upright, no matter how qualified, could never be elected in this nation. As long as this kind of tyranny persists, adoption, denial of abortion rights and the raiding of other nations for infants and toddlers to fill the cribs of the faithful will continue. When you put religion (superstition) together with capitalism (greed), you have a witch's brew of the vilest nature.

Those who praise the assumed Christian faith of our founding fathers have obviously not read their history. So I pulled up a bit of information about who these people really were and then skipped to my favorite pundit on the world of today.

"All persons shall have full and free liberty of religious opinion; nor shall any be compelled to frequent or maintain any religious institution": freedom for religion, but also freedom from religion. (Edwin S. Gaustad, Faith of Our Fathers: Religion and the New Nation, San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1987, p. 38. Jefferson proposed his language in 1776.)

I may grow rich by an art I am compelled to follow; I may recover health by medicines I am compelled to take against my own judgment; but I cannot be saved by a worship I disbelieve and abhor. (Thomas Jefferson, notes for a speech, c. 1776. From Gorton Carruth and Eugene Ehrlich, eds., The Harper Book of American Quotations, New York: Harper & Row, 1988, p. 498.)



But a short time elapsed after the death of the great reformer [Jesus] of the Jewish religion, before his principles were departed from by those who professed to be his special servants, and perverted into an engine for enslaving mankind, and aggrandizing their oppressors in Church and State. (Thomas Jefferson, in a letter to Samuel Kercheval, 1810; from George Seldes, ed., The Great Quotations, Secaucus, New Jersey: Citadel Press, 1983, p. 370)


The most detestable wickedness, the most horrid cruelties, and the greatest miseries that have afflicted the human race have had their origin in this thing called revelation, or revealed religion. It has been the most dishonorable belief against the character of the Divinity, the most destructive to morality and the peace and happiness of man, that ever was propagated since man began to exist. (Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason, 1794-1795. From Gorton Carruth and Eugene Ehrlich, eds., The Harper Book of American Quotations, New York: Harper & Row, 1988, p. 494.)

George Washington's practice of Christianity was limited and superficial because he was not himself a Christian. In the enlightened tradition of his day, he was a devout Deist--just as many of the clergymen who knew him suspected. (Barry Schwartz, George Washington: The Making of an American Symbol, New York: The Free Press, 1987, pp. 174-175.)



Washington's religious belief was that of the enlightenment: deism. He practically never used the word "God," preferring the more impersonal word "Providence." How little he visualized Providence in personal form is shown by the fact that he interchangeably applied to that force all three possible pronouns: he, she, and it. (James Thomas Flexner, George Washington: Anguish and Farewell [1793-1799], Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1972, p. 490.)

And I have no doubt that every new example will succeed, as every past one has done, in shewing that religion & Govt will both exist in greater purity, the less they are mixed together. (James Madison, letter to Edward Livingston, July 10, 1822; published in The Complete Madison: His Basic Writings, ed. by Saul K. Padover, New York: Harper & Bros., 1953.)

Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprize [sic], every expanded prospect. (James Madison, in a letter to William Bradford, April 1, 1774, as quoted by Edwin S. Gaustad, Faith of Our Fathers: Religion and the New Nation, San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1987, p. 37.)


"Persecution is not an original feature in any religion; but is always the strongly marked feature of all law-religion, or religions established by law." Thomas Paine

(Historian Craig Nelson:) "When Alexander Hamilton was asked why the U.S. Constitution made no mention of God, he said the country did not require 'foreign aid'; when his mother insisted on a serious reply, he explained, 'We forgot.'"

Why am I so intent on this ideal? I have watched, in my lifetime, as the influence of the church continues to spread throughout this nation. I have observed the formation of Christian Political Action Committees and heard the hate-mongering of the judgmental pundits that push this un-American agenda. And I have witnessed the pain of many, many mothers and children separated and poured into the adoption cauldron because of the influence of the Christian church in the US. These folks are more concerned about who had sex than in who lied in order to start a war. They want to control us down to our very most intimate acts, including procreation.

From Thomas Jefferson to Thomas Paine, from George Washington to George Carlin, people have tried to practice and present common sense on this issue. Had they prevailed, I doubt there would be any problems with single motherhood and birth control and a social conscience that would allow us to care for those who need care. So the last word is from the latter George. Same song, present day.

"I'm completely in favor of the separation of Church and State. My idea is that these two institutions screw us up enough on their own, so both of them together is certain death." George Carlin
 

Arrogant Assumptions and Oxymorons

Adopto-Land is full of them. The way the courts and certain churches treat adoption, is beyond arrogant. It seems that they believe they are as powerful as God/Nature. Even though the blank-slate/tabula rasa theory concerning the human infant has been scientifically disproven, they still sell that "as if born to" idea to the masses. It's even in the adoption decree. Boy, aren't we powerful, though?

The picture to the left is very sweet. But anyone with eyes in their head and a rudimentary grasp of zoology can tell that these two are entirely different species. When that little feline grows up, it is not going to swing from tree branches, have thumbs or be mostly vegetarian. A predator is a predator is a predator. What is the chimp going to say when she reveals her true nature? "We gave her all the love we had to give. Why is she LIKE this??"

Any adopter that raises the child born to another woman, thinking that said child will become like the adoptive family is seriously deluded. That adopter is also doing that child a heinous disservice. Supporting the adopted child as they are, and as they become, is the loving thing to do. My heart aches every time I hear another adoptee say, "I never felt like I fit in." Of course, it is my opinion that, barring the very worst of circumstances, a child belongs with his/her mother or family of origin. Trying to fulfill the needs of adults by supporting a legal fantasy is damaging to any child.

That leads me to my first oxymoron; "ethical adoption." How can adoption be ethical when it promotes lies, changes names, switches heritages and is based on, not the need of a child for a home, but the needs of adults for a child? Like it or not, there is a money-making Industry behind this and that makes it a flesh trade. The legal restrictions and requirements of that adoption document makes a life-long possession out of an infant. AND these "possessions" are supposed to be, and often are, grateful for their status as humans owned by other humans (See "Stockholm Adoptees" post).

How can it be ethical when it is bartering a baby for the purpose of supporting the emotional welfare of a childless couple? That is a hell of a load to place on a baby. How can an Industry or practice be ethical when it still uses new and improved methods of social brainwashing and coercion to achieve the goal of separation of mother and newborn? How can it be ethical when it is used to further the agendas of religious groups? How can it be ethical when it is supported by legislators whose palms are greased by the Industry lobbyists? That support has resulted in legislation that strips many mothers and their babies of their civil and human rights. Is that the American Way?

The next oxymoron is so self contradictory it is appalling; "Your mother loved you so much she gave you up." Like that is going to make any sense to a child? Listen up, Kiddo. Your mother probably surrendered you because her back was against the wall, she was brainwashed by adoption propaganda and your grandparents wanted a born-again virgin. Her love for you made her want to keep you. This society is steeped in adoption mythology and she either fell for the line or was forced over it.

This one is for all the good beemommies, still wallking around with that pink cloud engulfing what brain cells you have left.; "Surrendering Mother=Heroine". You know, when you read stories about heroics, a lot of those heroes die. William Wallace shouted "Freedom!" as he was being gutted, drawn and quartered. He still died. When we mothers of my experience were backed against the wall and forced to wave that white flag of surrender, we felt nothing like Xena, The Warrior Princess, "Forged in the heat of battle." I felt like the losing boxer in the match, being carried out, bloody and bruised, on a stretcher.

I wonder what it is going to take to show the general public, who, by and large, support adoption, that said Adoption, American Style, is a heartless and cruel business? When are we, as a nation, going to overcome the ridiculous ideas of our early, Puritan colonists and grow up enough to honor the bond of mother and child? When are we going to, as a nation, mature past the "I'm gonna get mine" self-entitlement that allows people to think they have a right to the children of others? This is what we have become, people. We are a country that barters babies and even raids other nations for newborns. As a society, we are as dysfunctional as they come and we bear the wounds of that dysfunction.

And the band aids we use to cover the wounds are assumptions, arrogance and oxymorons. That's like treating cancer with a placebo.

Just Plain Worn Out

I have a relatively new adoptee friend. I helped her mother find her and they have had one of the most decent reunions I have seen. They were both ready. They both needed each other in their lives but both had become their own person. But my adoptee friend is not feeling well. She is very tired and I don't blame her.

She is a mother and a grandmother. Her daughter is ill and she spends a lot of time taking care of her grandchildren while her daughter is treated for her condition. That is a very active, all boy pre-schooler and a happy, playful infant girl. She also runs her own business from her home.

As an adoptee, she has been raised to be a caretaker to everyone and to their emotions. She has been the recipient of very conditional love from her adopters and they think nothing of making heavy demands of her. Learning to say "No" has been an issue with her. Now, in a new relationship with her Natural Mother, and dealing with the ups and downs of emotions that come with reunion, she is feeling the effects.

It is that way on both sides, that of the Mother and the Adult Child. The intensity of the emotions, dealing with adoptive family members, running the gauntlet of everyday life, all this can enervate you in a New York minute. If I were to give anyone who is in a new reunion any advice (not on reunion relationships because I obviously suck at that), it would be to get plenty of rest, eat right and take vitamins. Our emotions act on our bodies just as much as our physical activity and if there was ever an ultra-emotional time in any one's life, it would have to be at reunion.

I am dealing with a beloved pet with cancer, a husband with a chronic condition that flares up now and then, trying to get the house ready and hope for a buyer, dealing with issues of septic systems, wells and other lovely necessities at our property in WV, plus dealing with the problems of my raised children. I am also dealing with the estrangement from my oldest child after 17 years in reunion. That may be a blessing in disguise, because I was never able to understand what she wanted from me and I always felt drained whenever we talked.

There comes a time for both Mothers and Adult children when we have to go for some "Me" time. I'm not talking about backing off from a reunion, although some find they have to, but the more prosaic ideas of time for oneself...some self-pampering and relaxation.

And it might be a good time for my new friend to reflect on the fact that she has spent the biggest part of her life being a caretaker for the feelings of others. That, in itself, is enough to wring you out and bring you down. Observing from the outside, where it is not my child that is of concern, I see a lot of co-dependency in many adopter/adoptee relationships. They obey a tacit, covert command to participate in a life built upon a legalized lie and the expectations of the adopters. I'm sorry, but that can't be healthy. It is no more healthy that the fog many of us Mothers live in from surrender to reunion and the way many of us try to re-claim our babies from the persona of the adult adoptee or allow ourselves to be used by them out of guilt.

In the more severe cases of this dysfunction of the adoptive home, I have seen adults adoptees who never learned to work things out by honest communication but who are masters at manipulation. I have seen those who alternate between emotional neediness and raging anger. I have witnessed the most nasty behavior from some that I have ever seen. Their lives are ruled by their anger and misconceptions, many implanted by their adopters. The lucky ones are the ones who look within themselves for their identity and also recognize that bullshit stinks.

This is not true of all adoptees across the board, but it is indicative of enough of the population of adopted people to be problematic. For many of us who surrendered our babies, it is equally enraging to find these damaged adults (and it is noted that some are more damaged than others and some function better than others). We were backed against a wall and had no choice but to place our newborns, beautiful and filled with promise, into the hands of the Industry, trusting that they would be placed with paragons of parental perfection. Many found good, loving people but even the best didn't make up for the pre-verbal trauma of separation from the mother. And for Mothers like me, who found badly damaged adult children, it has been heart-breaking, anger-producing and, yes, exhausting.

I am a big fan of the mini-vacation. Even if it is nothing more than a day spent in one's PJ's, the phone and the Internet turned off and a good book, we need restoration for our emotions and spirits. My new friend needs a "Me" day, I need a "Me" day and I can think of quite a few family members and friends who could benefit from a lot of "Me" days.

I just threw the makings of an easy Beef Stroganoff into the crock pot. I am in my comfy lounger with the kangaroo pockets in front and have soft socks on my feet. I am reading an F. Paul Wilson "Repairman Jack" novel and Rocky is asleep beside my chair. Hubby is experimenting with baking, again and the a/c is set just right.

Me Day, here I come. Join me, if you need to.

An Essay A Day...

....can be hard to produce. I am not Flannery O'Connor, Dorothy Sayers, Oliver Wendell Holmes or Charles Lamb. I see myself, all too often, as a one-trick-pony (but I turn that trick with pride). There comes a time when it is hard to be inspired by the same thing, over and over again. Sometimes, I am at a loss for clever analogies and new perspectives. Dealing with one subject can be creatively confining. I guess I am fortunate that so much happens in the OK Corral of Adoption.

For Instance:
Why is it.....
..that even though many of us gave the social workers and the birth records workers the names of the fathers of our babies, our archaic laws forbade those names appearing on the actual document?

Why is it....
..that Trolls of every description want to invade and disrupt our forums in the name of "really wanting to understand?" Are we posting in ancient Aramaic?

Why is it....
..that some adoptees get their knickers in a knot when you relate a bad experience with the adopters of your child? You aren't talking about THEIR adopters. We can only opine about our own children's adopters and our own situation and our own experience with adopters in general.

Why is it....
..that there are mothers who will paste themselves to the back of the closet, still? Haven't they heard that it is no longer a shameful thing to be a natural mother? Don't they know that secrets are toxic? Aren't they tired of all that crap?

Why is it...
..that there are nasty folks who will still use the term "birthmother" even after you ask them not to use it in reference to or around you? To me, it is as offensive as the "n" word is to an African-American.

Why is it...
..that so-called "spiritual leaders" can mangle the scriptures they see as the infallible word of God in order to justify separating a mother and child for adoption? Just off the top of my head...Moses was a "failed adoption" which ended with his reverting to his national and familial origins and Solomon gave the infant back to the real mother.

Why is it...
..that our government can give out money and tax breaks in the name of "adoption incentives" but cringe at the thought of using that same money to give a new mom a hand AND that rather than "mothering incentives" it becomes "welfare?"

Why is it...
..that our National Government supports an "Infant Adoption Awareness" program? Where is our representation in Washington? Are we not citizens, as well?

Why is it...
..that movies, novels (with a few notable exceptions) and news stories about adoption seem to tell only one side of the story and that is not even completely accurate? The most realistic movie I have seen about adoption is "Loggerheads" and even that one shows the mother resolving her pain....after never seeing her son prior to his death. That is not the way most of these stories really go in real life, at all.

Why is it...
..that a book about natural mothers of the EMS, written by an adoptee (and a fine book it is...not complaining on that front) becomes a best-seller, while books and articles written by natural mothers usually only get a lukewarm reception or have to be self-published?

Why is it....
..that I often feel as though we are living in a very controlled society  rather than the free one we are taught about in school? I have called it the United States of Adoption and I fear I am not far off the mark.

Why is it....
..that, though we were, in most cases, abandoned by the father of our child, isolated from our families, shamed, browbeaten and coerced, some still want to say that the only true victims of adoption are adoptees? We didn't have a choice, either (and I am speaking of those of us who experienced the full brunt of the EMS and parental and social coercion). Also, what infant, kept or surrendered, ever has a choice in the matter? A baby can't make choices. (Then again, when a baby arches his or her back away from the foster caregiver or adopter and frets and cries while doing so..well, that should tell them SOMETHING.)

And why it is, that no matter what I have going on in my life, all these questions and more keep running through my mind? I could fill up a notebook with these questions. I haven't asked them all here. I have yet to receive an answer from the ones who benefit from this social obscenity that makes any sense at all.

Why is it, that these people, this industry, can be so destructive to the hearts and souls of mothers and their children and get away with it? Answer THAT one.

(Final question: Why is it that certain people, who think they have all the answers and the only right ones, don't latch on to the fact that these questions are, largely, rhetorical?)

Bonds of Blood; Deformed But Not Broken

My very astute and intelligent buddy, Musing Mother, posted about open records legislation in Missouri, and the notable omission of Natural Mothers from those who would have access to these records. That is an unfortunate fact about all the open records legislation that have either passed or are in different stages of the process.

We  have been told, in the past, that inclusion of Mothers would "cloud the issue." I think the only thing clouded would be the feelings of adopters and the marketing strategies of the agencies. I have noted, in several previous blogs, how reunions can falter, re-start, go off track, try again, die and disappear, etc. It is hard to be indifferent to the child one carried in one's body and I am sure it is equally hard to be indifferent to the woman who gave you life. But that natural bond has been warped by separation, secrets and lies, especially for mothers and adoptees from the BSE/EMS which is the group specifically affected by closed records.

Even when we don't see eye to eye and lifestyles differ and attitudes are polar opposites, there is still something that binds us and it is more than just DNA. The fact is that too many of us are not going to make it in that big reunion picture of Mother and Child, resolved. But there is one way we can bridge the gap, even when contact is sporadic or nil. Being advocates for each other where civil and human rights are concerned could, I personally believe, heal a lot of the hurt we feel.

There is so much pressure on the adoptee to remain loyal to the people who raised them and that is not unreasonable. But it really throws a monkey wrench into the engine of many a reunion. The Industry knows this and plays on the fears of the adopters to keep their businesses up, running and profitable. They use the fundamentalist churches and the anti-choicers to keep the supply up. They use the adoptees' fears of hurting their adopters and the lingering shame of a pitiful minority of Mothers to apply just enough force to keep us from forming a united front. They know what side their bread is buttered on and it is definitely NOT the Mother's side. The adopters are, for the most part, the ones with the bucks.

I know one adoptee who said that her adopters didn't pay a penny for her....Oh, except for the attorney's fees and her medical expenses and a few other fees, but it was only a few thousand dollars. That was back in the early 60's. A few thousand back then is like $50K, today. That was an agency. But it takes money to run a state's social services department, as well, so someone has to fork over the dough for that healthy infant. When we say it is an Industry, a business, a market, we mean just that. And business has no conscience.

So, what if we understood that reunions can be rocky and problematic and that we might have to love from distance, BUT, that we could do this one thing for each other, as Mother and Adult Child? A united front in the face of legislators (attorneys who support adoption for the most part) and lobbyists (the NCFA and others of that ilk) would make things a bit harder for them to manipulate. The idea of going with what we can get and tweaking it later, is about as much good to all of us as "the check is in the mail" is to the collector dunning the deadbeat.

We've had our motherhood dismissed. Our children have been obligated to try to fit their square peg selves into  the round hole of the adoptive family. Lies have been told and misapprehensions encouraged. Yes, those  ties that bind that are forged by nature, have been altered and deformed. But they haven't been broken. I read too many comments by adoptees and mothers. We all care to much for them to be completely severed. If the bonds were not there, the pain wouldn't be there, either.

Maybe there are many of us that can never be a family again. But we can look out for and support each other in this fight for the truth. And if that isn't love, I don't know what is.

Escaping The Myth

The Legend of Daedalus and Icarus

Daedalus, King Minos' architect, built a labyrinth in which King Minos was able to hide the awful Minotaur, a horrible half-man, half-bull born to his cursed wife. Afterwards, Theseus, an Athenian king, killed the Minotaur and escaped with the king's daughter, Ariadne. At the failure of the labyrinth, Daedalus lost the favor of the king and was imprisoned in a high tower. Daedalus wanted to escape from his prison, but all sea-going vessels were searched carefully.

"Minos may control the land and sea," thought Daedalus, "but he does not control the air. I will escape that way."


Daedalus set to work fabricating wings for himself and his young son, Icarus. Daedalus put many feathers together over a frame of his design, beginning with the smallest feathers and adding larger feathers, to form an ever-increasing surface area with which to harness the power of the wind. The larger feathers, Daedalus secured with strong thread, but the smaller ones he secured only with wax. To his final creation, he gave a curvature like that of birds' wings.


When the work was done, Daedalus, waving his newly constructed wings, found himself buoyed upward on the currents and hung suspended, poised on the beaten air beneath his constructed wings.


But he could not leave without his son, so he had to build another pair of wings, smaller in size. Daedalus equipped his son with the smaller set but cautioned him, saying, "Icarus, my son, I charge you to keep at a moderate height, for if you fly too low the damp will clog your wings, and if you fly too high the heat of the sun will surely melt these wings of yours that I have created for you.

Daedalus kissed the boy, not knowing that it was for the last time ever. Then, rising on their wings, father and son flew off, escaping from the prison that King Minos had put them in. The boy, exulting in his new-found freedom, began to soar upward as if to reach heaven. The nearness of the blazing sun softened the wax, which held the smaller feathers together, and they came off in bundles. He fluttered frantically with his arms, but no feathers remained to hold the air beneath the wings. He cried to his father but fell to the ocean and was submerged in the blue waters of the sea in which he drowned.

Bummer. And the moral is supposed to be that you can't aspire beyond your abilities or something like that. It's probably also a fable about moderation. But I can also see all the trepidations and frustrations of motherhood in this one. You give your children wings, but where they fly and how high is up to them.

For our surrendered children, we were not there to give them their wings. Some of our adult, reunited children never learned to fly. They are still imprisoned in the tower. The tower is constructed of lies, misconceptions and fear. They can't fly, ie; please everyone, and they can't face the possibility of losing the only security they have ever known, however falsely fabricated, so they retreat to where they feel safe, even though their haven can also be their prison. Conversely, some mother stay mired in the prison of their secrets. It certainly isn't just the adoptee that does that, although it is an adoptee that inspired this post.

Facing and examining the truth is not an act of disloyalty and has nothing to do with love unless love has been a conditional thing for an adoptee. Perhaps the perception of adopters as paragons has to do more with the way they were taught to love than the actuality of the love that accepts the person, warts and all, and has no need to try to deny the human faults of the loved one. The adage that "The truth shall set you free" is not wrong. Retreating into the den of denial and lies is not living a free and open life. Yet it is what many choose and it makes me sad to see it happen.

I'm a big fan of The Eagles. Their rough and ready poetry and rock/country sound are the go-to music for me when I need a certain kind of grounding. One of my favorites is  "Already Gone," a golden oldie. I like this phrase.

"So often times it happens that we live our lives in chains,

And we never even know we have the key."

The only key I see to the freedom of the adoptees and the mothers of the EMS is not in wings of feathers, wax and string, but in the key of truth. Towers built of lies are flimsy and shaky. They take a lot of emotional energy to maintain. And, they are never totally comfortable. If we face the truth and speak the truth, loud enough and long enough, maybe the walls of the prison will fall on their own.

It's scary to use that truth key. It is frightening to realize that there is much you believed that never was true. But I have found, for my own self, that facing the truth is better than tethering myself to the lies on the ground, never able to fly at all. It's like lancing a boil..one hurt to get over a bigger hurt. And, I have found out for myself that the real world isn't such a bad place after all, once you learn to navigate.

So maybe the real message in the legend of Icarus is all about fear. If the sun is the truth, then the implication is that the truth can kill you. Not so. The truth can hurt, but it can also heal. I much prefer truth to the lies of denial.

And the truth CAN set you free.