Dear God, NO!!!!!

I cannot believe that the American public and even the GOP have become so dumbed-down that this would even be a consideration! Yet, I read that La Palin is embarking on a media blitz in anticipation of 2012 and the American media, ever hungry for eye-catching fodder for the masses, is following her efforts. I really wish everyone would just ignore her. She needs to fade away into the wilds of Alaska and go kill another moose or something.

As a woman who considers herself a feminist, I know that some of our worst enemies are within the population of our own gender. This dame is one of the very worst. If this is what the GOP considers appealing to the women voters, they are sadly mistaken. It has been noted that a large portion of President-Elect Obama's supporters were women. Hopefully, those women who voted with their vaginas have learned that, while the time has come for a woman president, it has to be a QUALIFIED and INTELLIGENT woman. If we are going to make history again, as was done in this last election, then we need someone whose vocabulary goes beyond "you betcha" and whose foreign policy experience extends beyond the fact that her home state is just across the Bering Strait from Russia.

C'mon, everyone...surely no one is taking this bimbo seriously? With her and her ilk in a position of power, we could say goodbye to the freedom to choose, access to birth control for single women and girls and the reinstatement of maternity prisons, you betcha! Beyond the fact that her qualifications are nil, she is a danger to the rights that we have fought for and to the fight in which we are now engaged. Justice and acknowledgement for the EMS Mothers?...not if Palin has her way. Open records for adoptees and mothers?...over her dead little Barbie Doll body. Separation of church and state...we could really kiss that constitutional concept bye-bye.

Sorry Ladies, but I don't put her performance on the campaign trail this past year down to inexperience...I say she has a major "DUH" factor. She's just another ex-beauty queen trying to get by on her looks while saying what she knows the Far Right wants to hear. Clever does not equal intelligent. In any event, she probably cannot define the word "moderate" and that is where her party needs to go if they are going to make a come-back from the last eight years of Emperor Dubya and his shenanigans.

So Mr. and Ms. Elephant. If you are going to groom a woman for the 2012 run, you stand a better chance with ANYONE but Sarah Palin. Hey, I'd vote for ANYONE running against her and that is a sad way to decide one's vote. I wonder if Tina Fey would like to run? Hmmmmm

Boycott On The Agenda for Jolie Flick

Well, well....look who is starring in a movie that portrays the real-life anguish of a Mother who loses HER child! I couldn't believe it when I saw the first ads and saw that scene where she cries out, "I want my OWN child!!!" or something to that effect.



Yeah, Angie....so do we.



This is from the woman who is the epitome of those who think that mothers and children and natural families are, somehow, interchangeable. Rather than collecting children like Beanie Babies, she could have helped these disadvantaged families hold together. So why does she do it? Why does she go on baby raids to third-world nations to find another kiddie for her collection? BECAUSE SHE CAN. She has the money, and like most people with money and in the public eye, she probably feels entitled to whatever the Hell she wants.



She doesn't even have infertility as an excuse so she can only be searching for that adopter halo. This is the woman who has been tattooed with lovers' and husbands' names, carried around a vial of one of her husbands' blood on a chain around her neck and gave her BROTHER a deep, soul-kiss in front of photographers. I guess she feels she needs some good press and this country, unfortunately, is besotted with the idea of adoption.



As we at SMAAC reach out to get the truth to the nation about how we Senior Mothers were subject to horrendous mistreatment in order for the industry to procure our newborns for adopters, we also try to keep an eye on what is happening now, as well. No, friends....things haven't changed that much. Jolie is just one more example of why we exist and why we blog and why we boycott and why we speak out. Family preservation is not just an ideal. It is doable if we stop criminalizing single parenthood and poverty.



Here's the link. Please take time to read our press release concerning this boycott.

Abject Apology and Mea Culpa

The young man in the picture with me at the left is my youngest son (no, he is not a skinhead..he has early, male-pattern baldness genes out the wazingus, poor baby) and I have done him a grave disservice. I accused BOTH my sons of voting for McCain and I have been soundly corrected. Sam, my baby, my born-again conservative, actually crossed the line and voted for Obama!!!! My oldest son didn't vote at all. Mea Culpa, Mea Culpa, Mea Culpa!

I have got to say that the Sam Man surprised and delighted me with his comments. He voted with his reasoning abilities rather than philosophical leanings. While he considered Palin "hot," he obviously didn't want her that close to the presidency. His problems in finding a job didn't go unnoted by his quick mind. And he was not pleased with Bush's track record and the fact that McCain didn't distance himself from those policies. WAY TO GO, KIDDO! Of course, I have always been proud of the fact that, even when we disagreed, he cared about his country and was eager to keep himself informed and to vote. But, having brought up both my raised children to be good little Dems with a slightly left-of-center stance, I was wondering what I did wrong. I found out I did NOTHING wrong. My baby boy was just exercising his right as a man to think for himself without Mom calling the shots.

He also has pleased me with a request to know more about my adoption activism and if there was anything he could do to help. That one made me cry.

So, to my son, I will say that you have, once again, caught your Mother off-guard in a very good way, you are the master, the king, and 'salami, salami, baloney!'

Hail To The Chief!!!!

I am excited and thrilled to be a party to making history and really concerned about the load this man has taken on his shoulders. He has youth and strength and he is going to need every ounce of it to face the problems and tribulations of our poor, tattered nation.

JFK had his rocking chair and I will bet that President-Elect Obama might need to sit in one, himself, before too long. He has inherited a mess. Between Iraq, the economy, our right to choose...well, the list is a long and hard one.

I worry about his safety what with the prevalence of skinheads, Nazis and a still-active KKK in our country, I will constantly pray that he is under good protection. I thank God that we have Joe Biden to step in in case the worst happens, but pray that it won't be necessary. I urge tight and intense security by the Secret Service. I also thank God that Sarah "You Betcha" Palin is not just a cardiac infarction away from the Oval Office. That would have been a national nightmare.

I hope, now, that ALL Americans will rally behind OUR President. He is not just the President of the African-Americans or the Democrats. He is all our fine words, our protestations of equality and lack of bias, our good ideas and righteous laws, Amendments to the Constitution and claims of open minds and free spirits come to fruition. I, for one, will be doing all in my power to support him and our Congress through the horrible minefield that has been left for them by the worst administration in my memory. I remember Harry Truman so my memory is a long one.

This is something I thought I would never see in my lifetime...either a woman and/or a person of a minority race attaining the highest office in the land. Since that has been shown to be doable, can the efforts of SMAAC be any less doable? Suddenly, I am much more optimistic about that issue.

Hubby, who voted for Obama, will have to go to work, today, and face his fanatically right-wing boss. He will do so, silently and with a small smile upon his face. I wish I could be there. And to my sons, one raised, one reunited, both McCain supporters.......

I love you, both and ....neener, neener, neener! Heh heh.

Our Votes...Not For Sale

This is the final day, the day of decision, of the 2008 Presidential campaign. After today, there will be no more mud-slinging TV ads and armchair political pundits will hash and re-hash. We can hope, here in the Sunshine State, that there will not be a repeat of the fiasco of 2000.

The lady holding the banner in the picture to the left is Susan B. Anthony. She wasn't perky, Barbie-doll pretty or any of the things that come to mind when I think of the GOP vice-presidential candidate. She was a serious, thoughtful and dedicated woman. Some fine women, just like her, were subjected to horrible and inhumane treatment while seeking the right to vote for them and their sisters.

For what these fine women endured, we have a responsibility to vote with our minds and good sense....not our gender. Bastardette has a short, sweet and relevant post on voting day and women. It speaks my mind, as well. I would be doing myself, my sisters and the women who endured the punishing mistreatment that won us our right to vote if my response was a knee-jerk nod to the ticket with a woman on it. A friend of mine who is from Germany said it best. "If I vote for Palin just because she is a woman, that would be like me espousing Hitler just because I am German."

I not only want to encourage everyone to vote, but to vote with thoughtfulness and due consideration of the needs of everyone in our nation. This is a campaign that has been both historical and, sadly, hysterical. My hopes are that we can end it on a positive note.....

Or, I can move to Canada and hope that I can't be seen from Alaska.

The Devil We Know for Another Devil We Know

Same stuff, different day. Atwood resigned from the NCFA per this press release. There are many that are happy about this because of Johnson's (Atwood's temporary replacrement) attitude toward open records for adult adoptees. But we Senior Moms are sure that this won't stop any of the coercive practices that take advantage of the vulnerable mother-to-be or that recognize the mother's right to control her end of the information exchange and yes, I do mean not giving adopters access to our records and no mandatory personal information required. Just read the portion of the press release that I have high-lighted in red. Then you will know why I can help hatin' dat man.

The one person that is forgotten in all the hoopla and hullabaloo of what might change is the mother. What about HER civil rights that have already been breached? If the NCFA were to have a leader that would come out in opposition to the many state laws that give the mother no time to rescind, no independent counsel and no way to fight when these "open" adoptions slam shut in her face, then we might join in and celebrate.

What this nation needs is a National Council For Family Preservation (NCFFP) that would do all in its power to keep mother and child together. Well, right now, as it is said, "money talks and bullshit walks." The industry holds the money reins in iron fists, and the mythology is firmly embedded in the American psyche.

This post if for informational purposes only. Personally, I hope that Atwood, on the way out, and Johnson, on the way in, slip on the same banana peel and break their respective hips.

Thomas C. Atwood Resigns from the National Council For Adoption

Alexandria, VA – The Board of Directors of the National Council For Adoption (NCFA) today announced that Thomas C. Atwood has resigned as president and chief executive officer to pursue other professional opportunities. After serving as vice president for policy and research, Atwood took over NCFA’s reins in October 2002 and spearheaded the nonprofit’s growth into a leading adoption research, education, and advocacy organization, as well as an international authority on adoption issues.

“The board is grateful to Tom for his leadership and accomplishments while at NCFA, particularly in the areas of government and media relations, research, and policy development,” said Stan Swim, chairman of the board. “He has always been a strong advocate for adoption and child welfare, and was instrumental in securing passage of the recent landmark adoption and foster care bill. We wish him well in his future endeavors.”

Among Atwood’s numerous accomplishments during his six years as president were the publication of Adoption Factbook IV, NCFA’s comprehensive and authoritative reference on adoption policy and practice, and the Adoption Advocate, a series of policy briefs on adoption. Atwood testified before Congress (five times) and before the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. Recent citations include USA Today, the Associated Press, and the Washington Post among hundreds of other citations in national and international media. Under his leadership, NCFA launched three web-based public information programs, developed the Infant Adoption Revival Project and Families For All Project to help children in foster care, and advanced a global culture of adoption through international advocacy in nine countries. He also co-authored with Jayne Schooler The Whole Life Adoption Book (in its third printing).

“It has been a privilege for me to lead the NCFA team during these six years of growth and accomplishment,” said Atwood. “I look forward to a bright future for NCFA as it continues its important work.” Chuck Johnson, chief operating officer and vice president of training and agency services, will assume management responsibilities. “The board will be looking for a dynamic leader with great management and administration skills and the vision to take NCFA to the next level as the nation’s leading adoption and child welfare advocate and authority,” Swim said.

SMAAC Is Up And Running

Senior Mothers Adoption Activist Coalition, SMAAC, a grassroots organization of mothers who were forced to surrender our newborns during the Era of Mass Surrenders, post WWII until the inception of Roe v Wade, announces the launch of our new website in conjunction with the beginning of Adoption Awareness Month. SMAAC chose this month to launch our new website in an effort to focus attention on the side of adoption that is most often unrecognized and the women whose voices have been deliberately and willfully unheard.

Senior Mothers are coming together and finding strength in our shared experience. Now we are speaking out, after decades of silently bearing witness to the increase in the power and control of the Adoption Industry. Our silence was misunderstood, and exploited; it was actually the trauma and post traumatic stress of women who had been systematically abused into signing surrender documents. Taking our silence as acquiescence, the public and the government allowed the Adoption Industry to grow into a multi- billion dollar, largely unregulated industry fighting to retain its control over the fates of young women, our infants and the future of these small families in the United States.

By coming together on the Internet, Senior Mothers gained strength, courage and lost our shame. We found our voices, only to have them denounced, diminished and decried by the very industry that exploited us initially. When we spoke of our suffering we were told to "move on, get over it." We were told that we made a "choice" and when we argued that we had no options, we were told that having "premarital sex" was a choice that earned us our sorrow, while ignoring the fact that the loss of our children was not a choice. For the public to hear the voices of mothers, women who have grieved and suffered in silence for decades, is to make a lie of the very fiber of adoption and the mythology that, following a brief period of grief, the mothers go on as if it never happened. The industry is desperate to silence us again so that they can continue to reap huge profits from exploiting more and other vulnerable women.

We believe, that by not demanding recognition and acknowledgment for the criminal acts committed against us we are allowing the intolerable, inhumane treatment of former unwed mothers to remain as if tolerable and acceptable. We believe that if we do not demand this recognition we are silently perpetuating the myth that no life-long damage was caused by the taking of our newborns for the sole purpose of adoption. As human beings we, were segregated, isolated and our civil and human rights were systematically denied, including the most basic rights of a mother, our own newborns and recognition of our motherhood. We believe that these systematic, abuses are worthy of recognition, and is the cause of provable damage to self as a result.

Years, experience and understanding of our situation has brought a new sense of worth and a fighting spirit to us. The women of the EMS also now believe that to continue to remain silent about our experience allows the industry to continue to grow at the expense of the unwed mothers of today.

This month is the launch of our new website, but the mothers have already been busy. There are several projects in the planning and implementation stages. The current project, naming the Month of November, Adoption BEwareness Month, is to make the public aware of the experience of loss upon which adoption is predicated, and encourage the public to apply pressure to legislators to recognize our losses.

We have named the last day of November "Strange and Mournful Day" based on lyrics from Paul Simon's "Mother and Child Reunion." The lyrics within the body of the song that describe the indignities and mistreatment that led to the surrender of our newborns;

Mother and Child Reunion (Words & music by Paul Simon)

No, I would not give you false hope,
On this strange and mournful day.
But the mother and child reunion
Is only a motion away,

Oh, little darling of mine, I can't for the life of me,
Remember a sadder day.
I know they say let it be,
But it just don't work out that way,
And the course of a lifetime runs,
Over and over again.

There are also various ongoing projects on which we are working. Among them are building a Wall of Shame, with the names and the positions of those who contributed to our losses. This will insure that the Mothers will no longer need to carry the burden alone. We will no longer be isolated, and shamed, but will place the burden directly where it belongs...on the shoulders of the perpetrators.

We have launched a campaign to encourage women who have lost infants to adoption, particularly during the EMS, to gather medical records, social worker case notes and copies of any paperwork that concerns them. Senior Mothers have been told repeatedly, over the years, that we were not entitled to this paperwork, such records did not exist or had been damaged, usually in a fire, flood or other natural disaster. We are now, thanks to the passage of the HIPAA Laws in the United States in 1996, finding that not only are they available, but have been used by researchers for decades.

Finally, we are also speaking out in public. We are sharing our experience online, in the newspaper, on television and radio and to groups and organizations. We wish to make our communities aware of the "other side" of adoption and the conditions and injustices that Senior Mothers endured prior to our loss. The silence of decades has ended.

(Thanks to Sandy Young for this article. Please also visit these sites to view our press release #1

and press release #2.)

Happy Halloween

Just In Case You haven't Voted Yet:

It would behoove all who will be exercising their constitutional responsibility to remember, with clarity, the past eight years.

You might also want to remember that the bomb Mr. Cheney is holding could also read "Increased Infant Adoptions," or "More 'Safe Haven' Baby Dumps, or "Reinstated Maternity Prisons."

We don't need more of the same.

Keeping The Faith

(Excerpts from "Keeping The Faith" by Billy Joel)

If it seems like I've been lost In let's remember
If you think I'm feeling older
And missing my younger days
Oh, then you should have known Me much better
Cause my past is something that never
Got in my way, Oh no

You can get just so much
From a good thing
You can linger too long In your dreams
Say goodbye to the Oldies but goodies
Cause the good ole days weren't Always good
And tomorrow ain't as bad as it seems

Now I told you my reasons For the whole revival
Now I'm going outside to have
An ice cold beer in the shade
Oh I'm going to listen to my 45's
Ain't it wonderful to be alive
When the rock 'n' roll plays Yeah
When the memory stays Yeah
I'm keeping the faith Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Keeping the faith
I'm keeping the faith
Yes I am

Sometimes, it gets to be heavy-going in the search and fight for justice. There are too many who think the job is too big, others that think it can't get done and a lot that don't think we should even be trying. We support each other and try to support the ones who fear the limelight. We are giving other women from the EMS encouragement to anonymously submit their stories about coercion and the pain of loss.

Billy Joel's song was about rock and roll and the era but there are a couple of verses in that tune that, to me, speak of us and our battle. To be sure, it's uphill and hard. It was pointed out to me that the history revisionists are already at work, trying to deny that the EMS even happened. But there are too many of us who know it did to let them get away with the lies.

We live in a big country, where money is power and the government is a playground for special interests..especially those that bring in the big bucks. But people have banded together before, spoken up and made a difference. There is a precedence for getting what we are after and it might be rough going, but it is doable! This is just asking all our friends and sister EMS Moms to please, please, keep the faith. Don't give up on us before we even get started.

It is now November and we are wearing our black, red and white "Sad and Mournful Day" ribbons and observing Sad and Mournful Day on the 30th. We are erecting our website and our Wall of Shame. We are keeping the issue alive and out in front of the public. Each mother has her own special talent and we can each use that talent to help in the cause. Help us hang in there.

Help us in keeping the faith.

The Edge Of The Abyss

I don't think that there are many Senior Mothers in reunion who haven't secretly or overtly wished to re-connect with their infants. When we meet our adult child, we stretch out our hopes across an abyss of years...years we missed...events that were observed by others.

Someone else was privy to the first tooth, first steps, first words...all the firsts in a child's life as they grow. The adult child stand before us, and though we feel the connection and, yes, the love, we also are coming to the awareness that our babies are, irretrievably, lost to us. That is why you see mothers in reunion going through such emotional hard times. We are in mourning when that happens. Often, that mourning has been delayed for decades and is choking in its intensity.

So, when we realize that we are building a relationship with an adult child who is our child, but NOT our baby, we stumble a lot and then we get pissed. Some of us make the mistake of directing that anger inwards. Guilt, though, can become so self-absorbing and, if we clear our minds and really look at what happened, we can see that there were forces at work in our lives that left us with no choice and no hope. Too often we see the damage that the years of the abyss have done to our adult children.

There is where our anger needs to be directed. All these forces, combined, form a giant monster whose name is Injustice. We are David, out to take down Goliath, and we are gathering our stones and we will face the giant. But we can't bridge the abyss. It will remain an empty chasm of years for as long as we live. If for no other reason that that one, mothers of the EMS deserve justice in some form. All we have left of our newborns are vague memories or what we were told by those in charge.

Our memories are not enough.

Wing Nuts and Lunatic Fringers

I am certain that there are those who would see these terms as applicable to moi, but I am fast learning that there are those under the broad umbrella of adoption activism that make me look like a model of moderation. I have always thought of myself as an iconoclast and a liberal, but I don't believe in people bringing their dysfunction, paranoia and unrelated, pet movements to this arena.

We have to work with tolerance for our differences if we are to accomplish anything. We are fortunate, in SMAAC, that everyone seems to be more or less on the same page. There might be Democrats and Republicans, Pro and Anti-Choicers, Pagans, Baptists, Jews and Catholics, but we know what we are about in relation to adoption and that is where we are united.

What really makes us look bad and can hit us in our credibility are the few, the disturbed, the ego maniacal, the queen and king bees, the people who are so way out there that they make Timothy Leary look like a preppy. I am talking about people who have hate and/or fear on their agenda, who cannot disagree agreeably and who expect everyone to think just like them. I am talking about the ones who sneak into our spaces with several different, online identities and try to take people down. I am referring to those with actual "hit lists," more concerned about getting the jump on people they don't like or who don't say what they want to hear than making a difference in adoption.

These wing nuts make threats, tell lies, send constant barrages of harassing emails, privately and on lists, blogs and forums. They say hateful and hurtful things to those who choose not to see things their way, they jockey for control, they emote so dramatically that you can hear the blood and tears run and psychotically claim that everyone else is at fault and that they have done nothing wrong. They place themselves out there as superior to all others, either in intelligence, knowledge or pain. They obsess about things and depress all around them.

As it says in the Bible, "Ye shall know them for their works." Those works are all about them. Some of them haunt the Internet and jump from group to group until they have nowhere else to go and then they come back with a new identity and do the same thing all over again. They insert themselves into a topic and start trying to lead everyone through a maze of nonsense. They come from every corner of our globe and tend to use adoption damage, which is a real and painful thing, as an excuse to refrain from behaving as a reasonable adult. There comes a time when we all have to grow up.

As of today, I am declaring myself and my blog off limits to one more nut bar. But Lordy, they keep a-coming, don't they?

This Says It All

Thanks to the author and artist, Mike Peters, of "Mother Goose and Grimm," one of my favorite comic strips.


I am going to find a way to get this printed on a tee shirt! If anyone should ever stop to wonder why so many adopted people have that feeling of being a bit "out of place," this should explain it.

You cannot imprint your genetic and family heritage on a child, no matter what your hopes, when adopting, might be. What I wonder is, where is the mother giraffe and what was done to force her to surrender her baby? And I wonder if the cartoonist purposely gave the adopted giraffe that bewildered expression?

I wonder, most of all, if the female kangaroo's name is Angelina? It would make sense. 'Nuff said.

Cleopatra, Quixotes and Dubyas/ Dead Pigs

My maternal grandmother used to say that someone who keeps themselves removed from all reality are "as happy as a dead pig in the sunshine." There was a time when I didn't really get her meaning, but I think I can see the analogy. That dead pig is oblivious to all that is going on around its bloated carcass. They are entrenched in a certain mindset, convinced that they are right and everyone else is wrong and enjoy the deep, untroubled sleep of the self-righteous.

I have divided my dead pigs into three categories. Cleopatras are the ones in denial. They insist they had a choice and that there are no repercussions to be had from the crimes against the mothers of the EMS. They refuse to see the coercion and punitive actions of an unjust society of holocaust proportions as real or comparable. To admit that there was ever a time in their, oh so superior, lives when they were not in control is beyond their ability to understand. These are also the ones who usually have unbalanced reunions where their children run the show.

Quixotes are the tilters at every windmill in the world. Rather than concentrating on one issue at a time, examining it, plotting a course of action and following through, they try to be all things to all people. They lump all their windmills together and dilute their effectiveness trying to justify that move. These are also the people who need a healthy dose of cynicism when it comes to adoption facilitators and adopters. They do not realize their own limitations and keep trying to sell their adoption stew as palatable to all.

Dubyas are the deniers, not to be confused with those in denial. Deniers, aka "deciders," are bullies who are smugly sure that they should be in charge. They are great at pushing emotional buttons and hurting the vulnerable among us. They will summarily dismiss anyone else's experience as invalid and superimpose their idealized version of their own as the only valid truth. There are a lot of adopters, loyal adoptees and good birthmartyrs in the Dubya category. One can be both a Cleopatra and a Dubya in many cases.

Mixed in among these dead pigs, are a few of us still up and running. These are the hopeful, the idealists who still have a modicum of faith in justice. We run into roadblocks and, rather than giving up, we try to chart a course around them. We receive hate mail from the Cleos and the Quixotes and REALLY hateful mail from the Dubyas. But we also have a sisterhood of support that is second to none.

While it is true that most of us are average women (very few of us are the ultimately most savvy swine in the sty) we have very adequate intelligence, years of experience, memories, and the time it took to process those memories and pull out the truth. Not all of us have degrees or prestige among the upper echelons of this upside-down society. No, we are the ones who form the backbone of this nation, and whose work, purchases, family values (the REAL kind) and very lives allow the financially and socially elite to live as well as they do. Even the ones among us who have achieved success tend to be less self-congratulatory than our national elite.

Pigs are very smart animals. While a lot of people will say "ewwwww," the fact is that pigs are every bit as smart as dogs or dolphins. But a dead pig is still a dead pig. You leave it out in the sun to bloat and decompose, and it stinks just like any other dead animal.

But, the sucker's happy.

Courage

I used to consider myself a bit of a wimp...a coward who was afraid to rock the boat or make enemies. Then I watched the 'Wizard of Oz' for about the umpteenth time, and I concentrated on the great Bert Lahr's character, The Cowardly Lion.

I realized that, sometimes, wisdom is mistaken for cowardice. When the enemy is too powerful to fight, it's just plain smart to retreat and start looking for another way to meet your goal. I also realized that, as the saying goes, " Courage is not the absence of fear but doing what you must in spite of that fear."

Now I don't know that I and my sisters in SMAAC and in other groups have acquired courage borne of our anger at the injustice done to us, or just reached a time in our lives when we don't give a rat's ass about what people might think of us. I suspect it is a combination of both. But I do know we are up against a powerful enemy and we are still shooting off our collective mouths at them. Sometimes, that makes me feel like Rocky, jogging in step with fists thrown up in the air at the top of the step. "Flying High" feels good.

The Wizard told the lion that the only thing he lacked was a medal commemorating his bravery, because all the other components for courage were in place, inside this dear creature. Our medals are ribbons...black for sorrow, red for passion and action and white for hope and love. We will be wearing our medals next month. We will be telling people who ask just what they mean. We will run afoul of our share of adopters and social workers and just plain people who "know someone" who had an adoption that turned out just frickin' wonderful. And we can stand there and say our piece and not back down because we have been given the gift of courage.

I made a comment, yesterday, that, until women stopped predating on their sisters and taking their babies, we wouldn't get very far as an emancipated gender. There are a lot of male adoption attorneys, facilitators and eugenicists who are banking on that weakness in our ranks. I called it "reproductive cannibalism" and the name fits. Now, if our sisters could stop looking on their less affluent, unmarried sisters as fields ripe for harvest and start helping them be mothers to their own, borne children, then the courage factor would shoot off the scale because we would all be on the same page. If we can put the coveting, the desire for 'motherhood at any cost' off the agenda and start really helping mothers and their children, we would be the ones to inherit the earth...not because we were meek, but because we showed the courage of our convictions, empathy and a united front.

With a united front, we could get between the new mothers-to-be and those that would take her infant for adoption BEFORE she is coerced into signing those papers. But to do that, we all have to stop sleeping with the enemy. The industry and the covetors are not going to do us any good. We have to band together and weave a safety net for these new moms. I envision a crowd of little families, with children growing up, knowing they were wanted by the women who bore them and the family from which they get their natural heritage.

It's a dream, but it's a good one and, we pray, it's doable.

A Slight Departure

We have long proclaimed that adoption and abortion are two separate issues. Once a women chooses to terminate a pregnancy, then adoption is a moot issue. It is only when a baby is carried to term that adoption rears its ugly, eugenic head. So, here I go, breaking another one of my rules.

The "adoption, a loving option" inanity does not ring true to those of us who have been separated by this institution. It makes me wonder just what is behind these anti-choice protests. Is it a genuine belief that a zygote is life or is it a church/agency wanting to rake in some bucks while pushing its own eugenics program? I suspect the latter. Plus, I get very testy when some religious group tried to impose their dogma on the rest of the country via our national laws.

Separation of church and state is still a part of our constitution, Oh Self-Righteous Ones, and your rights end where mine begin.

This is an issue to which I had sworn I wouldn't give space or credence. But having had a loved one shouted at and called a murderer when she went into a women's clinic, it is hard not to enter the fray. Now, when our reproductive rights are being frantically, and, might I say, desperately challenged, it is time for those of us who really believe in reproductive rights to step forward and have our say.

The National Organization of Women lists adoption as a "reproductive choice." If any of these people have ever been pregnant and had the pressure and coercion laid on them that we mothers of adoption loss have had piled on our backs, they might re-think that word "choice." I should think that it would be a duty for NOW to protect a single and/or poor woman's choice to keep and raise her baby.

So, in its own way, the NOW is in bed with the anti-choicers. Either way, mothers are being guilted by one group into carrying a pregnancy to term, and given no support by the other when that full-term baby is grabbed by the agencies and social workers through coercion and emotional bullying.

It is to the industry's and to the Christian Right Wing's advantages to chip away at Roe v Wade. It is probably due to the adopters in their ranks that allows NOW to ignore the predation on women that occurs with adoption. This is why NOW's voice has no more power than it does and why we are having to scream at the top of our lungs. Women are becoming predator and prey..reproductive cannibals...and it is sick, sad and totally unethical.

We have a choice, next month. We can choose to carry on this madness or we can put someone in the White House who, at least, seems to have an open mind. We need to write our letters, we need to use our votes and we need to protect the right to choose whether or not we, our daughters and granddaughters can make our own decisions concerning our own bodies and our babies. It's not just Roe v Wade that is in peril, but also the right of women to safe, effective birth control regardless of age or marital status. That's a biggie and should not be ignored.

Right now, we still have a modicum of choice. While some states have eroded the right to choose, there is still the option to go to a more open state and have a procedure done there. If the adoption industry and the, so-called, "Moral" Majority have their way, we are back to the maternity homes, forced surrender and loss of acess to birth control.

Can we, as women, really afford a giant step backwards?

I might also note that important issues such as the economy and its effect on the middle class and the poor, healthcare and education are Jonahs, at risk of going down the gullets of the big business fish. So use your right and responsibility to vote. It is one of the few things we can do.

Remembering When

Forty-Six years after the fact, I still find this time in my life hard to write about. But, as a Senior Mother and member of SMAAC, these are the things that we want to bring to the public's attention.

I was 15, it was 1961 and I was deeply in love with a boy, one who didn't have the maturity to love me back the way I so desperately desired. Oh, he said he loved me, and, in his own way, I guess he did. But mostly he wanted one thing from me and, in order to keep him, I did what he wanted me to do. Just before my 16th birthday, my daughter was conceived. It was also when his parents decided that he needed to get away from me (he was "too young" to be serious about a girl) and from some other "bad influences" and sent him to visit some relatives in California for a month.

Realizing that I had missed a period was terrifying. I have never felt so alone in my life. I was "one of those girls." I was "in trouble," and there was no one to help me or to make it go away. There was no Roe v Wade or access to birth control for single women. I didn't even know what birth control was except for condoms. I was amazed that this had happened to me because my sex education had been spotty and filled with erroneous ideas. I thought that what my boyfriend and I did was nothing like the sacred thing a married couple did to have children. To say I was confused was an understatement. I spent precious weeks in denial.

One thing sticks out in my mind and that is the fact that, though I gave in to my boyfriend's demands, I was a product of my Bible-Belt upbringing and I never was able to even enjoy the act. There was too much guilt in me. I even remember seeking the help of my minister.

Telling my parents was the most horrible experience imaginable. I had a close friend with me and she had urged me to tell them and promised to stand by me when I told them. We were in our kitchen and I will never forget the look of utter despair and disappointment on their faces. Once my mother stopped crying, I was ordered to keep my condition a complete secret while they figured out what to do. I was so emotionally exhausted from carrying the load all by myself, that I was happy to let them do the thinking for a while.

Little did I know that their plans included isolating me from my community and family, housing me with strangers and the "choice" to either surrender my baby for adoption or be homeless. I became an outcast in my community and shamed by my own family. My boyfriend ran like a rabbit and denied paternity. I was given a false name, treated like a delinquent with mental and emotional problems, challenged with questions about my "fitness" whenever I mentioned keeping my baby and told that I was a bad influence on my younger sisters. I guess they thought they would catch the pregnancy virus. The words "bastard" and "slut" were thrown around like balloons at a party.

I was given medical care, but it, such as it was, was also a humiliating experience. On "clinic day," we lined up in the hall, outside the nurse's office and exam room, wearing skirts with no underwear, as directed. We would be called in, one at a time, and given pelvic examinations, whether we needed one or not, by interns doing their OB/GYN rotations, while other interns and the OB/GYN resident looked on. Often, these exams were rough and painful and always, always embarrassing and demeaning.

When the time came to deliver, I remember hearing the nurses whisper to each other that "this one is from the home." They seemed to hold me in disdain and one even told me that the pain I was experiencing was what I deserved. I had to fight to see and hold and name my baby, but I did that and cherished the time I had with her in the hospital. As soon as I was out, the Social Worker was waiting for me, at the home, with the papers. I was still hormonal from giving birth, taking pain medication and signed the papers in a daze. I also broke down in tears after signing, but was persuaded, by then, what with all the coercion, that I would be a toxic mother to my child. I found out, 33 years later, that I would have been a great mother.

This is the time that we, at SMAAC, want to present to the nation. This is the time when helpless, vulnerable young women were subjected to a grave injustice. The fact that I was sexually assaulted when my daughter was four months old, by a guy who knew my boyfriend and believed his tales of my "easy manner" means that I went through this horror, not once, but twice. That is one time in my life when I would have loved to have been a bit less fertile. But I loved my son, regardless of the means of his conception, and wanted him as desperately as I wanted his older sister.

This lack of choice, autonomy, support and comfort was part and parcel of the Era of Mass Surrenders. My story is not unique. There are minor differences in some of our stories, but the injustice, mistreatment and ultimate pain of loss are all constants. Add to that the fact that our families and others disregarded our grief and did not want to witness our mourning. So that grief, we stuffed along with all the rest of the pain, until the days of our awakening.

We know, now, that a burgeoning industry that catered to infertile couples of the "right kind" was forming around our tragedies. We were the supply conduits to meet the demands for healthy infants. It makes me wonder why our babies were in such high demand when we were characterized as morally, psychologically and socially delinquent. (*see "Wake Up Little Suzie" by Rickie Solinger)

Most of us are in our late 40's, 50's and 60's and up. Many of us have been in reunion for quite a while. I have been reunited with both my children for 15 years. Once we got past the recurrence of grief, learned a few painful, home truths about what had happened to our children and how they saw us, we began to talk to each other and that is how we learned that we are numbered in the millions. We were ordered to keep our "dirty secret," even from the men we eventually married. Many of us felt that was not appropriate and told and it was amazing that there were men who loved us for ourselves and felt that we were good enough to marry. That was NOT what we were told would happen. We were told that "no decent man would have us" if he knew.

When I became engaged to my first husband, I was even told that I would not be allowed to wear white, have music, flowers or attendants because I was no longer a virgin. So, we eloped. Since then, I have learned how many non-virgins made that trip down the aisle in their pure white and, when I married my current, wonderful husband, I WORE WHITE!

The full story of the injustices against the Senior Mothers of the EMS would take ten blogs and still not tell it all. I can only give you the summary of my punishment and pain. It's time for someone to answer to this. If they can apologize to other minorities for unfair treatment, then they can do the same for us. If they can investigate other injustices with an eye to future prevention, then they can do the same for ours. It's not just something that is right and proper..it is no less than what we deserve. We have earned justice.

Ride In The Middle Of The Road......

.....and you might get hit, get a ticket, or both. When you take the center of the route, you can get hit from both sides. Better to choose a side and then you know what will be coming at you.

We often get our hands slapped by "moderate" factions in this battle for justice for Senior Mothers and for our opinions concerning a lot of things. While I am not particularly dogmatic, and I can listen to reason if it makes sense, I also know that when I take a stand, it is important to stick to that stance and be strong in what I believe. How can we make a difference in the perception of Mothers from the EMS and what it has caused in today's world if we are constantly softening our beliefs to keep from seeming "too militant" or "polarized?"

Those of us who suffered the injustices and indignities of the EMS know who the enemy was and is. They are recognizable for their eagerness to promote infant adoption, to label young, single mothers as unfit, to want to change the law of the land to take away a woman's right to choice and to birth control, and to invoke God as their authority in adopting, campaigning for barriers to women's reproductive rights and any other pet cause that furthers their agenda.

Decades ago, we listened to our elders and (so-called "professional experts") and weakened our resolve. We allowed them to coerce us into believing that we would be toxic to our own children based on nothing more than our age, our marital and financial status and their blue-nosed, Puritanical mores. That's when we got hit, wrecked, mangled and sent to the body shop for a "make-over." Just like a car, once wrecked, never is quite the same, we never regained our virginity or, for many of us, our goals in life.

Many of us married the first man who would have us (what with us being "damaged goods") and tried to conceive "replacement children" as soon as we could. Others became the victims of secondary infertility. Some went downhill, others went, obsessively, uphill, trying to prove our worth. What was done to us was damage that cannot be fixed by outer, cosmetic means. Our hearts and souls were wrecked and scarred and would never quite function as well as before...until the light bulbs in our brains went off and we saw what needed to be done.

We have been our own mechanics. We have healed and are now out for justice. The wreck was not our fault and we are fighting the ticket. No middle of the road for us, we are taking a stance and sticking to our lane. And in doing so, we just might step on some tender toes. Too bad. To paraphrase the late, talented composer and comedy writer, Mason Williams, "they done stomped on our hearts and they mashed those suckers flat!"

So, if we seem to have a distrust of certain entities, it is with good reason. We are going back there in order to seek justice. But we'll be damned if we will stand by and allow those certain entities to take our entire society back there for another run. I have daughters, a granddaughter and a great granddaughter and I will not have them subjected to that self-righteous, arrogant judgment that took me down. If I ride in the middle of the road, there is a good chance that will happen.

So I am staying in my lane, fighting for justice for Senior Moms, voting against those who would send women back to the "barefoot and pregnant" era and naming names. We are going to be putting up a "Wall of Shame" for those who were at fault in our wrecks. Here are the names of a few that would sideswipe you if you are riding in the middle of the road.

The "Moral Majority"

The "Christian Right"

John McCain

Sarah Palin

The church-run "Crisis Pregnancy Centers"

Adoption Agencies specializing in infant adoption

Trolling PAPs who write "Dear Birthmartyr" letters

Most of the members of the Republican Party

Some of the members of the Democratic Party

Fundamentalist, Evangelical, Pentacostal and Charismatic church leaders and their sheep

The fanatics who stand outside the women's clinics, shouting and waving Bibles

US, if we don't speak up and speak out!

When I Vote

I had promised myself that I would not get too political in this blog, but the endorsement of S. Palin, moose-hunting, uber-conservative and the Republican candidate for veep by the L.A. leader of that city's chapter of NOW just blew all my good intentions out the window. Here it is as reported by Fox News; ""Speaking as an individual and not for her organization, Shelley Mandell, who is the President of the Los Angeles chapter of the National Organization for Women and a self-described lifelong Democrat, has endorsed Sarah Palin.

Please Note*, it is on record that the National Organization for Women, as an entity, endorses the Barack-Biden ticket because they are our best bet for protection of our reproductive rights as far as birth control and Roe v Wade is concerned. Palin is an evangelical, anti-choice Tweedle Dum to McCain's Tweedle Dee. Mandell has lost her perspective somewhere along the line and is endorsing with her vagina. This is what I was afraid might happen when Hillary Clinton lost the nomination and McCain's machine dusted off Palin and pulled her in. Sorry, Ms. Mandell, but Palin's gender does not qualify her for the big ticket.

When I vote, and I don't vote in every election, (I'm not big, for instance, on who sits on the school boards in FL. This state is sunk, anyway.) I try to use my head. When I do exercise that right and privilege that was hard-won for me by sister militants from an earlier age, I vote with my brain, not my genitals or my race. While both sides of the aisle are fairly adoption-friendly, I know where our best chances lie to keep our personal freedoms as women and it isn't with Perky Palin and Mr. McCain. I also know where the best chance lies of finding an open mind to hear our stories and it isn't in the direction of the GOP.

Just as there are the "Birthmartyrs" who betray their sister mothers with their attitudes and philosophies, there are also members of our own gender who are NOT in it to help out their sisters. My view of Palin is of a power-greedy hypocrite. There are enough scandals in her background and that of her hubby to merit a vote against her if you want to think like her party does, but her platform and views are all it takes for me. Her pregnant daughter is not in that list. Let's just hope that expected grandchild of this inexperienced fish from a sparsely-populated pond doesn't wind up surrendered for adoption.

I don't watch the debates. I read them, later. But make no mistake...I keep myself informed. There is no such thing as the perfect candidate for anyone, but an anti-choice adopter and an anti-choice evangelical on the same ticket gives me the creeps. I will be throwing my support behind Obama and Biden and pray that I don't have to move out of the country if they don't win. I don't believe we can trust McCain/Palin, either financially, with foreign policy or with our personal rights. It would be just a continuation of the lame duck disaster now sitting in Washington, enjoying the down time.

Call me crazy, but voting for a veep candidate just because she is a woman is like choosing a school for your child just because the principal has blue eyes. Vagina voting is knee-jerk and unbecoming for thinking women.

Please remember, Sisters. It's not what's between the legs but what is in the platform that counts.

Reunion Is Just The Start

In the adoption support arena, the main thrust has been obtaining and maintaining reunion between the mothers who lost to adoption and their adult adopted children. Sometimes it works and sometimes, the stress of the stigma and the separation throws the whole thing into a cocked hat. It is what it is and we try to learn to live with it.

But for Senior Mothers from the EMS (Era of Mass Surrenders), it is no longer about reunion. Some of us have been reunited with our children for nearly 20 years. My own reunions are 15 years old. Once the pink cloud cleared and we stopped listening to the destructive, demeaning tapes that were planted in our brains, we started thinking for ourselves (what a concept!) and coming to some startling conclusions.

We have found ourselves remembering and confronting the horror of our tragedy that was intermingled with the joy of giving life. We have noted and compared notes on how we were treated by family, clergy, social workers, extended family and the community at large. We are gathering our medical data and case records and finding that there were many things that were done that were very, very wrong.

The birth and subsequent loss to adoption of our newborns was not, for us, the beginning of the story. Our stories began with the realization that we were pregnant, with the horror of confronting our parents, with, for many of us, the abandonment by the fathers of our babies, with shaming, stigmatizing, and emotional manipulation. There was the isolation that was the maternity prisons. Being sent away from home, from all we held close, and put into an environment that was, in many instances, totally punitive is a common thread in our stories.

Being used by the people who were responsible for our medical care as "practice patients" for interns, given medications we should not have been given, and laboring under the disdainful eyes of morally offended nurses were parts and parcels of the punishment we had to endure. The best reading for this era is Rickie Solinger's "Wake Up Little Suzie" and Ann Fessler's "The Girls Who Went Away." Both these books give insight into the attitude towards the unwed, usually white and middle-class, mothers of our day.

During this horrible period of isolation, most of us were doing what most pregnant moms-to-be do...we were falling in love with our babies and having to deal with the fact that we might never see our child after she or he was born. Some of us looked out windows and daydreamed of the fathers coming to rescue us and our child. The fact that it didn't happen or wasn't allowed to happen is evident by our sheer numbers.

In SMAAC, we look only at the mistreatment, the emotional and mental manipulation, the injustices that would let a minor sign away her child while refusing her jobs, an education, or even a place to live. People could treat human beings like that back then because of "moral reasons." We also look at the life-long damage that this treatment caused and that reunion could not repair.

Reunion was just the beginning of our awakening. It was the spring-board, for many of us, to self-esteem, strength and renewed sense of purpose. The isolating, shaming, manipulation, punishment and ultimate harvesting of our infants, indiscriminately and with no thought to our grief and pain was wrong then as it is wrong today. This is a women's issue, even if our silent sisters at NOW don't include this. Men were the ones who created this atmosphere of the scarlet letter. Our boyfriends were the ones who walked away with a wink and a nudge while we hid, labored and bled.

THAT is what SMAAC is about...it is about injustice, it is about acknowledgement and, above all, Sister Senior Mothers, for a change, it is about US.

THEY LURK!!!!!!!!

It was really weird that the entire time my friend was visiting, you couldn't see a single gator no matter how hard you looked. The best we were able to do was sight some of the gentle eddys they leave behind when they submerge.

Nevertheless, I had to constantly ensure her that, yes, there are many, many alligators in Florida waters, but sometimes they are hard to spot. Often, at certain times of the day, they will be lurking, just under the surface, doing their predator thing. It was so comical that, driving back from the airport after dropping her off, I crossed Lake Jesup and counted 5 gators swimming north. I don't think she will ever believe me. She told me when I showed her a gator, she'd show me a leprechaun.

That "lurking behavior" turned my mind to the more destructive forces on the Internet adoption circuit. Some of our own can be our worst enemies. Just like a gator can lie in the water and look like a floating log until it finds prey, the mixers and users can blend in and seem to be just another adoption-affected person until they show their teeth. Self-promotion and attempts at recruitment are just a couple of the things they can do to mess up our fondest dreams.

Pro-adoption factions, agency personnel and adopters, also often lurk on adoption activism sites, just under the water where the shadows hide them while they observe and try to find the weaknesses in our ranks. That's not paranoia....that's facts. They are the big gators...the ones with the money and the pull with congressional reps and judges. If it looks like we are starting to make a difference, they can call in their spin doctors and, "Chomp! Chomp!," we're gator food.

We have a little rule of thumb, here in gator-land. We never go walking close to wild water alone and we don't let little children and small pets close to the water's edge. Alligators can move quite fast on land...especially a female with a nest. The joke goes that if you are careful and walk with a friend, when the gator comes at you, you trip your friend up and then run. The gator will make herself busy with your buddy so that you can get away. That sounds like some of the Internet poseurs who call themselves our "friends and sisters." That's the self-involved mom-gator.

But with the adoption-gator, we do have to guard our small, precious loved ones with steely resolution. They are there, just under your radar, waiting for you to feel the least bit insecure about your single pregnancy, or taking a break from a day of housework or just looking for information. They swallow infants and toddlers whole and then smile at you and belch.

Guard your precious cargo, mothers, Remember that the log by the shore could be a vicious carnivore.