Someone Is Thinking Straight in Malawi

Huzzah and Hallelulia! The Malawi court has spoken. It seems that all the judges in this little nation cannot be bought by wealth and celebrity. Citing the 18-month residency requirement for adopting, a court has ruled that Madonna, the material, serial adopter-celeb, cannot adopt little Mercy James. This is good news, I am sure, for Mercy's grandmother and other family members. The photo at the left is the official reading of the order denying the adoption. At the right, looking extremely sweet, is the child in question.

It is being observed that, when the singer/actress adopted young David Banda, she was, at the time, married to Guy Ritchie. Now divorced, she petitioned to adopt Mercy as a single "parent." I can't help but chuckle at that one. It's about time that the sauce for the goose became gravy for the gander. Even if I do decry the sexism in that idea, it couldn't have impacted on a more deserving target.

At least one child, for now, has escaped the international adoption craze. This little girl is not going to be an accessory or artificial halo. Nor will she be an object for the arrogant assumption by a wealthy person that they would make a superior "mother." I hope, when she gets older, Mercy is able to count her blessings on this one.

I read about David Banda's (Madonna's first Malawi acquisition) visit with his father and was appalled. He said many things that lead me to believe that he had been coached. I am sure, all protestations aside, that the poor man was crushed by his son's inability to connect to him and the lack of sensitivity to his poverty, occupation and culture.

I am even more appalled at the kind of message this is giving the young women of today. I have even read where girls are talking about growing up to ADOPT. Hey! What happened to becoming mothers the way nature intended? Equally disturbing is the casual comment from a few years ago by a young co-worker. She said that, if she should become pregnant while still single and in school, she would want one of her professors, an infertile woman, to adopt the baby. She looked at me like I was speaking ancient Sanskrit when I mentioned that it would be a painful experience for her and her child to surrender her baby for adoption. "Oh, things aren't like that, anymore," she replied. I wonder if she believes that mothers no longer feel the pain and grief of loss?

Well, at least one adoption has been thwarted, for now, and it proves that money and fame cannot always get what it wants when it wants it. I sincerely hope that Ms. Cone-Tits plays with her boy-toys and backs off.

Now, if someone will just jam a stick in the spokes of Angelina's adoption wheel, I'll feel there is some justice in the world.

All's Fair In Adoption?

It would seem, according to this CNN story, that breaking the law of any country is okie-dokie if the perpetrator is a pair of adopters who "dreamed of becoming parents." In a country (Egypt) where adoption is not legal, our "heroes" falsified documents in order to procure children for their "parenting needs."

As the story comes out, the attorneys for these people are going for the sympathy vote by waxing eloquently about their overwhelming need for a child. The bitch of it is that no one respects the laws of the country involved, just as no one respects the culture of the country of a child's birth or the person who brought a child into the world. No...all the sympathy is with the heroic, saintly adopters who suffer from infertility. The suffering of the mothers, grief and pain, and the suffering of the children who are not allowed their own, true heritage, take a back seat to the problems of the infertile and the adopters seeking social canonization. In 1962, if I had been told that I had to either lose my children to adoption(which is what I was told to do) or be infertile and never give birth, I think I would have chosen the latter.

What is wrong with this picture? Have we, the American public, fallen so fast and hard for the industry hype that we only validate the pain of the adopters while negating the deeper pain of the mothers of adoption loss and their children, shorn of their civil right to their own identities?

What about the case of the couple who abducted and raised a young man after the mother and father changed their minds about surrender? Not only did the kidnappers (and make no mistake...that is what they are) get all the sympathy, but even the abductee involved was supportive of the criminals that raised him. No one spared a thought for the parents that had searched for their son for years. I still do a slow burn over the injustice of that one.

So now falsifying birth certificates in Egypt and breaking the laws of that nation is being excused as a means to a "noble" end. How noble is adoption which is really all about the selfish needs of the adults that adopt and the money made by the industry? No one who really knows the score pretends, any longer, that it is all about the children, except the industry spin doctors and the adopters, themselves. There is no compassion for the mothers who have been made to represent the "sins of Eve" to the prudish and hard-nosed among us. And the children are seen as ungrateful if they, as adults, insist on their civil rights.

When did our world become so off-kilter that there is no compassion for mothers who lose their children and children deprived of their mothers? Why is that sacred bond no longer honored for what it is? Natural family preservation seems to only be for those that follow obscure and judgmental rules that have nothing to do with loving thy neighbor. Churches have long tried to keep their hands in the social engineering pot, doing all they can do to see that children are raised by "the right kind" of people, ie., those who follow the tenets of the church.

Somewhere in this land of myth and legend, there has to be someone who cringes at the thought of punishing an unmarried and/or financially disadvantaged mother by taking her child. Diogenes needs to lend us his lantern, but, rather than searching for an honest man, we need to search for what we have lost...balanced values and true compassion.

It's out there. I know it is.

Separation Anxiety Is The Pits!!

We've only had him since December 13. He sheds, he wakes me up at 5:00AM for walkies and he loves to bark at anything and everything. He also owns our hearts, totally.

Today, I had to leave him at the vet. Rocky's unfortunate dietary quirks (snatching old garbage and worse if we don't get to him in time) has given him a case of pancreatitis. He will be receiving shots and IV fluids for three days and will be on meds and a special diet for the next three weeks.

As I watched the tech walk away with him, I found myself shaking and fighting back the tears, even though I know he is going to be OK. It just reminded me, too much, of how I felt when I had to say goodbye to my two oldest children. Of course, I know he is just a dog, but he is a member of the family and most dearly loved. If it is shaking me up this much to leave my dog at the animal hospital, how did I ever manage to make it without my babies?

I remember going totally numb after the second loss. I didn't want to feel anything. I was a zombie, emotionally. For years, I would become a screaming bitch every April and June. I would hide it, as best I could, from my raised children, but it was only denial, self-anesthetizing with excess food, pot and fantasy that allowed me to live any semblance of a normal life.

Someone on one of the groups said that every social worker should be a mother of adoption loss as part of the required experience for the job. Boy, would that turn things around! Every mother who has lost a child to adoption, unless she is cold to the bone, who insists she did the "right thing" and "has no regrets" is lying to herself. That lie will consume her, from the inside out. It will haunt her, even if she can't recognize the specter for what it is.

Adoptees are not the only ones who suffer from abandonment issues and separation anxiety. We moms have it, as well. Especially the separation anxiety. They say I will have him back in three days. I wish it had worked that way with my babies.

Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da

Life goes on, YEAH!

This is the very first picture I received of my newest great-grandson, Sean. He is now a healthy 4-month old. He is the grandson of my reunited daughter, my firstborn.

Sean comes into the world with his heritage intact. His genetic relatives are alive and kicking. Those of the adoptive variety are deceased or scattered. I and I, alone, have the honor of being his paternal great- grandmother.

Sean's big brother and his cousins know that Grandma was raised by other people, but that I am, in my oldest great-grandson's words, their REAL great-grandma. I am the one that sends Christmas and birthday gifts and receives the pictures and relates the stories about the cute things they say and do. There is no confusion or misunderstandings about why they have full lips, straight hair or big feet.

I hope you will forgive me a bit of a "so there!" attitude on this one. All the attempts, by the industry, the social workers playing God, and the adopters trying to live a fantasy, to wipe out the natural heritage of my children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren has come to naught. Their socially engineered "solution" to my problem and that of my daughter's adopters has faded like a fog in the sun. Yes, we have the scars from that weird transplant surgery called adoption, but they are not crippling us for life and have not hidden the truth from the world. I am here, alive, available and honest about it all.

My reunited son also has the full story. I was noting, during a recent phone call, that he has a mannerism very much like one of my mother's and my raised daughter's. His reply was that you could "take the boy out of the Kinneys, but you couldn't take the Kinney out of the boy." I think that is a testament to the fact that the entire idea of secret, closed, coerced adoptions under the auspices of an intolerant society, has failed, completely.

Those trying to protect this struggling, sick dinosaur by filing suit to try to keep records closed, by closing off so-called "open" adoptions and raising the non-existent specter of (natural)Parents' right to privacy are spitting in the wind. Whether it happens in my lifetime or down the road, the beast is dying of internal rot. Adoption agencies are dropping like flies and all the corruption and child-theft is coming to light in the world at large. Mothers of adoption loss from the closed, secret era are making noises that repute the right of the nay-sayers to speak for them.

It was while organizing my photos and lingering over those of my great-grandchildren, the ones the industry would have prevented me ever knowing, that it came to me that every word we type or speak is being read or heard by someone. I can get discouraged at times, but I stood back and took a look and realized that what they are hearing are the first tremors of the earthquake to come. The industry and those that benefit from it are hearing the rumblings and feeling uneasy. I love to watch the adult adoptees, our children, rattle the chains of the status quo.

The dinosaurs were eradicated. The saber-tooth cat and the mammoth are no more. But life goes on. It will go on long after I am gone. And the best thing is that ALL my descendants will know from which branch of the Tree of Life they grew.

To those who shamed, punished, coerced us and tried to silence us; Ain't this a kick in the head?

PS: A Poll

Sandy Young, creator of SMAAC, has posted a poll where we can vote on the issue of who speaks for mothers. Please click on the link and go vote. We need to let these people know that they are not speaking for the majority, nor have they received our permission to speak for us.

Let's get the word out.

Thanks!!

Dummyless, Dumbass Ventriloquists

The National Council For Adoption has published a mysteriously late reply to the E.B. Donaldson Insitute report published in 2007. The article from the NCFA, entitled "Mutual Consent; Balancing the (Natural/rw)Parent's Privacy With The Adopted Person's Right To Know," comes up with the same old stale arguments about something THEY say we mothers were "promised" and that we, presumably, desired.

The Natural Parents, whose so-called privacy this group is so eager to protect, are those of us from the secret, closed adoption era...the EMS/BSE. Once again, they are telling our adult children, "Don't blame US if you don't know. It's your (Natural)Mother's right to privacy that is the catch."

With absolutely no respect due, BULLSHIT. I am so sick of these spin doctors speaking for me and my sister mothers I could scream. I am not the Charlie McCarthy to either the NCFA's or the EBDI's Edgar Bergen. I am a mature woman of reasonable intelligence and I can speak for myself. To both these entities and to all the legislators (mostly attorneys elected to office with an interest in keeping adoption a going concern), agency owners and social workers across this great nation of ours, here is an open message. NEVER, IN THE PAST WHEN I GAVE BIRTH AND SURRENDERED DUE TO COERCION, NOR NOW, IN THE PRESENT, HAVE I EVER ASKED FOR OR BEEN PROMISED CONFIDENTIALITY WHERE MY OWN CHILDREN ARE CONCERNED. STOP TRYING TO SPEAK FOR ME!!!!! Honestly and frankly, any confidentiality rules were strictly for the benefit of those who adopted our children. They are the geese that layed the golden eggs for the facilitators and they are the ones who really received the privacy protection...not us.

I wish I had a lot of money. I would plaster this truth on huge billboards on every highway in America. Yes, there might be a few, timid women who drank the Kool Aid and still believe that their lives and families are forfeit if the truth came out about their unmarried motherhood. But these women can also speak for themselves. They can say, "No." It's that simple. Meanwhile, the majority, ie., the rest of us who have grown past the secrets and lies are speaking up and these self-appointed, clueless nimrods are not listening.

They also have not noticed the mothers who have braved the dire warnings we received when we were told to go and sin no more, and have searched for and found their adult children, themselves. That doesn't sound like a need for privacy to me. Of course, some of the closed records proponents consider this the action of an emotionally unsound woman. They tried to label us with that one when we became pregnant with our surrendered children. Recommended reading on this factoid, among many other insights into the era, is Rickie Solinger's "Wake Up Little Suzie."

When are these arrogant poseurs going to realize that they are no longer dealing with vulnerable, frightened teens and young women in a socially unbalanced era? We are women in our 50's and 60's and older. We have seen social changes and technological advances that would boggle the mind. We are stronger, wiser and able to handle our own affairs. We can decide and choose, for ourselves, those to whom we will and/or will not open our lives. WE will speak to our adult children. WE will decide how much of a relationship we want on our end. WE will decide what information is too private and what can be shared.

One of the awful side effects of this idea of Natural Parent privacy is the idea that, should records be open, we might be required, by law, to reveal our souls. Besides being unconstitutional, I don't think that such a law could override the HIPAA requirements. This idea is heinous in that it puts us back into the role of a criminal who has committed no real crime. No one, in this country, is required to share intimate information against their will.

Even the timid and reticent among us can spare an hour over a cup of coffee, to share the information that our adult children need. It's not rocket science. It should be clear and simple. In fact, it is the NCFA and the closed-records proponents that have muddied the waters. Our children have the right to know their heritage, to have answers to their questions and to have a relationship with their family of origin if such is their desire. We Natural Mothers have a right to know the fate and welfare of our children, the sacred responsibility to share our heritage and answer questions, and to have a relationship if we wish to have one. I would think that, say, a 63-year-old woman and her 46-year-old daughter could work out those details between them without any outside help.

Our children are no longer helpless infants. They are not possessions nor are they eternal children, never to be allowed adult autonomy. We Mothers are no longer unempowered, vulnerable young women. We can think for ourselves and we can express ourselves. We are adults seeking or being sought by other adults. What about this doesn't the NCFA understand?

For the 10,000th time, Stop Speaking For Us...We Mothers Can Speak For Ourselves!!!!!

Parents and Other Monsters

Gee, weren't we just NIFTY?? It seems that, whether our personal families during the EMS were the ideal, neat and polished, nuclear picture of Normal Rockwell domesticity or not, we still tried to see ourselves that way.

Thinking about the issue of our parents and their role in our surrender traumas, I had to point out how the media, network and film censors, and the government presented the image of what we (according to them) SHOULD have been. Lucy and Rickie Arnaz produced Little Ricky while sleeping in separate beds. Mrs. Cleaver kept a spotless house while flawlessly attired in pumps and pearls and a darling, little shirtwaist. Even the movie "bedroom farces" of the early 1960's showed Doris Day and Jim Garner sleeping in the omnipresent twin beds. (And he portrayed an obstetrician in that movie!)

This picture of the ideal family, domesticity and squeaky-clean values was beginning to mix with the sexual and social revolution of the 60's and it seems that all Hell broke loose in real families across our land. I know that I was confused about it all and was not sure why my family was not quite like the model that was presented as the quintessential American family.

George Orwell's "1989" was THE book that spoke of the horror of government control over individual lives. While we read and shivered at the specter of Big Brother and smugly assumed our individual freedoms were in effect, society was already controlling our lives right down to the most personal aspects. Neighbors were watchdogs (what would they think???) of our perceived moral fiber and politicians plotted ultimate solutions.

This was the heyday of the social worker, the nun, the attorney, the OB/GYN and the adopters. These people worked, in collusion with agencies, maternity homes and our own parents to warehouse us, coerce us and break our spirits for daring to go against the social norm. The unmarried mother was the unsightly dust to be swept away and out of sight before the ladies dropped by for tea. I know of one mother who was kept inside until time for her to go to the maternity home, and was led out, in the dead of night, to her brother's car to be taken away while no one was watching.

I know how hurt I was that my mother feared my influence on my two younger sisters. It was as if we had some kind of communicable disease. Watch out for that pregnancy germ! We were supposed to be stronger than the forces of Nature and in control at a time in our lives when our formative libidos were in Perfect Storm Mode. I think the worst part of my experience, back then, was learning that my shame would be shared by my entire family, unfair as that seems, if my terrible secret were to be made known. It became my responsibility, young, scared and hormonal though I was, to protect the entire clan from social disgrace. God/dess help me, I loved my mother, my sisters, my entire family and I didn't want to hurt them.

My motherhood and my two oldest children were sacrificed at the altar of the almighty SOCIETY. It is recognizing this and knowing my mother truly loved me that has enabled me to forgive her for her fear and her part in the surrender of my children. We trusted these invisible forces that decreed what was acceptable and what was not. We were caught up in the post-war naivete' and the strict, asexual mores of the Bible Belt South. It took me years to realize that any group, society or entity that had that many rules governing a simple, natural function of the body, must be obsessed with it. Sex must have been on their minds 24/7.

Some parents were less loving and more appalled than others. They can't all be lumped together as the lead monsters in the horror movie that was the EMS. But I would like to think that the parents of today are less conditional in their love for their children and stronger in supporting them. We all trip and fall at sometime in our lives. In the final analysis, shouldn't family be there to pick us up, tend our wounds and help us deal with the outcome?

My mother truly and sincerely thought she was doing just that. She thought she was protecting my future. She was mistaken. I can't hate her or put all the blame on her shoulders. I cannot withhold forgiveness for her mistake. But I can and will continue to hold the real monsters culpable and call on them to answer for what was done.

And I always thought Wally and the Beaver were Nerds!

The Times, They Have A-Change-ed!

On the BSERI website front page, if you scroll down a bit, you will find facts, figures and unassailable truths that show how different things are now for the unmarried, pregnant woman and teen. I have to praise the work that went into gathering those pertinent pieces of information.

At the same time, I have to acknowledge that there were little pockets of backwards thinking in different areas of the country or in individual families which means that there was a bit of the same treatment of a few mothers into the 1980's. However, one has to admit that the public nature of this information should have reached just about everyone and, for many, after the EMS, the mythology and misinformation about the repercussions of surrender were the only weapon the industry had.

There is one younger mother whose honesty I admire. Believe it or not, she is not threatened by the truth about the differences between my era and hers. She stated that she was making a decision based on not having to depend, in any way, on the father of her child, that she fell for the "loving option" hype and refused to listen to older mothers when they tried to warn her about how painful surrender is for both the mother and the child. Now, years later, she understands what she didn't back then and is an active advocate for natural family preservation.

Another thing that she and I have discussed is how important it is that the young people of today have a better understanding of birth control and safe sex. The Puritanical attitudes of our nation have, thus far, prevented really effective sex education in our schools. The lucky kids are the ones whose parents are realistic and open about the subject. The rest get their information the way those of my generation did...from their peers. Such information is often faulty or incomplete or both (especially if it is panted in a girl's ear by a testosterone-driven boyfriend).

Sometimes, I really have to wonder if this hue and cry by the religious right against sex education and access to birth control is because they have a stake in procuring infants to be raised by what they consider to be "the right kind of people." The desire to be a driving force in social engineering is right up the fundies' alley. They know that Abstinence Only and Purity Pledges are not very effective.

A recent study showed that those teens who made the Purity Pledges were not only as likely to wind up having sex, but were more likely to have unprotected sex. Along comes a big-money industry to tell these wide-eyed kids that they will be the next thing to Joan of Arc if they surrender their babies for adoption. I think I will gag if I hear the term, "making an adoption plan" one more time. It is supposed to make the mother feel empowered but its end result is just the opposite. It's right up there with the nasty comments from the ignorant about "babies having babies."

How I wish that we had been given the options and freedoms that are now in place. I could have finished school with my classmates. I could have raised my two oldest children and their fathers would have had to contribute to their support. I could have prosecuted my son's father for date-rape and been heard with, at least, some sympathy. I could have protected myself from further unplanned pregnancies and no one could have denied me jobs or housing. I would have been less shamed and had more self-esteem. Perhaps, just perhaps, I could have really had the support that I needed from my parents.

We can't go back and change what happened. SMAAC and the activism of the Senior Mother is not about trying to change the past. It is about shining the light of truth on the injustices of that time and we are doing it for US. We were the victims of a horrible, social inequality and punitive actions of that society. None of us, whether we are active with this group, BSERI or any other, have come out of our experience unscathed. We have worked our butts off to become emotionally, spiritually and mentally more healthy and have made lives for ourselves. We are not just about the loss of our children taken for adoption. But we all bear the scars.

We are not going to conceal these scars any longer. We are already working to get the message across to the social workers and mental health care professionals. We are not "pitting ourselves against" ANYONE.

We are helping ourselves.

Mixers

I was in my late teens in 1964 when "A Hard Day's Night" came out. It was cute, mindless entertainment, but I learned something from it. I now know what a Mixer is...or should I say, WHO a Mixer is.

The late, great character actor, Wilfrid Brambel, an Irish gem, had the part of Paul McCartney's grandfather. The loose and largely innocuous plot has Grandpa doing all he can to make money off his grandson's success and keep a turmoil going, especially with poor Ringo. Other people in the film would note that he was "a very clean old man" to which Paul would reply, "yes, but he is a bit of a Mixer."

It dawned on me that I had known and did know quite a few Mixers...people who, for reasons of their own, just had to keep the pot stirred just for the sake of the stirring. Whether it is the entertainment value of watching others react or for something more concrete, the Mixer gets something out of the mess she sets in motion. The best response to a Mixer is to do what Paul, John and George did with Paul's pretend grandfather. They ignored him.

As a member of SMAAC, I am going to say this one more time. We do not assume or claim to be the one voice for all mothers of adoption loss. That is an arrogance best left to others. We are the voice of those who have come out of the fog into which the deciders of our era led us, who see the injustice and who think along the same lines. While we may be of different political and religious beliefs, we pretty much see the injustice of our experiences the same way.

The Mixers will try to take what we post at our site and on our individual blogs and twist it in order to cause a tempest in a teapot. If you want to know what SMAAC is about, it is better that you visit our website and ask a member. If you get your information from a Mixer, you can bet that it has been chopped, diced, covered and smothered so that the simple truths are twisted into an unrecognizable mess.

Remember, the Mixer knows exactly what she is doing. She wants to use our opinion pieces on our blogs as a forum for arguments. She wants to twist all that she can in order to discredit one or all of us. She will trample on long-standing friendships and pit group against group. When called on it, she will give you the hairy eyeball, maybe work up a tear or two, and send you a three-page email on why she is right and you are wrong. The Mixer places a bug in the ear of whoever might be susceptible and insecure and sits back and watches the results.

Yes, the Mixer wants something, but it doesn't matter what she wants. What matters is what she will do to get it and whether or not she is allowed to get away with it. While I am not into dichotomous thinking, I know that if it quacks, waddles and has feathers, it is probably a duck. I am not going to conjecture that there might be a bit of swan in its makeup because that isn't possible. I only have one piece of advice for my friends in the movement that are working for what they deem to be right and important.

Beware the Mixer.

The Wise Adoptee

There are so many wise women among us. I have received much good advice from the women who have lived the pain of losing their child/ren or their mothers. Most of us are in our later years and have learned a lot and gained a lot from our years. One of these wise women is an adoptee in our age group.


My friend, and I am so proud to call her a friend, Celeste Billartz, poet, singer and songwriter and an adult adoptee, posted some reunion wisdom that blew me away in its profound truth and simplicity. Just about every mistake a mother of adoption loss and the adult adoptee could make is addressed and the watchwords are mutual respect and kindness. Simple and straightforward, these words of caution and instruction should become the new rules for reunion.


She also tells another truth.....that there are a small number among us that are so damaged, self-involved and, well, just not wrapped too tight, that there is no hope for a normal relationship. I've seen this in both adult adoptees and mothers...thank God/dess not too many of them.

If you want to know what you are doing wrong and have the ability to learn from another and critique yourself, click on that link in the paragraph above. These are simple truths and they prove that, when reunion in concerned, good manners and consideration are the way to go.

We tend to complicate things for some reason. My grandmother used to call it "going around your ass to get to your elbow." It took me a while, Grandma, but I finally figured out what you were saying. Who says we Senior women don't have something to contribute?

While we are not just about reunion, reunion is part of the picture. Many of us are past the stumbling stage and into mentally and emotionally confronting the injustice of our experience. Reunion was the spark that ignited us into overt grief and self-realization. It was the awakening and the emerging from the fog of denial for many mothers. Who knows but what a lot of us, mothers and adult children, could have handled everything a lot better if we had been blessed with Celeste's acquired wisdom?

Well, it isn't too late for mothers and adoptees new to the roller coaster of reunion. I intend to pass this one along.

Thank you, my friend.

Weary But Undefeated

Coming down from that hope-filled high, today, I realize my weariness.

Hope is not a pep pill.

I feel the ache and the stress of the struggle, deep in my bones.

The frustration and irritation have stolen over me...a soporific of annoyance...calling me to sleep....to cease caring....to give up.

I can't listen. I will rest, and I will not give up.

But I fear the day is coming, sooner than before, when I will not rise from my rest, refreshed and ready to join in the battle.

The urgency is as great as the enervation.

How can we bridge the gap in understanding?

How can we mend the tears in the fabric of our collective journey?

Why must we continue to try to answer questions contrived, by the askers, to be unanswerable? (Do you still beat your wife?)

Why should we have to justify justice?

Pick, pick, slap and slander...it is a litany of immaturity and insecurity.

We run that gauntlet and try not to feel the blows.

We stare into the mirror at the gray hair and lines in the face and invoke the inner strength of the younger us.

So, every day is given to work, to solving and reasoning, along with living. And we also have rest.

Dr. King was often weary. So was Gandhi.

In fiction, Don Quixote was on in years when he mounted his steed and charged the fearsome windmill.

Let us hope our courage is equal but know that our minds and targets are clearer.

I have not forgotten you, young girl with the sad eyes and empty arms.

I have not deserted you. Just let me rest and you rest with me.

We will rise from our bed.

I am weary but I am not defeated.

Robin Westbrook (c) 1/23/2009

If He Can, So Can We

The TV cameras scanned the crowd as one young, slender, fresh-faced, man of mixed heritage and strong vision addressed them. Many in the crowd, both black and white, were moved to tears by the moment and by his words. Many of us watching on television cried freely. America, the land of unbridled capitalism, international arrogance and conspicuous consumption, was seeing history and finding it refreshing for most, alarming for some.

Our president gave us a vision and a challenge and chided, gently, those who wanted the power and gain of the status quo. He was also visible, walking proof of the success of a struggle that was part of my social landscape in the late 50's and early 60's. He was a realization of a very famous Dream and those who died for this day have to be smiling in their rest. Despite all the bigotry, all the hatred and the fears of the establishment, we have come closer to being what our constitution says we should be. We are on the road to exploring the REAL meaning of patriotism.

During those years when President Obama's father would have been denied a seat in a restaurant, there was another large group suffering punitive discrimination, just because the powers-that-were COULD. Millions of mostly white, mostly middle-class, mostly teenage young women were being warehoused and coerced into surrendering the most precious cargo they nurtured in their bodies. MANY of these young women did what they were told because they were given no choice. MANY were forced against their wills. They were the ones whose experience was never spoken aloud, who were told to keep a secret because an unjust society deemed it both shameful and expedient for its purposes. Many complied, some did not. This social injustice spawned a large generation of women who suffered an undying grief. It was passed on to their surrendered children who suffered confusion, pain and identity issues.

In that parade, yesterday, were some of the Tuskegee Airmen and the Buffalo Soldiers portrayers...reminders of man's inhumanity to man. They have seen a day they thought they never would see in their lifetime. Now, so many members of our silent, grieving sisterhood have placed a tentative foot on the path to justice, just as did Dr. King and his supporters over 45 years ago. Now, we have a leader with an open mind and ear. We're older, more tired and frustrated on many fronts, but we are learning. Call me a cockeyed idealist, but I believe, if you are in the right, you can eventually succeed.

If they can do it, why can't we? Yes, we can. Power to the mothers of the EMS!

Remembering Di

I am adding a permanent link to this website, created by Lily Arthur as a memorial and continuation of her work for the late, and sorely missed, Dian Wellfare. Di was a Senior Mother from Australia's nasty BSE. She was a pioneer and advisor and a fighter for the rights of mothers.

If you want to know what it was like during the Oz EMS, cast around and see if you can find a copy of the Australian TV documentary "Gone To A Good Home" which chronicles Lily's story and has statements from other mothers, including Di. I have watched this, twice, and cried both times.

The work of the original Origins NSW, founded by Di, has placed Australia in the forefront of genuine adoption reform. The number of adoptions, per capita, is astonishingly low when compared to the US of Adoption. Australian celebrities such as Nichole Kidman and Hugh Jackman are trying to bring it back into vogue, but the government and the activists seem to be holding a reasonable line.

I had several chances to exchange emails, ideas and information with Di and she was one sharp lady. On a personal level, she made no pretenses to being anything other than what she was...an activist and an advocate for others like herself. Her research was thorough and her views were acute and accurate. She was strong and persistent and cared, deeply, about those who had been wounded by the crimes against mothers during the EMS. She went through her final illness privately and with dignity.

Please visit Di's Site and you will be sincerely moved.

New Year, Same Old Myths

What with open records going into effect in Maine, there just had to be someone who would trot out that old chestnut about NATURAL parent privacy. This time, the Portland Press Herald editorial board has at it and, as usual, conveys all the old, erroneous mythology and the abject terror of a tiny group of mothers who can't shake the shame from decades ago. You can read all about it at Bastardette's blog.

How many times are we going to have to say it? We have adoption facilitators and attorneys that, by twisting the truth, have perpetrated a lie that the general public still believes. The ONLY time we had any privacy or anonymity was when our parents were hiding us and our swollen bellies away from the sight of the neighbors. Those surrender documents that many of us signed had not a word about any kind of guaranteed "privacy" from our own children! The concept, in and of itself, is ridiculous.

The real scoop is that it was the adopters that had the guarantee of privacy and protection from the specter of the natural mother showing up, having changed her mind. I remember being threatened with prison should I ever try to find my children. Privacy stipulations were NOT put in place for the protection of the natural mother. They are there, solely, for the perpetration of the parenthood fantasy of the adopter.

Yes, there is a small, actually minute, number of mothers who never got past the shame that was placed on them by their families and the facilitators. They lied to the men they married and carried that lie with them for years until it threatened to blow up in their faces. I have seen many a mother tell her husband and raised children about the child she lost to adoption and, in most cases, these family members were lovingly supportive and even excited.

My biggest gripe with the Portland paper, the Evan B. Donaldson Institute, the NSFA, the AAC and others is that all these people take it upon themselves to speak for the mothers. In case they haven't been watching or listening, we have found our voice and we are going to tell the truth of our experiences whether they like it or not. No one has been given the right to speak for all of us. No one "voice" is the go-to for the skinny on the natural mother experience because there are different circumstances and eras.

It's time for the talking heads and the self-appointed experts (among them, sad to say, mothers who think that what was true for them is true for all) to step back and let us speak for ourselves. We have voices, we have brains and we have the real scoop for all to hear. One of those realities is that most of us would never elect to not be contacted by our own child of our body.

Take a seat and lend an ear, because you are going to hear from us. Happy New Year!!!

So Much For "Abstinence Only"

It's official! A Federal Study has concluded that teenage "virginity pledges" are ineffective. An article by Rob Klein of the Washington Post states that the study has shown that teens who take this pledge are just as likely as those who did not "pledge purity" to have sex prior to matrimony. It also shows that these teens are less likely to use condoms or any other form or birth control or protection against STD's. Maybe, just maybe, this study will take our national heads out of our arses and get us cracking on effective sex education, access to birth control and other programs to help our children protect themselves.

For the Federal Government to give funding to these abstinence programs while letting sex education and accessible birth control/STD protection struggle for support is unrealistic and pandering to the far, religious right, as usual. Taking us back, as a nation, to the bad, old days of punitive, sexist attitudes and actions is not going to help things. It did nothing then, of worth, and will do nothing now.

Over the decades, we Senior Mothers of the EMS saw a lot of progress in this area. Information about birth control became more accessible to single women, safe, legal, medical abortion became available and single parenthood became more socially acceptable. Many parents were even providing their teens with an open invitation to talk about it if they became sexually active and supplied protection for their kids. Yes, it's hard to think about our little Susies and Tommys doing the nasty, but remember how those hormones and emotions ran amok in you when you were that age? With all the sexual messages in the media that our children are exposed to on a daily basis, sex education and protection should be a no-brainer.

If I were a wild-eyed conspiracy theorist, I would even think that this abstinence-only program was backed by the adoption industry and social engineers in order to get womb-fresh infants to the "right kind of people" to be raised in a Norman Rockwell, nuclear family. But people in power in our government wouldn't do that, would they?

At least, in the present time frame, we have DNA tests to confirm paternity and laws that will make the sower of wild oats pay for his bread. That is a good thing, if the young woman and her parents take the responsibility for raising the child that Abstinence Only couldn't prevent and the adoption industry doesn't get to her, first. In courting the self-righteous right, our leaders have sold their grandchildren for a mess of pottage, to paraphrase the scriptures. It takes us back to the days of surface virtue and secrets and lies and a fantasy view of life.

To me, this hue and cry for abstinence without education, and the propaganda of the adoption industry is a giant step backwards. The next step would be to regress back to the time when the unmarried, young mother was given no choice at all. At least, for now, anyway, she can choose to keep her baby and even celebrate the new arrival. And, she can also go to the local Department of Public Health and receive birth control and education on how to use it. She can choose not to proceed with the pregnancy and she is not required to explain or apologize to anyone.

Unless we protect these rights, and are realistic about teens, sex and the education needed, we are going to enter into a very nasty replay of the 40's through the early 70's. I cannot see putting my granddaughter and great-granddaughters through that kind of crap. I am writing my congressional representatives and Senator and asking them to support good, solid sex education for all young people and to protect our right to choose. I have also written to our President-Elect and will write to his choice of surgeon general and the cabinet member that heads up the departments having to do with health and human welfare when they are confirmed.

We need to, as well, forge ahead with the demand for a public hearing on the EMS/BSE so that the mistakes of the past will not be the mistakes of today. It is time that we stopped treating our children as eternal infants, especially as they approach adulthood. It is time that the general public learned the truth about the adoption fairy-tale and the helplessness and lack of autonomy of the mothers and their children. It is time for the nation and our government to learn that the "perfect solution" was anything BUT. We can't put more women through this horror of being given no choice in major decisions affecting their own lives.


It is PAST TIME for us, as a nation, to grow up.

Peace on Earth, Goodwill to All

Though I'm not what one would call a religious person, I can feel the spirituality of the holiday season. I remember marching down the aisle, singing carols, carrying a lit candle and dressed as an angel, when I was a little girl. The church I attended while I was growing up was small but did Christmas up, really big. I can still feel that wonderful, fluttery, awed feeling that I experienced among the candles and white poinsettias. I learned to associate Christmas, not just with gifts, but with miracles, love, family, peace, and the beauty of lights on a dark, winter night. I am still a sucker for the beautiful music created for this season, from "The Little Drummer Boy" to Vivaldi's "Gloria."

In high school, one of my close friends was the daughter of our local Rabbi. I experienced Hanukkah through her family and received an education in the differences that make us all the same. I also came to appreciate the efforts that go into a really fine, Jewish holiday meal. Bubbe Goldberg could COOK!

I went next door, last year, to admire the Kwanzaa decorations and African garb and foods that my neighbors had put together. The candles were of special interest since Jean (with the French pronunciation....he's Haitian) had made them, himself. Gina's peanut and yam soup was to die for.

We have neighbors from India who are Hindu, Islamic friends just a block over, and an Asian family who practices Buddhism, all in this tiny subdivision. My Hispanic neighbors have a beautiful lighted creche on their lawn and play their guitars and sing a lot at this time of year.

I wonder why it is that so many different nationalities can co-exist, even enjoy each other, in a town or a neighborhood, but cannot get along on so many other levels. Our soon-to-be former president seems to think that we should force democracy on all other nations. Right here, in the US, there are religious factions that would insert their doctrine into our laws. We have everything from the Klan and Skinhead Nazis to rigid fundamentalists who see their beliefs as the only right beliefs to people who insist that everyone walk in lock-step with their take on different issues in organizations. We experience bigotry, the selfish interests of those who would impress their views on others and outright hate from some.

I wonder how it would feel to have true Peace on Earth? I'm not talking about just the absence of war, but the freedom from hate, resentment, egotism, and the insecurities that breed such things. Who would it hurt for all of us to learn to live and let live...to allow each person the expression of their own beliefs and priorities and to wish each other well and mean it? Why must one person's or one group's stance be right all the time for everyone? What makes people become so threatened by different thoughts, ideas, faiths, ethnicities and cultures?

We have taken a giant step as a nation, by electing a man of mixed race to the highest office in the land. On a smaller scale, we mothers of adoption loss, both of recent times and of the EMS/BSE, have shown the courage of stating our identities and our goals in a public forum. Within this community of mothers, we have many mothers with many different priorities. Why can't each of us work on our own issues without rancor? Why can't we grow up enough to stop the petty bickering and realize that one size does NOT fit all? Nothing anyone can say or do can change the direction of our particular group, so why try? Who has an ego so large and a heart and self-esteem so small that they cannot allow everyone to follow their hearts and minds in peace?

Oh well, I will enjoy my dream of peace on earth on both a large and a smaller scale. It can't hurt to have a little hope for the Holidays. Maybe, even a miracle..........

Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, and a Joyful Kwanzaa to all.

A Proper Adoption

Meet Rocket J. (Rocky) Westbrook. Rocky is a six-year-old, Rat Terrier- Chihuahua mix. He is extremely well-behaved, neutered, housebroken and an all around very good dog.

I had been bugging DH about getting a dog (I was angling for a Chihuahua puppy but backed off because of the prices) for a few years. He was ready to give in and to pay $500 to $700 for a purebred puppy, but I decided to see what the annual adoption fair at the animal shelter had to offer. It was one of the best things I ever did.

Rocky had been the companion of an older gentleman whose health became too bad to care for his doggy. His children decided to put Rocky in the shelter after their Dad went into hospice care. Rocky was scheduled for euthanasia this week. He had been in the shelter since February.

He was the first small dog I saw when we walked in and he came right to me. All the dogs were yapping for attention and he was doing his best to yap louder. I didn't have to look any further, although Hubby was looking at a female, long-haired mixed breed of similar size, but I insisted that Rocky has chosen me. I was a "chosen adopter!"

He stopped the yapping the minute the shelter attendant gave me his leash. It cost $11.00 for license and senior citizen adoption fees, we were given a crate, food, collar and leash, medical history and tags which denoted that he had already been given a microchip, as well. We just had to call and register him. He jumped right into the car as if he knew he was going home. He investigated every room, when we walked into the house, and then came back to me and laid his head on my lap for petting, as if to say, "Thank You!"

Hubby fell in love right after I did. He took off to PetCo and spent about $130 on a new collar, leash, toys, snacks, a doggy jacket that fits him perfectly, a Christmas bandanna and other goodies. Yesterday, I took our new boon companion to the vet for a complete going over, blood and "other" tests, a cortisone injection for an allergy, flea and parasite medications, etc., to the tune of $261.00. I figure this is the most expensive $11.00 dog ever. But he is worth it.

Now, I don't call myself Rocky's "mommy" and he is an adult dog, but I think that this is the area in which adoption belongs. I didn't tear him away from his mother. I kept the name his first owner had given him and I am the grateful beneficiary of the care and training his former owner gave him. Rocky NEEDED rescuing. He deserved a chance to live to a ripe, old doggy age. It is now up to me to be a responsible dog owner. This is a proper adoption.

Children cannot be owned like that and that is what adoption of a child, especially infant adoption, seems to be. I have a friend who refers to her daughter's adopters as her owners because that is how they act. A child, a human being, is not and never should be a possession. To adopters whose adoptees are older, please remember that you took on a responsibility, not a right and not an ownership. If you can think in terms of what is "best" for the child, then try to understand what is best for the adult. Reconnecting with their mother is important for many adoptees and to assert ownership, to demand loyalty and gratitude is not the way real parents behave.

You didn't "rescue" a baby from certain death or destruction or a horrible life. You adopted to fill a need in YOUR life, so put that adult child's needs ahead of your own, this time, and let that relationship with their natural family happen. If you can't love that adoptee enough to do that, then it isn't a very "proper adoption."

To those who believe they MUST adopt, look into the millions of older children in foster care who truly need someone. Take them in and don't change their name or try to alter their identities and heritage. That womb-fresh infant is all about YOUR needs. Taking in an older child is about that child. That could be a proper adoption, although a legal guardianship would be even better.

You can own a dog, but you can't own a person.

Waiting For Her Mom

She told me that, when she was little, at Christmas she would dress up and sit at the door, waiting for me to come get her. She didn't quite understand this whole, "you're adopted" thing. She just knew that something or someone important in her life was missing. I am sure her little heart was broken when I didn't appear.

She asked questions about me, constantly, until the people who adopted her, feeling insecure, told her a lie.....that I was dead. For years she searched for a grave. It is still hard for her to admit that the people she calls her parents, now deceased, would actually tell her a lie. She knows they behaved rather badly when we reunited, but she can't go to that place where their needs took priority over hers.

I'm not going to press the issue. Her need to feel safe and grounded in what is familiar to her is also important. I have packed a box with gifts for her, and the great-grands and picked out a "for daughter and her husband" card that doesn't have all the flowery verses about growing up and becoming a credit to her father and I. That's reaching a bit. Her father is a jerk who is removed from her by his own wishes. So, while the card is for "My Daughter," it is safely neutral in content.

What a sticky web the adoption industry and the state agencies during the EMS wove. There is acute pain on both ends...that of the adopted person and that of the mother...that reunion doesn't solve or ease. The only thing reunion does is allow us to face our pain and try to work towards healing. It's a long, arduous process and, sometimes, when we think of things, like that little girl waiting at the door, we slip back into the hurt rather than using it to stoke the anger and determination.

I have cried every Christmas since I lost my daughter and then my son to adoption. Compounding that was the death of my mother on December 22, 1968. But, as I have grown older, I have learned to have my crying jag and then be grateful for what I do have. My husband lost his only child, a son, to suicide. We learned that it was not something that you get over..you just learn to live with it. So it is with loss to adoption for both mother and adoptee. We learn how to live with it

I also have to feel a bit smug in that the old system and all the lies and secrets did not succeed in keeping us from knowing each other and learning the truth, or as much truth as my children can handle. It's sort of like a reunion (which the adopters want to call merely "making contact") is thumbing our noses at the machine. Reunited, we are and they call me "Mom." I am sure that the adopters wouldn't be happy with that, but I am their mother and they cannot change that with a piece of paper signed by a judge.

Merry Christmas, little girl and little boy. Mommy has come to get you.

Sexaphobic USA

The images are flashed across our television screens many times a day. It is graphically recreated in books and movies. You can walk into an adult book store and buy just about any kind of perversion that suits your fancy. And yet, we are more uptight and prudish about it than any other nation in the world. Yep, it's the "S" word.

I'm not talking about gender inequality, here, although it plays a large part in the picture of attitudes toward sexuality in our society. I am talking about the obsession with sex that prurient, Puritanical America seems to have. Although children are raised with constant references to the act of procreation around them, we feel that sexuality is something from which we must protect them which has to be confusing. Pulpits are pounded as fundie ministers expound on the glories and rewards of sexual abstinence while slipping away, later, to a motel, to make the beast with two backs with an admiring parishioner or the church secretary.

Priests prey on children, teenage boys have "cherry picking" contests and single, pregnant women are still seen as sinners who brought their fate upon themselves. The unspoken attitude during the EMS was "she deserves to have her baby taken by more worthy people because she had (*GASP!) sex without a marriage license." There is also the specious phrase, "She went and got herself pregnant." Are we that ignorant and blindsided by patriarchal, Puritanical shame that we cannot admit that the male contribution to pregnancy makes him just as responsible?

It seems that the unwed pregnancies of the EMS were not seen as a new life created, but as shameful proof that a daughter was no longer "pure." I think that our strict, inhibited fore bearers were as obsessed by sex as any porn addict and that addiction still lingers in the minds of many. I once had a minister friend tell me that the person who saw something sexually dirty in a woman nursing a child was someone who had a dirty mind. I think these Puritan people had sexually obsessed, "dirty" minds. I know that being seen as shameful and perverse by my own loved ones caused me to be quite inhibited in my love life for a very long time. I couldn't enjoy sex because I felt guilty and if I did manage to get some pleasure from it, I felt even guiltier and this was after I was married. My hubby and I thank God/dess that I got over that.

We have a curious set of priorities in this nation where we will set out to impeach a leader who lies about having sexual encounters but refuse to do the same to a leader who tells lies that get thousands of young Americans killed. It seems that we would rather have a President who is sexually "pure" but inept, greedy and dishonest about something as tremendous as war, than a President who is effective and savvy but has a sexual peccadillo. Internationally, our national attitude during the Clinton mess was a joke.

Many people see the era of the Senior Mother as a time of "sex, drugs and rock and roll," but that was the big cities and, in particular, LA. Middle and southeastern America were still in the "Leave It To Beaver" stage, for the most part. I never rode in a psychedelic-painted van, never wore flowers in my hair and never danced naked to Jimi Hendrix. Love beads meant nothing more than a fashion accessory and peasant dresses were ironed, clean and neat when we wore them. Our contemporaries could go at it like bunnies and were still considered "the good girls" if they didn't get pregnant. Shades of that hypocrisy still linger, I am sad to say.

It is the collective "dirty mind" of this society that caused us to be shamed, shunned and, now, treated as a questionable entity. Many want to see us as "reformed sluts and crack whores" rather than the basically decent, normal women we, for the most part, are and the basically decent, normal girls the majority of us were.

This is just my personal take on things. I know all about the ideas of social engineering and the "great solution" that adoption was supposed to be for the unmarried mother and the childless couple. But I think that one of the main engines that ran this horrific machine was, and is, that obsession with all things sexual that was in the minds of dirty old men and became part of the landscape of social mores.

I, for one, refuse to be defined by whether or not I was married, the existence or absence of a tiny piece of flesh and the fact that I was swept up in someone else's perfect solution to what should have been a non-problem. I wasn't a slut or a crack whore. I was a normal teen, neither very, very good or very, very bad.....just normal.

Society, adopters and, painfully, some of our children, still want to stamp that scarlet letter on our foreheads. It must get their goat when many of us refuse to allow it.

Where To Draw The Line

I hate it when other people, with an interest in maintaining adoption as a thriving concern, try to speak for mothers. I hate it even more when what they say "in our name" is cunningly used to deflect the ire of the adopted person to the mothers rather than taking the responsibility upon those who pursue this specious argument.

Such is the ongoing "reasoning" being used by agencies, governments, social workers and any pro-adoption faction that the reason records, such as the adoptee's original birth certificate, are kept closed is due to the requirement of "anonymity" and "privacy" for the mothers. OK, here we go, one more time....I don't EVER remember anyone promising ME any kind of privacy. What I do remember was being told that if I ever tried to find my children, I would be breaking the law and would hurt them. Anonymity was for the ADOPTERS, NOT the mothers!

For most of us from the EMS whose children were surrendered and then placed, by agencies or social workers, for adoption, our fondest wish was to have our children know us, know we loved them and that we would have kept them had we been given just a modicum of support. I did not request anonymity and it was not in anything I signed as a guarantee, promise or suggestion. I was told, by the social workers, to never speak of my loss to anyone, but I broke that rule right off the bat.

Now, to cover their cowardly arses, the agencies and those that lobby for them are trying to insert, into some open record bills, a requirement that any mother who refuses contact must provide personal medical and other information. WHOA!!!! First, I am pretty darn sure that this violates my rights under HIPAA stipulations. And, to be practical, there are things that are my private business that I haven't shared with the children I raised. These arrogant social engineers took my children and now they want me to be a mere vessel of information just like I was a mere birth machine? I THINK NOT.

One of the things we are striving for in SMAAC and elsewhere is the respect and human dignity that was taken from us when we were young, pregnant and vulnerable. For many of us, self-respect is not a problem, but I, for one, refuse to be considered a convenience for others in any way just because of the tragedy of losing my children when I was a teen.

Hell yes, let's get those records open for adopted adults AND mothers of adoption loss, but don't demand that I dance to a tune that was written by someone else. I'm a mother, not an object nor a lackey. I have shared with my adult reunited children what they needed to know just as I have with their younger sister and brother. As a family, there are things we all share. But my personal business will remain that way. Sorry agencies and others. I am not bailing you out when adopters sue you for "lack of important information."

Deal with it.