Beating A Dead Horse Can Be Good

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Welcome To My Home

And that's what this is, you know. My blog, my Face Book page are my territories. When someone posts comments on either it is the same as someone coming into my house and talking. No one with any real breeding and sense of decency would ever go into anyone's home, especially the home of someone they don't know, and forcefully and even viciously challenge the home owner's beliefs, values and standards and opinions.

Now I was raised in the south for most of my growing up years, and lived in SC until 1996. Well bred, intelligent southerners put a lot of stock in good manners. It was a shock for me to learn that others didn't see civility and respect as we did...something important. And on the Internet?? The anonymity of the 'net seems to let people think they can say whatever they want to whomever they please, stir up any kind of trouble they can and get away with it.

This is why I have monitored comments. I have no desire to see MY blog, expressing MY opinions and MY beliefs being turned into a forum for flame wars. I have no need, here in my home, to be "fair and balanced" nor am I open to those who wish to change my attitude about adoption with near evangelical zeal. If I won't let Mormons or Jehovah's Witnesses into my home, why should I let your argumentative, pro-adoption posts be published on my blog?

There are some who have the opinion that it is good to have debate and they do allow it, to an extent, on their blogs. Good for them. To each their own. But this is my soap box. This is not subjective journalism, here, but objective editorializing.

Recently, I have been sandbagged by a number of posters, most of them anonymous, who pop up every now and then and try to get my goat. Well, Nanny's in the back yard, cropping grass, waiting to be milked and you can't have her.

The insults that follow comments being deleted are hysterically funny in many cases. You can tell that these pro-A's taking umbrage at my opinions don't know me at all. One accused me of having a Sarah Palin bumper sticker. I laughed so hard I started coughing. Anonymous, Honey, I am so left-winged and so anti-Tea Party and Faux News and the GOP that my husband, a moderate, never discusses politics with me. I read that to him and we chortled most of the afternoon.

So, to make it clear, Motherhood Deleted is my house and I don't allow my beliefs and values and standards to be challenged in my house. You want to air another side of the issue? Write your own blog and leave mine alone. I don't frequent the blogs of pro-adoptionists and so you won't have to worry about me doing the hit and run, anonymous thing.

If you want a fight, go to Craigslist and their adoption section. Someone is always raking someone else over the coals over there.

Oh, and don't think we aren't being taken seriously, us Mothers from the BSE. We are.

And There's Another One!!

Just when I find myself in the delighted position of not having to decline comments for a long time, along comes another PAP (or so she says) with her, "just curious" questions about my views on adoption. Here's her seemingly innocuous comment:

"Hi there-
I just stumbled across your blog, and I must say that I am intrigued. I am a soon-to-be adoptive parent and while I don’t expect rainbows and puppy dogs, I am excited. I was wondering if you think that adoption is ever a good thing? In a perfect world, I don’t believe adoption would ever be necessary. But since we live in an imperfect world, do you believe that there are any situations where adoption can be the best option (given the circumstances) for all parties involved? Interested to hear your thoughts."

Whatever would adopters, the industry and PAPs do without that good, old, imperfect world (crack-whore moms and undeserving, single teens) to justify them doing what they really feel, inside, they have a perfect right to do? Sorry, but I don't buy it, especially if said PAP is lusting after a womb-fresh infant or toddler. There they are, just like saints, waiting to take in the, seemingly, "unwanted." How convenient.

To the commenter: You don't really want to hear my thoughts. You want to try to argue me down or see what king of opposition there is out here in the real world. Often, agencies, church-affiliated, especially, will assume an identity and try to stir the pot among those of us who don't like adoption, especially as it was practiced in the last century. Unfortunately, we are learning from heart-broken moms, that coercion has just put on some pretty lace, powdered its face, spritzed on some Rainbow Farte parfum and still going at it. The ads are slick and the tactics are slicker.

Yes, I do think that there are some women who truly don't want their babies and I encourage them to seek out a first-trimester termination. Better yet, avail yourself of available and effective birth control and seek termination if that fails. Why reduce yourself to serving as a brood mare for someone who sees themselves as more deserving and subject a child to emotional pain? If you feel you must carry to term, then see about finding a way for that child to remain in his/her family of origin. There has to be a daddy somewhere, no?

I talk to a lot of adopted people every day. One thing I have learned is that the hardest thing for anyone to accept is the thought that their mother did not want them, that said mother saw them as disposable. That idea does a good service for the adopters and the facilitators, even if it often slanders innocent Mothers who were coerced. From what I have seen, Mr. and Mrs. PAP, the most loving, most nurturing adopters in the worlds cannot take the sting out of that abandonment issue. All the love in the world cannot heal that wound and "attachment therapy" is a ridiculous concept.

And as for reunion, there is no reunion that can make up for the years lost, the bond twisted and the misconceptions that grew and grew. It is a minefield born of the most unnatural separation there is. Even after 18 years, I find myself still walking on eggshells occasionally and suffering through periodic breaches in the relationships. I was not put on this earth to provide an infant for C. and C. S. or for K. and S. S. !! There is no "meant to be" or "God's Will" about it...just injustice, a sick, punitive society and the greed that marks us as nothing more than a garden plot from which a product can be reaped.

My children were conceived and gestated in MY body. It was MY job to raise them and care for them. I suffered and they suffered because I was not allowed to do my job. Don't expect any friendly words about adoption from me.

There. Those are my thoughts. Accept or reject them, but don't expect to change my mind or my message.

Adoption separation sucks.

A Little Less Talk.......

....and a lot more action. I have been suffering from a writer's block, especially in this subject area where so much has been written. As time has gone by, I have noticed that I am often repeating myself. Of course, that happens with a lot of causes. And some things do bear repeating.

The latest political unrest and national and international crisis have distracted me. As a senior citizen, largely reliant on Social Security and Medicare, I am afraid of what I see happening in the halls of congress and in the White House. As a die-hard liberal, I am frustrated.

But, first and foremost, is my interest in seeing justice done for the Mothers of the EMS and our adult children. We can't change the past, but we can address the injustices and damage done and demand that something be done in the way of redress and civil/human rights.

It's a simple request from our adult children. Give them access to their Original Birth Certificates in a simple and straightforward bill with no embroidery and contact vetoes and "on-demand" medical histories from their Mothers. It shouldn't take 80+ pages to give our children the right to information they should have had all along. Then let the ADULTS involved take it from there.

It's not quite so simple in the case of the Mothers' issues. But, if they can complicate something as simple as OBC access for adoptees, think of what they could do with our plight. I do know that we are sick and tired of the Industry, adopters and others who don't know us presuming to speak for us. We are big girls now. If we want to say "no" we can do it on our own without the help of the ACLU, NCFA or the EBDI. That is, of course, if we want to. The vast majority of us DO NOT want our names kept from our adult children. The states and bill writers are big-brothering us to death with this one.

Well, come August 8, I will have my opportunity to put my physical presence where my mouth has been, lo, these many years. I am braving the heat of the big city of San Antonio, Texas to add my voice to those seeking the cooperation of state reps. The National Convention of State Legislators will be meeting there and adoptees and mothers will be there. We shall see what we shall see because a couple of us will also be representing SMAAC and the Mothers' issues. We have been working on a brochure for our cause and hope to see it in the hands of someone who might actually learn something from it

.

We will be there with adoptees, demonstrating and, hopefully, educating. This is not an easy task. We are bucking a status quo with which our entire society has been not only comfortable, but enamoured. Adoption mythology in the US is right up there with the flag, baseball, apple pie and fireworks on the Fourth. It is another of those feel-good myths that people would rather believe than see the dark underbelly. It is presented to the public by the Industry, and those that profit in any way from it, in the same skewed way that we have taught American History to our children..totally slanted and prettied up with the dirt swept under the rug. Getting the word out about the realities involved is going to be an uphill climb.

So, San Antonio, don't get me wrong. I know you have that lovely RiverWalk and that little, historical, adobe mission, but you could never get me to come there in August for those attractions. Triple-digit heat is not my thing. But the cluster-f*** of sealed records, the inequities of coerced surrenders and the grief of Mothers and the civil and human rights of us and our adult children can and will get me out there in the heat. And I'm mean when I'm hot.

Watch out, you State Legislators...the adoptees are coming and they are bringing their Mamas!

When The Myth Explodes

I received, this morning, a very interesting and poignant comment on my old post, "What Anti-Adoption Means," posted 9/09/2009. It was from a woman, here in Florida, who adopted a sibling group and has learned, the hard way, about the mythology of adoption. She was terribly disappointed when her vision of family was disrupted by the truth. She wrote:

"You know what? I totally agree with you, and I am the adoptive mother of 5 children (a sibling group) The two older ones are now adults, and the day they turned 18 they left us, found their birthmom on Facebook, and have never loooked back. We were lied to by the state of Florida, told the kids had no other options, that we were the last chance. In reality, it turns out we were the "last chance" the state had to pawn the kids off on someone that didn't need a subsidy or financial help. There were relatives willing to take the kids, but they were poor, so the state of Florida found it cheaper to give them to us, than to their own family members. Now I have to deal every day with the heartache of having raised the two older ones only to have them leave me for their biological family. I live in constant fear that the same thing will happen with my 3 little ones that are still with me. I DO NOT BLAME THE CHILDREN! Adoption is a horrible lie, it not only hurts the children, it hurts the adoptive parents."

I answered:

"Erin, you left someone out...someone that most adopters don't want to even consider. In the MAJORITY of cases, the natural mother suffers unrelenting grief and pain. MOST of us, especially from the BSE/EMS era, were not given a choice. Today, many SW's and agencies are coercive or, as you point out, don't consider the natural family if they can find people with more money. That is government-sponsored social engineering.

Rather than "living in fear," why don't you try being honest with the three you have now? Acknowledge their need to know, their primal grief and help them connect with their natural families. There is always more than enough love to go around.

You can't buy or assume motherhood regardless of what that piece of paper says. But you can earn your children's love and respect by realizing that they are not possessions but their own people. You can also realize that "as if born to" is only legal-speak and not a reality. You will always know that your children were born to other women.

You might also want to ask yourself why your older kids "never looked back." Did you place emotional demands and conditions on them about their relationship with their natural families? You have a chance to do things differently with the young ones. Face your issues and work with your old mistakes. Good Luck."

I can't help but be amazed that this woman sees herself as more of a victim than the natural family. These children were placed by the state for all the wrong reasons and now this woman is having to deal with the fact that the blood bond is stronger than adopters wants to think it is. I assume this was a foster situation in the beginning and those oldest children probably had complete memories of their natural family. The fact that they have a natural family that wanted them but were denied custody, primarily because the state of Florida is big on the social-engineering thing, had to have been a major factor in the "defection" of the two oldest.

But I would love it if just one adopter could be educated to the realities of adoption rather than the ephemeral promises made by the adoption mythology. There is the assumption of ownership of the child. Natural parents don't usually see it this way. We see it as our job to give the child love and nurture and prepare them to face life on their own terms. We don't own them in any way. They belong to themselves and they form other bonds where their primary loyalty is to a partner/spouse rather than to us. Letting go is part of love. And loving them, regardless of the choices they make is part of being a parent.

Adoption is the only arrangement where a person is never allowed to legally grow up, where the existence of a natural mother and natural family is literally ignored (and some wish would disappear) and where a fantasy is legally entered on the books via "as if born to" decrees and amended birth certificates.

No, don't blame the "children" (including the adult ones) and don't blame the natural family, either. Poverty is not a good reason to break up a family or take children from a mother. Have some compassion for those children in a situation that was not of their choosing and without their own kith and kin near to them. Have compassion for the mother that lost her children, many times through no fault of her own, and the family that lost their kin because they were poor and needed assistance. The adopter's disappointment, I opine, pales beside the grief of the coerced mother who has a child or children taken for adoption and the pain and frustration of the adoptee.

I was told by a woman who adopted during the BSE that I was a representative of her "worst nightmare." No matter how much adopters would like to ignore the natural parents and family (and how large those people loom in the minds and emotions of the children they adopt) they know we are out there. They know enough to, if they are smart, enable them to take a realistic look at adoption and learn to share and care.

There's that old thing about Butterflies and how you have to let go...I wonder if the reason these adoptees "never looked back" comes from being held too tightly? I wonder if holding on too tightly happens because we also loom large in the back of the mind of the adopter. Everyone tries to make a monster of the mother/natural family.

But we are all just ordinary people who either got caught up in extraordinary circumstances, got swept into the web of the state or agencies, or fell for a myth and acted out of panic. We are families who are sad when one of own becomes a prisoner of their bad choices and we want to take care of the children of our own but are not allowed to if the state gets there first. Nope, no monsters here.

Perhaps the expectations of those who adopt should be scrutinized. It doesn't help that the Industry, including the state, pander to those wants and expectations. The court presumes to do something that only nature can accomplish with that "as if born to" nonsense. That is the arrogance of humanity and social engineering.

And that myth can often blow up, right in their astonished faces.

Rights: Deleted

I get so frustrated with the National Organization for Women (NOW) and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and even Planned Parenthood (PP). All are supposedly committed to the protection of an oppressed gender, including reproductive rights and the upholding of the rights of the minorities. And they are producing major suckage at both.

NOW is top-heavy with adopters and they won't even consider the violation of the reproductive rights of the BSE/EMS mother as a valid issue. The ACLU is so intent on covering the hides of some mysterious beemommies hiding under rocks, somewhere, that they are campaigning against the rights of another minority, the BSE adoptee whose records and identity are closed to them. What is wrong with this picture?

This is all so ass-backwards that I have to wonder what they have been smoking. You would think that millions of young women, coerced into the loss of their infants would definitely be a woman's issue. Mais Non! NOW and PP is protecting the "rights" of young women to "choose adoption." Is that on a "whether we really want to or not, fully-uninformed" basis, PP and NOW?

There is an entire industry that is laughing at these people all the way to the bank. "Hey Fat!" "What is it, Cat?" "These breeders can't even get their own gender to take up for them! Har Har Har!" Yuck it up, boys. We're still here and still talking.

As for the ACLU, they are NOT protecting me from anything. What about the rights of adoptees to know their true beginnings, to be able to get a passport and other documents that most of us can get with no problem? What about the rights of a group of people that this entire, benighted nation treats like eternal children? They are too busy protecting a tiny group of cowards who have the right to say "no." I wonder if that is because there are so many attorneys in the ACLU?

Or are they really protecting anyone? How far into these organizations has the Industry been able to reach? Who is greasing whose palms? What ancient book of social psychology are they being fed as the ultimate word on the subject? And why, why don't they ask us? Mothers and adoptees are definitely more qualified to speak to what is needed than a bunch of lawyers and adopters. OUR experience is important too.

Justice NEEDS to take a look. We refuse to remain forever non-mothers and our children refuse to remain forever infants. It is almost a hoot that the very groups that are supposed to see to our rights are among the most active in attempting to deny them. It's sort of like the idealistic social worker of the mid-20th century who thought they were doing something noble when they "created families" by destroying one. This nation has taken so many wrong turns in the past century that we are running in circles.

.

Mothers and adopted adults are so sick of the curb, the underside of the bus, the well of secrets and the "who cares?" attitude toward our issues of our governing bodies. I, for one, am tired of dirty bills, riders, 60+ page proposed legislations that give to some and not to others and others trying to speak for us who have no right to do so....do you hear that, Mr. Pertman, Mr. Johnson (or "Chuckie" as we like to call him) ? Who decided that we did not have the ability to speak for ourselves? Do you, like many adopters and facilitators, still persist in seeing the Natural Mother as unwashed, semi-literate trash and our children as still in diapers? Guess again, fella!

Until the powers-that-be stop listening to self-appointed "experts" with special interests in keeping the Industry going and start listening to the real experts who have lived this unique cluster f*** of secrets, lies, grief and loss, I fear we are going to keep moving at a snail's pace. Not cool..not cool at all.

Warning...many of us have dealt with our issues and all that is left behind is the righteous indignation of the injustice done. I invite Lady Justice to take a peek.

From The Horses' Mouths

It takes a lot to make me jump in the air and click my callused heels, but Bastardette's blog from yesterday about the the things many adopters say and think, "Busted: Adoptive Parents Speak," definitely had me catching some air time. I say many adopters, but my personal experiences with those who adopt has ME saying MOST adopters. I read this one and let out with a loud "YES" which had one of my dogs barking, wondering where the intruder was.

Another mother and I were talking and we noted that people we knew before they decided to adopt were very different after that. They went through some kind of obsessive metamorphosis that didn't do a whole lot for their fairness and compassion factors. I know of one, whom I once thought of as the soul of tolerance, who began to utter disparaging remarks about "slutty, teenage whores." If she thought so little of the mother, why would she want that girl's child? And if the adopted child hears his/her natural mother spoken of in that way, how must it make that child feel about him/herself?

Here is one such quote from a blog entitled, 'Adoptive Parents Speak,' from which Bastardette culled the best bits for her excellent post.

"Holy Crap

The adoption option–

The baby’s mother– An immature irresponsible young women most likely from a Jerry Springer Show type of family. She will be extremly emotionally attached to her baby and is too immature to fully understand and cope with the boundaries of an open adoption relationship. Infant adoption is a catch 22. Mothers of good genetic stock aren’t screwed up enough to give thier newborn babies away to strangers…..If a mother is unfit enough to give away her baby she is unfortunatly not only unfit enough to parent but is also unfit where she shouldn’t be breeding and spreading her inferior genes. She is most likely a failure in school with a low IQ. I have read on adoption forums that if an adoptive couple checks off that they don’t want a baby from a birthmother who has smoked during her pregnancy that they will be on the waiting list for a long time….Birthmothers tend to come from families with drug abuse and alcholism. I have seen birthmother blogs and I have never seen an attractive birthmother. Most of them look like the trailer park white trash that they are. Ugly squirrely faces, buck teeth, obese etc. Birthmothers are deadbeat moms. Why would adoptive parents pay 30 grand for some loser’s baby? (spelling left intact)"

This one was among the more offensive that I read and I have to thank Bastardette for the post and the link. The Industry and the adopters themselves have created a monster of a person with little thought for anyone but themselves and an avarice that allows them to discount the humanity and dignity of the mother of the child they covet. They are intent on keeping the stigma of the "slutty, unwed mother" alive and treat the children they so avidly desire as horses at a livestock sale. Let's see...check hoofs, teeth, back and whithers...OK, this one'll do, pardner.

Perhaps the only way they can live with themselves is to dehumanize both the product and the producer. Their derisive attitude towards the mother is tinged with the envy they must feel for her fertility. Sorry, but this is 2011 and no one can tell me that all these wannabe mommies went to their marriage bed with hymen intact. I have to ask, since along with delayed childbirth, STDs are the foremost common causes of infertility, just what right any of these women have to judge the mothers whose babies they covet so fiercely? What if everyone started saying that adopters do so because they spread their legs and got a case of the clap? That kind of stereotype is what is laid on Natural Mothers to this, supposedly, enlightened day.

We mothers, mostly in private support groups, have been sharing our experiences and disappointments with the people who adopted our children for years. We can't express that to our adult children because they are, for the most part, very defensive of their adopters and that's understandable. But when we reunite with a seriously damaged individual whose ideas about motherhood, family, and relationships is badly skewed, and whose personal life is in shambles, it is hard not to be angry at both the adopters and those social workers who promised us the moon, adopter-wise. Ward and June were unavailable so our kids got whatever was behind door number 2.

We Natural Mothers from the BSE/EMS were, for the most part, coerced into surrendering our parental rights and responsibilities. But NO ONE could make us surrender our motherhood, our right to eventually know our child and our concern and caring for that child. And that scares the fetid feces out of the adopters. Deep down, they know this. They know we are torn and grieving.

So they attack our morals, our values, our worth as human beings as a way to justify their greed. They find the few who fit their description and label the majority by the picture of that tiny minority. I still wonder why that woman quoted above would want the child of the women she describes. It boggles the logical mind.

I hope that every woman with an unplanned pregnancy that is considering surrender will read that blog. They need to know into what kind of environment they are sending their innocent babies. I hope that informative blog stays up and adopters and PAPs keep adding their venom and arrogance to it.

Then if anyone wonders where the potential beemommy got the idea to change her mind about surrender, we can say, "she got her information from the horses' mouths!"

Flat Earthers, Birthers, Good Beemommies, Adopters, PAPs and Mother-Hating Adoptees

Now what do all of these have in common? Willful Ignorance with a capitol "I." The Flat Earthers believe, contrary to centuries of scientific evidence, that the world is flat..not a sphere and many still opine that the earth is the center of the Universe.

"Birthers" believe, despite all legal evidence to the contrary, that our President is not a native-born American. Maybe they weren't aware that Hawaii is a state and has been for many, many decades? These are the same staunch Righties that believe Bush took down Bin Laden and that Donald Trump, Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann are viable presidential candidates. THAT is a shudder-worthy thought.

Those mentioned above also hold that a woman isn't really a rape victim unless she has been beaten, stabbed and near death. If she has a weapon used against her and submits to save her life, then it isn't rape. If she went out on a date with the Prick that assaulted her, then she asked for it, especially if her clothes were, in any way, what, say, Pat Robertson would consider "provocative." HR3, the bill that has, very recently, passed the house that calls for "rape investigation" before a victim can be granted an abortion, proves that we even elect the willfully ignorant to national offices.  Somebody either isn't voting or our nation is in deep ignorance doo-doo.

Good beemommies refuse to think, contrary to all they have been told, all the warnings they receive and all the good advice they receive from those of us who have been there, that surrender to adoption is harmful to both them and their children. They are of the "I'm different so that won't happen to me" school of thought. Yeah, right. Go live in La La Land and feed off the approval of adopters and religious pundits and see how happy that makes you in the long run. Call us older Moms bitter and angry. You'll get there, eventually. Meanwhile, I hope you can breathe with your head in the sand.

Adopters and PAPs? Well, what can I say? They are also "different." Their desire for a child is righteous, to them, and they cannot see the potential damage to the child and the pain of "their (blech)mother" for the strength of their own self-entitlement. The children they adopt are "grateful" and "happy" and have been saved from a fate worse than death...being who they were born to be. A good many of these candidates for faux sainthood still believe the human infant is a blank slate and that they will bond with whomever gives them nurture. The reject the idea that attachment is a survival instinct and that the adopted child is always dealing with abandonment issues, identity issues and general confusion while trying to do their job of keeping the adopters happy. Even a book written by an adopter that tells, well, most of the story, is ignored by the more rabid. Personal desires overcome education and THAT is willful ignorance.

The Mother-hating adoptee, and these are not as prevalent as they once were, are the ones who drank the Kool-Aid served by their adopters and society that says they were unwanted by their mothers. Some have some pretty bad natural mothers and have a reason for how they feel, but tend to want to tar us all with the same brush. Some stay angry at Mom regardless of how nice she is, how welcoming she might be because, like most who are willfully ignorant, thinking any other way is scary. I have to say that many of these people have learned a little and are not as resistant to the learning process as others. But there are still the die-hard haters who firmly believe we want confidentiality and anonymity and are fighting their quest for open records and little we can say will change their minds.

And what is really behind willful ignorance? Fear? Flat-Earthers fear not being at the center of life. Birthers are racist and fear any change, even for the good, in our society, especially if it involves those who are different from them. Good Beemommies are just scared, period. They fear the loss of the approval of those around them and doubt themselves in a big way. They are afraid of themselves and would rather remain insecure than growing a set and stepping up to the plate of their responsibility. Adopters and PAPs fear the loss of their fairy-tale and the Mom-haters fear the great unknown of their beginnings.

As we have seen, fear can make people vicious. It, like ignorance, is a weapon wielded by politicians, proselytizers and dictators to keep people in line and with the program. Some soak it in more readily than others. Racism, elitism, dogmatism are all Little Red Books of fear. HR3 brings out the fear of women having any autonomy in our society. The Good Old Boys Club is alive and kicking.

And coercion and warm, fuzzy propaganda still spews from the Adoption Industry and those who benefit from it. Willful Ignorance lives.

Sigh.

Pissed Off And Proud

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Help stop the War On Women.

That Was The Week That Was

I have spent the past 10 days in a speechless state of horror, inspiration, heartache and renewed faith in humanity. We watched our former enemies from 65 years ago, now our friends and allies, as their nation was dealt blow after blow from the uneasy earth that lies beneath our feet.

I watched people who had lost families, homes and all their possessions reaching out to their neighbors, joining the rescue and recovery operations, whittling chopsticks and sharing what little they had with others. I watched brave people risking their lives trying to corral a nuclear monster before it could escape and wreak even more havoc than has already occurred.

One of the most poignant images, one I can't help but hold in my mind, is that of people desperately searching message boards in shelters,searching for the names of missing family members. Husbands, wives, children, grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins...each, it seems, had someone searching for them except in that most horrible case where entire families were taken by the waters.

If ever the importance of blood kin was demonstrated, it was here, in this stricken nation with its stalwart people. NO ONE who has survived, so far, has been left behind or deemed less important than another. There has been no looting, no violence. There has been unbelievable courage, patience and charity. Stripped down to less than the bare essentials, people shared their fires, their blankets, what little rice they had and waited for help. And the joy on the faces of those who found their family members alive was transcendent. I shed tears of joy along with them.

It might be interesting to note that Japan, the third largest economy in the world, does NOT have an "adoption society." They take care of their own and family members see after their own flesh and blood when the need arises. I have already seen where salivating American PAPs are asking about orphaned, Japanese infants and toddlers. Not so fast, there, wannabes. The Japanese will FIRST make sure that every effort is made to find blood relatives of any child before they make any other moves. And they are not too keen on the idea of their children leaving their culture and home.

As winter passes and the fruit trees bloom, I am thinking of the reality of human need for the ties of blood. You can graft a limb from one orange tree onto another and that limb will still produce the kind of fruit from the tree from which it was taken. You cannot graft a baby onto another family and have it develop the traits of the adopters. I also know that the soil of Florida will not grow a cherry tree taken from Michigan. The tree will be stunted and the fruit sparse and of lower quality.

The Japanese people, like all other people, are not perfect. History boldly notes their mistakes. But when it comes to family and what constitutes a family and community, they have something in their culture that we would be wise to emulate.

So, as the bombs fall on Libya, and as the political and economic situations elsewhere roil and seethe, the people of Japan will mourn their lost, rejoice in their found and rebuild their lives.

And the blood family in the land of the rising sun will survive.

PS: This recent article had to be added to this post. Japan says "no thank you" to PAPs. YAY!!!

Logic 101

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

FACT: Blood ties DO matter.

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

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

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

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

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

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

*sigh

The Death Of Women's Rights In America

Grab your burkhas, Ladies, and get ready to walk 6 paces behind your man. The reproductive rights of American women are becoming the province of fanatical patriarchs and the Devil no longer wears Prada..He wears Armani.

For every step forward women have taken in the US in the arenas of business, politics, education and the arts in the last century, there are Good Old Boys intent on taking us back to the Middle Ages in matters of sex and childbearing. For those of us whose fertile years are behind us, there is little threat. It is for my daughters, granddaughter and great granddaughter that I am raising the alarm.

There have been those who said that the Tea Party/ Rigid Right/ Christian Fundamentalist contingent are trying to take us back to the 1950's. I contend that the direction is more towards the Dark Ages when women were chattel and Theologians debated the existence of a soul in women. In states across the nation, the right to choose is being eroded by the arrogant and those who want their votes.

Abstinence only is still being preached, even though it is NOT effective and even foolish in concept. Virginity in a woman is a prize and the one getting the prize is not chastised for HIS sexual escapades unless he occupies an elected office. Tinkerbell, Barbie and other little girl heroines are being tarted out to the max. Little girls wear extensions, makeup and prance across a stage teaching them that their worth is in their looks and the use of them. Brittney, Miley, Lindsey, Christine, Beyonce and that audacious Gaga person are the role models for our  female youth.

All this creates a perfect atmosphere for the Big Business of adoption. Just think of all those healthy infants being taken from women who are seen as nothing more than glorified breeders. Women who put childbearing on hold and made poor choices that led to infertility will be salivating. (As an aside, there was a story about pregnant women with cancer that noted one of the reasons this was increasing was due to the fact that women were putting off pregnancy until later in life.) The Industry will be opening maternity homes and adoption agencies on every street corner. Hallelujah and pass the court orders!

Here are just a few of the reasons I make this observation:

(1) A GA state representative introduces legislation that would make it mandatory that every miscarriage be investigated and murder charges brought, not excluding the death penalty, if the miscarriage can be traced to any action or lack of action on the part of the mother.
(2) South Dakota comes up with legislation that would reduce the penalty for killing an abortion provider.
(3) States across the nation are being deluged with legislation from the GOP and Tea Party office-holders to restrict the time period during while a woman can seek a legal, medical abortion.
(4)Legislation is introduced requiring a woman to have an ultra-sound  done of her weeks-old pregnancy and shown or told the results. This is seen as a deterrent.
(5)Legislation is introduced requiring that a woman seek out and be counseled by "Crisis Pregnancy Centers" before she seeks a safe and legal medical termination. She will be encouraged to carry to term and surrender her child for adoption.
(6)The Republicans want to narrow down the definition of “rape” – by eliminating rape cases involving excessive amount of alcohol or drugs, date rape, and statutory rape, among others (basically, they’re saying: if a woman doesn’t look physically beaten, it wasn’t rape). They’re trying to do this by only counting “forcible rape” as “real rape.” This means women whose rape charges don’t fall under this vague category of “forcible rape” will not be eligible for financial support from the federal government when it comes to abortions. They even suggest that women who are raped not be called "victims."
(7)An OB/GYN in Florida had, a woman who refused bed rest after threatening a miscarriage, committed to the hospital. She had other children to support and a job to hold onto. It wasn't long after that the fetus, already deceased, was delivered by emergency C Section. This one is in the FL Supreme court at this time.

The list is longer than this, but this is enough, I would think, to make any intelligent and competent woman really worry about our future. The sad thing is that I doubt that any of the adherents of the views listed above will even see, if they read this list, how medieval, how oppressive, how patronizing and how ridiculous it reads. I wouldn't put it past them to try to bring back chastity belts for women.

We who managed to benefit, in part from some of the forward movement in the last decade are watching future generations losing all the ground that was gained and then some. We are aging and the huge number of Baby Boomers are more interested in holding on to what's left of their 401Ks and IRAs. I know that I have to turn the television off, divert my attention from the news feeds and retreat into my own life in order to sleep at night.

Yes, I know that I blogged about this two posts back. But I am more alarmed now than when I posted about this the first time. If anyone knows something we can do, who we can talk to, who can help divert this horrendous trend, please speak out. I have sent emails to all my elected officials and to a few that have nothing to do with my district. I am blogging. I am signing petitions. I am noting these things on my Facebook page.

And I have never felt so helpless in my life except when I lost my children to adoption. I don't want to go back there. This kind of thing happens in third world countries...not in my Land of the Free.

They must have really meant it when they said that "all MEN are created equal."

Just Sayin', You Know?

This is a news story from KKTV in southern Colorado. This is also one, gigantic OOPS, for the CPS, adoption and all concerned. The problem is, two little boys had to suffer while people fiddled around, doing nothing and remained blissfully unaware. Two little boys, both adopted by this couple, were recently discovered to be missing. The problem is that they have been missing for more than a decade. How in the Hell did this go undiscovered for so long?

Austin and Edward Bryant seem to have gone missing around the first part of the last decade and it was never reported by their adopters, according to this report:

"Austin and Edward are the adoptive children of 58-year-old Edward Bryant and 54-year-old Linda Bryant, of Texas. Deputies tell us the Bryants lived in a home located on Granite Circle in Monument from 1999 to 2005. Property records show they owned the home at 18060 Granite Circle from 1999 to 2006.


"I don't really remember them, but they seemed like shady people. Something just wasn't quite right," said one neighbor.

Linda and Edward Bryant have been contacted and arrested in Texas for receiving an ongoing financial subsidy from the El Paso County Department of Human Services despite the fact Austin and Edward were not residing with them. They have been extradited to back to Colorado and are in custody at the El Paso County Criminal Justice Center. "

Once again, we are shown that adopters are not saints and that they put their knickers on, one leg at a time, just like the rest of us lowly natural parents. They are just as prone to abuse and worse (maybe more prone if you take into account the lack of a blood connection) as anyone else.

But the real problem, to me, is that they went uninvestigated, still making money as if these boys were with them, for so long. I'm just saying, if this had been natural parents whose children went missing, they would have been jailed, judged and juried in a heartbeat, guilty or not. The scales are definitely not balanced when it comes to our misguided national love affair with adoption.

This also makes one question the fairness and wisdom of the adoption subsidy. We natural parents are lucky to get a tax deduction on our raised children. Why should someone receive money for adopting? I thought they wanted a child "as if born to." Subsidies do not fill that description one bit. To say that money is not a consideration in many areas of adoption is to be blind to the realities.

I am waiting to see if this receives national attention and if these children are ever found. The least crime of which the Bryants would be guilty would be fraud. The worst would be murder of the most foul variety. It breaks my heart that these kids not only went missing, but were used as income for such a long time as if their presence or absence meant less than nothing.

For the sake of Austin and Edward, I want some answers, Mr. and Mrs. Bryant. It's past time to come clean.

(You can read more about this in the El Paso Times.)

Put A Plug In Pertman

Adam, Adam, Adam. Once again, the talking head of the adoption-pushing Evan B. Donaldson Institute is speaking for those who are perfectly capable of speaking for themselves. I am so glad to know that adoptees are as fed up with this nonsense as we Nmoms are. Dammit, we are adults and we can speak for ourselves.

I was especially interested to read Mike Doughney's Blog on the subject. Baby Love Child has also entreated Pertman to shut his pie hole and let the adopted adult speak for themselves after his patronizing piece in the Huffington Post. What? Adoptees are citizens, too?? Thank you, Mr. P. We, of course, were too stupid to know that...NOT.

We Nmoms have been screaming at these self-ordained puppet masters to let us speak for ourselves for a few years, now. Mr. Pertman is an adopter. The EBDI was born from the dubious environs of the Spence-Chapin adoption agency. ANY adoption-promoting or adoption-friendly entity that presumes to speak for the Natural Mothers  OR adult adoptees, especially on the issue of open records, is bogus in its actions and questionable in its motives.

There are those who have said that adopters are needed in the fight for open records. I question that. I think that WE are needed much more than the ones who benefited from the closed records from the get-go. We are the ones who were divested of our infants and kicked to the curb, enjoined to be silent and told our children would never need us or want to know us. We are the ones who were fed specious, vicious lies such as, "you will have other children and that will take away the pain," and "you will make a life for yourself and forget." SOMEBODY, both then and now, doesn't know shite from Shinola about motherhood.

So to see the very Industry and those who benefited from our loss, writing op-ed pieces, publishing "reports" and otherwise putting words in the mouths of many very intelligent and capable women and their adult children is infuriating. They managed to intimidate Nmoms into silence for a couple of decades, but no more. Shame, lies, convoluted "reasoning" and patronization no longer work. The condescending nature of this activity does not win Nmom friends and influence adoptees. It just pisses us off, mightily.

Yeah, I know I have posted about this in the past. I will probably post about it again and again. As long as these institutes and agencies and lobbyists and their minions and sheep continue to try to wrap a simple human right in pages of double-speak both punitive and nannyish (I coined a word!), as long as adopters and agents try to tell us what we think and how we feel, there will be a need for us to retaliate with a simple phrase; "Adam and Friends, Shut the F*** up and let us speak for ourselves!!"

I am delighted to see more adopted adults and Nmothers becoming disgruntled and protesting this sham. No one can talk with authority about that which they have not experienced in this arena. Mothers know how we feel and think and what we want. Adult adoptees know their own minds as well.

The Industry and those who are its beneficiaries are managing to keep the proponents of open records at each other's necks with a lot of their blather. Well-meaning people are walking down Primrose Paths to advocate legislation that won't stand up to a Supreme Court challenge and place restrictions on the seekers and the sought.

So our message is simple...probably too simple for the talking heads to understand. Open all identifying records to the adopted and mothers and let us take care of the other decisions, ourselves like the grownups we are.

Oh, and to our children and sister mothers...don't forget to bring pictures!

My Body, My Rights, My Decision, My Goddess!!

It seems that all the patriarchal steam that has been building up in the breasts of the ultra-conservative, good-old-boy network of congress, the senate and even the clergy is erupting in the legislature. This article from MoveOn.Org about the war being waged against women has managed to piss me off more than anything that has happened in these benighted times. HOW DARE THEY? Chris Lee (R.GA), with the approval of the always offensive John Boner...er Boehner...is trying to drag us back into the cave with the rest of the Neanderthals. How can they actually propose to redefine rape? Take it from someone who has been there and had that done to her. Rape is rape whether the victim puts up a fight or not. It is either done through force, superior strength, threat of bodily harm or death or, coercion or, for the real loser rapist, drugs. EVERY WOMAN HAS A RIGHT TO SAY "NO," even to her husband and to have legal recourse if that is not respected.

The onslaught against Planned Parenthood, the Right to Choose and even our right to our place in society according to our abilities is under fire. John BoneHead and the Tea Party putzes seem to be playing right into the hands of the Adoption Machine. If we don't have access to birth control, if we are treated as second-class citizens with no autonomy and our sexuality seen as immoral and needing Federal regulation BY MEN, then there are going to be a big bunch of babies for the salivating customers of the Industry.

The NCFA is a powerful and effective lobby for the baby-brokers. These schmucks we have elected are going to push the agenda that gets their palms greased the most and appeals to the ignorant, don't-ask-questions-just-have-a-tea-party, voters. They toss out buzzwords like "socialism" but you won't find a one of them willing to forgo their pensions and government health care. What's wrong with that picture? And where are all those jobs the Tea Party promised us via the GOP??

Never, in my memory, has a president ever been as vilified by the opposition, shown as little respect and hog-tied as effectively as our current leader. I am sickened by the viciousness of the hatred directed towards this man. Hmmm..looks like racism to me. Everyone has their own opinion of his record of activity while in office, and a few of his supporters are unhappy, but we can't even address THAT for the "birthers" demanding witnesses to his birth and documentation above what was supplied by the state of Hawaii. That is a gigantic waste of time...a red herring and just another attempt to obliterate the social progress of the past several decades and keep women and workers under the thumbs of the haves.

As much as I would love to remain aloof from all these teapot tempests, I cannot mentally or emotionally transcend the vicious attack against the ground we have gained as women and the roadblocks being placed in front of our march to justice for the mothers of the EMS. Any type of adoption reform would be totally doomed if these reactionaries have their way. I am not just pissed...I am royally pissed.

The debacle in Wisconsin in another case of a government official trying to remake a state government in His Own Image. Governor Walker seems to think that taking from the middle class and giving to the rich makes him some kind of Robin Hood. Education and the right to organize will feel this one where it hurts. I hope the protesters hang in there.

The wealthy and big business are calling in all markers, now, to keep the IRS out of their offshore accounts. So the programs that stand the most likely chance of being the object of deep cuts are those that offer assistance to the most needy among us. I breathe a sigh of relief every month when I log into our account and see that our Social Security is still coming in. Seniors, single mothers, poor children, anyone with a need who isn't financially able to provide these needs for themselves, these will be the victims of the self-righteous , arrogant social engineers. Oh, and the arts will definitely get the shaft.

I hope that our government and the fat cats that really run it are taking note of what is happening in the Middle East. Where there is injustice, poverty and oppression of ANY sort, there is a ripe and ready arena for revolution. Our Constitution guarantees us the right to peacefully assemble and protest. I think a lot of that is going to be happening.

And I have developed a sudden and deep distaste for tea.

Good Girls Did

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Clorox would make a fortune.

Elitist Feminism

I find my best inspirations, here of late, in the blogs and comments of adopted people. Amanda's blog on Adoption, Surrogacy and Feminism should be a classic. It seems that protection of women and upholding the rights of women, including reproductive rights, seems to stop at these issues. Mothers with unplanned pregnancies are seen as incubators and surrogates are actively recruited as such. This is something that those of us who have been around the activism block knew but deserves retelling.

You would think that the use of women for breeding purposes for those who wish to adopt would be a Women's Issue, now wouldn't you? A movement that purports to uphold the reproductive rights and autonomy of all women should be up in arms when told our stories, shouldn't they?

NOW was approached, a long time ago, by activist mothers and they gave out the same kind of crap they give out now. They see adoption as a "reproductive right," but for WHOM? It is my observation that the right to adopt and to have a living incubator for a child is the exclusive, if unjustified, right of the women who wanted it all and didn't count on the biological clock and other factors. I have scary visions of a special class of incubator women who produce children for the elite faction of the so-called feminist movement. NOW is top-heavy with adopters as is the media and the entertainment industry. Margaret Atwood wasn't too far off the mark with "The Handmaid's Tale."

So, perhaps the feminist movement was so intent on proving that women were as capable as men that they forgot that there is one area where we are unique. The fact that we are the gender that brings life into the world is left in the dust of equal pay for equal work and the attempt to crash through that glass ceiling. That's where we start seeing, to quote my good friend, Celeste Billartz, "Woman's inhumanity to woman." Rather than seeing the need for more assistance and education to help women with unplanned pregnancies, they are falling back on the old "abort or surrender for adoption" garbage.

Just a bit of support would have been enough for most of us who truly wanted our children. An organization for women's rights should, in my mind, be in the forefront of the effort to provide ways for women and their infants to stay together and make a good life. Instead, they are putting on the steel-toed boots of the patriarchy and kicking us while we are down. Thanks for nothing, Sisters.

I really think that "Wake Up Little Suzie," by Rickie Solinger should be required reading for everyone who wants to become an advocate for the Natural Mothers of the BSE. If our children want to understand us, that book and Ann Fessler's, "The Girls Who Went Away," can help with that endeavor. To know how the same injustice has been carried into the present day, all we have to do is look around us and learn.

I am proud to be a woman. I think that I have intelligence and aptitudes that are the equal of any man. BUT, pregnancy and childbirth are exclusively issues of women. And the feminist movement has been so caught up in birth control and abortion rights that they have overlooked the multitude of women who have suffered a grievous injustice just because of their fertility. They seem to have very selective vision.

SMAAC will be joining the adoptees in San Antonio in August. I would love to have a sign that says, "Where are you when WE need you, NOW?" I wonder if they would notice?

Cover Me! I'm Going In!!

Thus speaks the hero as he/she takes on all comers, single-handed. In the more cliche action movies, the hero usually lives and all the supporting cast is killed except for one or two "special" friends. This is presented as a realistic picture of combat by the entertainment industry. Real life wars are a whole other proposition. To win the important battles, the warriors cover each other and each life is vital and valued.

We are fighting our own war, a kind of revolution against the social engineers, keepers of the keys, guardians of the status quo and the Industry and its Almighty Dollar. As more and more Natural Mothers and Adult Adopted People from the EMS come together and compare notes, the common enemy is revealed. This enemy worked so hard at pitting us against each other that they disregarded the fact that we had minds, voices and perceptions of our own.

Where there were the rare uncaring NMoms, the anger and hurt of the rejected adoptee was stoked to a fever pitch. Where there was secrecy-burdened family dysfunction, the fear of the mother was encouraged by arrogant assumers and presented as the norm. They ALMOST had us all, but a bunch of us have escaped the stockade and set up a bivouac and are plotting our strategy.

This is not going to be an easy war to win. What we want is HUGE. What the Industry stands to lose if the injustices against us and our children are revealed is HUGE. The legal profession, much of the professional medical community, churches and our own national government are on the side of the secrets, lies and distortions of fact that are the common arsenal of the Industry. Some of us older NMoms know there is a chance that we will not be alive to see the objectives achieved, especially the one of recognition and justice for the BSE mothers. It will be a bloody war and there will be casualties.

Each soldier in this endeavor has their own skill to bring to the fracas. Some are gifted in the areas of research, some can draft organizational and position documents, some know their way around state and national congresses and some of us can write from our passion and emotions, and do some rabble-rousing of our own. What matters is that there are more of us firing our own particular ammo at the same target rather than at each other. Too many have fallen to "friendly fire" and that is something that shouldn't happen.

If the USSR, England, France and the US could come together to defeat Adolph Hitler in WWII, then we, of different perspectives, can use our resources against the same enemy. Cooperate, yes, but accept the role in which you have landed. Not everyone can be a General and many shouldn't be one.

So "Praise the Family Tree and pass the ammunition!" Cover us! We're going in!!

Back To The Lair Of The Monster

"As I sat I heard a sound in the courtyard without—the agonized cry of a woman. I rushed to the window, and throwing it up, peered out between the bars. There, indeed, was a woman with dishevelled hair, holding her hands over her heart as one distressed with running.

She was leaning against a corner of the gateway. When she saw my face at the window she threw herself forward, and shouted in a voice laden with menace:— ‘Monster, give me my child!’ She threw herself on her knees, and raising up her hands, cried the same words in tones which wrung my heart. Then she tore her hair and beat her breast, and abandoned herself to all the violences of extravagant emotion.

Finally, she threw herself forward, and, though I could not see her, I could hear the beating of her naked hands against the door. Somewhere high overhead, probably on the tower, I heard the voice of the Count calling in his harsh, metallic whisper. His call seemed to be answered from far and wide by the howling of wolves. Before many minutes had passed a pack of them poured, like a pent-up dam when liberated, through the wide entrance into the courtyard.

There was no cry from the woman, and the howling of the wolves was but short. Before long they streamed away singly, licking their lips. I could not pity her, for I knew now what had become of her child, and she was better dead." ( excerpt from Dracula by Bram Stoker)




Of all the monsters of mythology, none seems to have captured the minds and imaginations of more people than the central character in a book written during the reign of Queen Victoria by Bram Stoker. Calling on legend, some historical fact and the stuff of the, then popular, "Penny Dreadfuls," he created a character that has been done and redone and still seems to draw an audience.


I was eleven years old when I read the original book. I have re-read it several times. Even with its stilted, Victorian prose, I couldn't put it down. It didn't scare me and I wasn't "titillated" by the thinly-disguised sexual nature of the book's theme. I was just enthralled with the imagination and vivid imagery that was between those pages. This genre has always been like a thrill ride at the carnival, for me. A fun ride but with the knowledge that there is very little real chance of injury. It bothers me that there are some so damaged that they would take this particular myth seriously and not see the messages, moral instruction and the bit of slap and tickle beneath the horror story.

Little did I realize that five short years later, I would be at the mercy of a man-made Nosferatu that would try to suck all the life from my heart. I never connected the excerpt above to the taking of children for adoption until I re-read it when I was 18. The picture of the woman screaming for her child brought me to tears.

Reading it again after reunion, I was more taken with the images of the brides. How different is the avid coveting of a child from the lust for blood by a vampiress? It seems to be an obsession for both. So I brought the picture together in my mind. The Industry is the source, the 'Wampir,' and the brides are the adopters he chooses to receive the children he takes. And all the cries of "Monster-Give me my child!," were unheeded and we were threatened with the wolves if we dared to even try.

People say that adoption is invulnerable, firmly entrenched and will never go away. That may be, but, even  Dracula had his weaknesses. Daylight was a biggie. If you can translate that into the light of truth, who knows what foundations can be shaken?

Dracula was able to move about in England because no one believed in such a thing. His persona was charming and debonair...even sexy (Frank Langella and Louis Jordan both made me swoon just a bit). The Industry masquerades as a benevolent entity, saving children from a fate worse than exsanguination...mainly being raised by their own mothers.

I've visited this analogy before on this blog. But I have been doing a bit of reading about those who are trying to rescue their children from CPS and the Industry and wannabe adopters who run and hide and I find myself whispering the words.."Monster, give me my child!" "Rebecca's Law" by Rohan McEnor is one book that has brought up the image in my mind.

There are those, I know, who were and are not reluctant to offer their babies to the Industry, but I still hold fast to the belief that these women are very few and not at all representative of Natural Mothers as a group. For those of us from the EMS, we believed that we were turning our infants over to the most benevolent of institutions. We had to believe it or go crazy.

It bothers me, now, to know that there was a monster behind the soft voice and false, sympathetic smile of the social workers. And that monster took my children and then threw me to the wolves.

I think I'll go sharpen a few stakes.