And The Beat Goes On..

Look above this post at the blog header. It says, in PLAIN ENGLISH, "My home. My blog. My opinions. This is NOT a forum for debate." What's not to understand? I just had to hit on this once again as I seem to get more and more attention each time I do. *whistles and giggles*

My message and opinions are not exactly PC as far as adoption is concerned, but they are the true and valid experiences and opinions of legions of mothers and adoptees who have had to deal with the painfully unnatural nature of the separation and the expectations put upon our children.

This is the nice thing about the right to Freedom of Speech. As long as I don't post porn, violent sedition or libel, I can say whatever I like as the owner of this website (as defined by Google). I could have made Motherhood Deleted a subscription-only site, but I am not doing any good preaching to the choir. We want to reach the general public and people with open minds. This blog is to educate, not debate. Debate, as far as I, personally, am concerned, wastes my precious time and space. Usually, it turns into attacks and the sort of people who want to debate are not going to have their minds changed by any argument I might give. It is my right to monitor comments and delete any that I find argumentative and non-productive or (as in the case of one or two) deceptively "curious."

But, lest any of you frustrated flamers think you are not being heard, fear not! For, on my Face Book page, I copy and paste, for all my friends to see, your words of censure and your banal insults. We have many a laugh over them. The personal attacks are the best, especially for those who really know me. I still have to chuckle about the one that accused me of driving a Buick with a Palin for Prez bumper sticker on it, especially since I drive a PT cruiser and am a die-hard, left-leaning Democrat. That one will make me laugh for a long time. Her snap judgement of a complete stranger is totally comical.

Then there is the confused person who says that, since I allow the contents of my blog to be read by the general public, I should provide a forum for those who....well, "disagree" would be the polite term. That a public website is not the same as my home. Well, uh...read above.

So I am going to say it again, LOUDER. THIS IS MY BLOG. HERE, IT IS SAFE FOR ME TO POST MY OPINIONS AND OBSERVATIONS IN THE SPIRIT OF FREE SPEECH. IF YOU DON'T AGREE WITH ME, GET YOUR OWN BLOG AND POST YOUR OPINIONS AND OBSERVATIONS. But do watch out for that "libel" thing.

You know, a lot of flamers have a habit of citing the rare "hard case" when justifying adoption. The fact is that children with AIDS were not an issue during the BSE and the crack whore mother was also a very rare bird. She and the afflicted, orphaned children still are not the norm. I have to thank my friend, Bastardette for pointing this fact out to me.

And, there are numerous kin who DO want to take on the children of family members who can't care for them, but the state and others think that it is more profitable to subsidize an adoption that to help out with expenses for real family. This is the kind of social engineering that wants to deny the poor the right to have families and raise children. I'm still a fan of the idea of beefing up the legal guardian descriptions so that the lie of "as if born to" becomes unnecessary and children receive love and nurture without the pressure of trying to be what they are not.

But to hear it from the ones salivating over the prospect of getting a baby, toddler or being a saint and "saving" an older child, the mothers are worthless and the families of the mother and father are uncaring 100% of the time. NOT TRUE. Cases such as that are still in the minority, PAPs still lust after that healthy, preferably female infant, and there is money to be made and hearts to break.

There are also lives to forever mark with the stain and strain of the attempt to break the natural bond. No, it doesn't break, but it bends and twists out of shape over the years and grief and confusion are among the least of the worries of the Mother and Adopted Adult. Those who have not walked in our shoes and who operate from the vantage point of the one who benefits from that separation should not judge when we speak out...they will but they shouldn't.

So flamers, keep them coming. We get a really good laugh after we tear your arguments to shreds. The personal attacks are really special. I don't go to the happy-sappy, pro-adoption blogs and attack or argue. Those people are saying what they have the right to say, whether I agree or not. And I sure don't judge the character of people I don't know, personally.

I am very lucky when it comes to family and friends. I guess that is why I am able to keep on posting even when being attacked by strangers and nutbars. I feel the love and support and it keeps me keeping on.

And about the one who accused me of having a "heart of coal," my husband has an owl carved from coal that we bought in our future retirement home, West Virginia. Does that count? And you know what happens to coal under a lot of pressure?

It turns into diamonds.

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.

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.

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!"

Conjectures, Urban Legends and Fantasies

Nothing could possibly be more surreal than the landscape of our dreams and imaginations, especially when fueled by half-truths, lies and rumored legends. I'm not denying that there is a visceral memory and early childhood memories that are real and true for the adoptee. But over the years, adopters avoiding questions, the industry and adopters telling convenient lies, the social perceptions of adoption and being adopted, the mythology and the deepest wishes can create a picture worthy of Charnine or Dali.


The real and valid feelings the adoptee experience are the brush, but, too often, misinformation and unrealistic expectations are the paint with which the adoptee creates an idea of what might be. Meanwhile, Mothers are often busy either trying to blank out the canvas or, at least, present a fairy-tale image of happily ever after for their lost babies. This is why we meet each other across a barrier of warped images, coping mechanisms, preconceptions and a consciousness tainted by an unnatural separation. There is nothing natural about surrender or adoption and there is nothing easy or natural about reunion from what I have seen and experienced.


When I was in treatment at the Rader institute (for bulimia), we had a wonderful group leader who made a contract with each new patient when they joined his group. We had to promise, on a scale of one to ten, to not kill ourselves, not kill anyone else and not go crazy. I managed a ten on the first two but had trouble getting past six on the last one. He kept at me until I got to a ten. I kept trying to figure out why that going crazy thing was so attractive to me that I was reluctant to let go of it. I guess, like everyone else, I was looking for an easy way out and a way to live without having to face life. I was way past insecure and into the melting clocks and purple trees of self-loathing.


I had constructed an image of what life should be, for me and for my children, and it wasn't happening. I was not ready to step out of the fantasy and learn how to enjoy and appreciate and cope, healthily, with reality. I made a lot of progress at Rader. I grew up a lot. I accepted the process and the imperfections of life, people and myself. This all happened a few years prior to reunion. I shudder to think what might have happened had I not been through that particular refining fire.


I'll be honest that reunion took me a few big steps backwards and I had to retrace my steps to reality and sanity. None of the hopes and dreams I had for my two oldest children had come true. Their expectations and imaginations had created just as unreal a scenario as mine had. And it has been so hard to admit that we can't fix each other. It's like going into a museum and looking at a piece of surreal or modern art. Each of us see something different in the painting. Sometimes I wonder if we are even speaking the same language. All we know is that the connection is there and still strong.


Someone told me that no one could understand adoptees but other adoptees. They're right. The same holds true for Mothers. So we are often at an impasse with many of our number in seeking cooperation to achieve goals. There are those that see only the dark and those that won't give up the rose-colored glasses and then there's the pain competitions. That's the reality based on the surreality. So what we need to do is find a way to accept the reality of the other, even if we don't understand it.


Once again, I have set the bar pretty high, even for myself. I can accept that the adoptee FEELS abandoned, but MY children were NOT abandoned. And it is almost impossible for people in the generations following us to even begin to understand the pressure of society and family shame. Conversely, it is hard for us to understand how it feels to be a lilac on a magnolia tree..grafted on to another family and expected to be totally okay and comfortable with that. I can't begin to imagine how it must feel to experience that "otherness" and yet be expected to behave as if it doesn't exist.


So, we would all fit right into a painting by any of the surrealists...trying to get into each others' heads, walking on eggshells and traveling through alien territory. And we are trying to do this with a road map that is drawn from lies, suppositions, our own fantasies, manipulations and the official picture of surrender and adoption presented by the industry, government and society and (all too often) the church. It takes courage to toss away that poorly-charted map and do some serious exploring without any preconceived notions to shed false light on the path.


All this is a fancy way to say that we all need to get real. Where is the logic in, for instance, saying that "my mother is the bitch from hell so I am going to hate 'em all, mistrust 'em all and call them all 'birthmothers' regardless of what they want?" It makes about as much sense as saying that "my adult child is a selfish, whining, demanding monster so all adopted people are mean and childish." But there are Adoptees and Mothers who will say just those things. These folks are still out there with Bugs Bunny meeting up with the Dodo Bird. It's a fear factor...if it is true for them, then it needs to be true for everyone...illogical but human.


I don't know how long it will take for us to meet on a common ground that is acceptable to us both. For all the mistrust and misunderstanding, there is a need for connection, love and acceptance that is just as great as any of the hostility. I just hope we get there. There are a few willing to find common ground. There are those of us who want records open for adoptees AND mothers, who want the Industry investigated and past practices put under the microscope of public and congressional scrutiny and we are willing to stand up and identify ourselves.


What really pisses me off the most is that the main architects of this surreal social experiment are uncaring of the weird world they have created. There's money in it and they are not ready to see that their "wonderful solution" only created more pain and problems. Some of these geniuses passed thinking they had left behind a perfect legacy. And the Industry and PAPs and adopters are the ones who gain along with the high-paid lobbyists and the congressional palms they grease.

Them that has, gets.

Never Too Old To Learn

Anyone who ever gets the idea that you reach a point where you have all the wisdom of life sewn up needs to be given a dose of reality. At 65, I am learning that you never stop discovering and you never stop changing. I'm a pretty stubborn "middle-aged-plus" dame, but I know it is unhealthy for me to not allow myself to continue to evolve. You're never too old to learn.

While I doubt I'll ever be able to tolerate the "B" word with grace, I have learned a lot about how different we all are, even with the shared experiences we have. I'm still anti-adoption but I have a more realistic view of how and when that institution might finally fall. It won't be in one night, like the Berlin Wall. It will take the constant and concentrated efforts of many different people, Mothers and the Adult Adoptees, chipping away on all sides to bring down that monolith. I doubt that will happen in my lifetime, but I'll go to my final reward still chipping.

I have been the object of some anger that was really misdirected. I have been dismayed to see us all lumped together as a group under that nasty Barfmuggle term, and I have been frustrated by the number of Adoptees who still see us as the cause and the culprit. I have also had my heart torn by watching these same Adoptees deal with their mistrust, frustration and sadness. I am teaching myself to remember that not everyone has reached the same level of healing and enlightenment. I'm working hard at not taking it personally.

I am also working hard at trying to help others understand the Mothers of coerced surrender. I really can't say too much about those who weren't coerced or who think they weren't, anyway. But when it comes to the whys and the hows of our separation from our infants, we are the experts. We were young, for the most part, naive, without autonomy, without financial independence, shamed, abandoned, betrayed and terrified. Our burden to bear is that we were old enough to remember it. The Adoptees bear the burden of the inability of our species to remember our infancies.

I know there are quite a few Mothers who have gone so deep into denial that they suffer from a sort of selective amnesia. I tried to do that and did manage to forget a few things...things that came back to me with a sickening rush over the first few years of reunion. Others are terrified that the house of glass they have built out of lies and secrets will come crashing down or are just terrified that they will have to face that trauma, again.

Our children, in our age group, are middle-aged adults, some even with grandchildren. They don't have a memory of the time spent in our wombs or what little time we had with them after they were born. All they know is what they were told and too often what was related to them was conjecture, urban legend and outright lies. How could they help but be confused and how hard must it be to trust? Mothers have their own trust issues so, though they are for different reasons, we're fighting the same demons, there.

My last two blogs have been about putting things into perspective. I am hoping that idea can be a healing one for some. There has to come a time in our lives when we stop blaming others, even our parents, loved ones, whoever, for our personal difficulties and start looking inward for answers. The social injustice issues are another thing, altogether. There IS blame to be laid, there and it isn't on us.

I strongly believe that a terrible injustice was done to us and to our children. I strongly believe that this injustice needs to be addressed, records opened, truths told and the entire concept of breaking up one family to form another investigated, thoroughly, and apologies and recompense offered. I also believe that it is okay, permissible, even good for us to let it be the rest of the time and live our lives with humor, humility, gratitude and optimism.

I consider myself an activist. But I cannot and will not live, breathe and eat surrender and adoption trauma twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. You see, this old broad learned something. I learned that I, that we all, deserved better then and we sure as Hell deserve better now. I want my "better" before I die.

So you'll excuse me if I don't rush to the altar of adoption separation pain, anymore. However, I'll be waiting at the door to the temple, ready to go get some work done and then have some fun when you get finished there.

I hope a lot of people I really like a lot are putting their best efforts into healing. I still am doing that. It's a learning process and you're never too old to learn.

Have You Hugged Your Mom/Child Today?

In the midst of all that is frightening and sad in this crazy world of ours, there come moments of beauty. I felt my heart literally fill up and soar for a dear friend, yesterday. Her reunion with her adult son has been troubled and marred with many broken promises of meetings, painful phone conversations, anger and hurt. It isn't rare and that is sad to know, but when it happens to you, it is YOUR pain.

On April 18th, after many years with no contact other than sporadic phone conversations, my friend spent her son's 44th birthday with him and it was good. She also got to know her "other" grandchildren and an adorable great-grandson. A lover of warm climates, she made the trek north into the late, spring cold and warmed her heart. It was worth the trip.

I can't convey her feelings. I imagine she will do that at some point, herself. But I know that I felt a thrill for her. She now has one of those special memories to hold inside. Her reunion, over two decades, is why I say "Never say Never." You never know what might come to pass if you go about your business of making a good life for yourself and keeping the door open for the missing loved one.

I wrote a blog the other day about an adult child being rejected by her Mother. For many years, my friend felt the sting of this rejection from her son. I dare say that the rejections were caused by the same affliction...self hatred. The problem is that the other person has to hurt for one's hatred for oneself. Those that experience this hatred of self, often prefer to live in denial and lies rather than make that fearful journey into the unknown, to self-esteem. Self-pity and emotional distance are easier to handle because those are the devils they know.

No reunion is perfect. Only the best at wearing false faces never hit roadblocks or find themselves in contention with each other. Someone likened, on FB this morning, adoption to the "mental ward of the world." Good analogy! There are more old wounds, insecurities, misinformation and confusion in this arena than you can find, even in the world of politics and that is saying something. For the most part and from my observations, I would say that we and our children have been royally screwed and they didn't even buy us dinner.

It takes courage to go back, time and time again, to try to repair the damage, create a relationship and put your emotions on the line. Most of us have learned to cherish the good moments and work through the rough times. There are no guarantees.

Two people whom I hold in high esteem, put themselves out there in the past few days. One had a successful encounter and one had heartache on a sheet of legal pad. But they both are resilient and brave and I am proud of both of them.

There are people (some of them very arrogant and self-promoting) who insist that being anti-adoption is unrealistic. They say there will always be a need for it. I see that there will always be a need for some sort of secure, child-centered way to care for children that won't mess with their identities or heritage. But nothing, NOTHING, can make me see adoption as even a necessary evil to that end. I hate it. I hate what it has done to millions of Mothers and their children. I hate that it has created a minefield out of what should be a natural and comfortable relationship.

To my Sister Mothers, to my dear Adoptee friends...Kudos for your courage in walking through the minefield. Group Hug, anyone?

What Do We Want?

You know, FAQ bullet-point answers are all well and good, but when it comes to the question of what the Natural Mothers of SMAAC want, in my opinion it just can't be power-pointed into a nice little sentence or two. We do our best, but there is so much dangling over the sides that I keep wanting to expand the platform. I guess that is what these blogs are all about. Here, I can expand.

I remember when I was active in the early feminist movement of the late 60's -early 70's. I wrote a letter to the editor about something, I don't remember exactly what, and it was published. Of course, my name and location was also published.

I was appalled to receive a call from some strange man, the day after my letter appeared in the newspaper, asking me, in an exasperated tone, "just what do y'all want??" I told him I wanted the right to express my opinion without having a total stranger call my home and invade my privacy. He apologized, which surprised me, and said goodbye.

It's funny that now we are still trying, as Natural Mothers, to have the right to speak for ourselves and to educate others on the difference between privacy, confidentiality and anonymity. That's number one on my personal "I Want" list. I want other people to stop speaking for me. By other people, I mean anyone who supports adoption, benefits or profits from adoption and I do mean the likes of Adam Pertman, the NCFA, the ACLU and adopters. HOW DARE those entities speak for us?

I have to use the analogy of my friend, Musing Mother, who, in a discussion of the matter, said that a male adopter (Pertman) speaking for us is like a woman describing what it is like to pee standing up via a penis. It does not compute. WE know how we feel. For people like Pertman to presume to advocate for us (in a way that is sure to keep adoption a going concern) is more than just questionable...it is insulting.

Now, let me warn some FB friends from the get-go. I consider anyone speaking on behalf of Pertman and in his defense to be violating my rules about no pro-adoption or pro-adopter rhetoric here. I am not one of those who believes that for us to succeed we need adopters on our side. That's like the flies inviting the spiders to dinner. I can not conceive of there ever being a proper addressing of the crimes against the mothers and equal access to information happening with the assistance of those who adopt. It certainly won't happen with the "help" of the NCFA or the EBDI.

More than anything, I would love to see all these people stop their jawing and ask US what we want and then LISTEN. They might be amazed to learn that we are not frail, fragile, ignorant, deviant, amoral, careless or without respectability. Those few fear-ruled, shame-infused, coward moms that protest open OBCs need to put on their big girl panties and deal. Those of us who are not afraid of our pasts, are not ashamed of our lives and who care about the children we lost to adoption are stronger and more plentiful than these few, pitiful, shallow women who are being used  by the industry.

Fast on the heels of wanting to be able to speak for ourselves and be heard, comes the wish that we could all come together, mothers and adopted people, without egos, rancor, stereotyping or arguments about trivia. If we could agree on one thing, that Natural Mothers and Adopted Adults deserve the human and civil right to know their origins or the welfare of their children without government, agency or any other institutional interference, that would be a start.

The ego thing, unfortunately, figures large and looming in the effort to organize and find common ground. There are a few that are so much more concerned with being the star of the show, more wounded than thou or leaving a legacy as the consummate experts on adoption that they draw back and unconsciously sabotage the rest of us...come to think of it, some of that sabotage has been pretty darn deliberate. There are a notable few who can disagree without being disagreeable. These folks can let others have their say, have their own and leave it at that.

Then there are the ones who hammer at a disagreement until they have alienated scores of people..people whose minds have not been changed one whit. That these people would shut the f*** up, is way,way up there on my Want List.

So, you see, when it comes to FAQ's, just getting past the first one..."What Do You Want?"....takes me a whole lot more than a couple of succinct sentences. But I am also a realist and know that attention spans are short and sound bites and Power Point presentations are the communication of the day. So SMAAC and ARD do a good and effective thing with the FAQ's.

But thank the Cosmos for blogs. Sometimes you just have to elaborate.

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.

Do We Need To Change More Than Just Adoption?

I am looking at my country and its foibles with a loving but critical eye and I have detected a huge web with a big, fat spider sitting there, just waiting to feed on anyone and everyone it can. Arachnus Americanus is a creature born of greed and arrogance. She carries the venom of financial elitism and a vicious nature born of the assumption of her own superiority. She was crafted by the hands of patriarchal control freaks. She is very good at being a predator.

At the command of her male creators, she has enshrouded both Lady Liberty and Miss Justice in copious cobwebs. A once-proud eagle is ensnared in her web. Her victims are the poor, the weak, and the disenfranchised which includes the single mother and her infant. She injects the mother with hopelessness and shame and keeps the child a child forever. Her many legs manipulate and spin and obfuscate. She is one busy arachnid.

Our nation is ill. And the American Way of adoption is just one symptom. There had to be something very wrong at the start for this system of human bondage and opportunistic baby-theft to exist. Our supposedly "Free" country has those in power, the wealthy, who exercise an amount of control that is obscene. Using spin doctors, smoke, mirrors and erosion of the educational system, these spider-makers assure their places at the top of the heap, their weight pressing down on those at the bottom. The venom of the nasty creepy-crawlie even makes some walk, willingly, into the web. These are the victims that have fallen prey to the dumbing down of our culture and citizenry. The best way to control is to keep intelligence and free thought in check.

In other countries, this has led to revolutions. Here, it leads to filibusters, sound bites, arguments and ignorance while Ms. Spider spins away, catching more and more of our rights, opportunities and our social conscience in her massive web. Motherhood is dishonored and the weakest among us are disregarded or prey or both.

To say I have become disenchanted with our power structure would be understating it. I fear the sneaky and falsely pious intrusion of the Christian Right. I abhor the pundits who fill the airwaves with fear-mongering lies and rabble rousing of the gullible. I look at the "Tea Party" and see eight, gleaming, black eyes staring back at me with venom dripping from sharp mandibles. I see the in-fighting between the parties and the mud being slung with abandon and I want to cry. I see the gross, racist, juvenile disrespect being shown our President and I hang my head and try not to watch.

It's no accident that the spider is female. In the arachnid world, the female is the web-spinner and the one with venom. She is the hunter and the killer. The patriarchy has managed to use human women in this way, turning us against each other, allowing some to prey on their sisters for coveted children and still managing to use us as chattel and sex objects despite all the best efforts of feminists and those with just plain common sense. Have you ever noticed, when stupid girls get into physical altercations over a boy, what the boys do? They watch and laugh. The patriarchy has no compunction against using us against each other in order to maintain the status quo.

Just like everything else, this nation has its good points. There are those who escape the web and the effects of the poison and let their voices be heard. There are those who can keep an open mind and question the dichotomous, scare-tactic rantings of the pundits. There are still those who believe in civil and human rights and the quality of real justice. There is beauty in our nation, from mountains to seas. There is a plethora of possibilities if only they could be pursued.

But I fear that, before any possibilities are pursued, before our social conscience is restored and before the real glory of our nation is returned to us, its people, we have a big spider to exterminate. If you don't vote, if you don't talk to our elected leaders and let them know that we know what has happened to the US and if you don't speak out, nothing, including restructuring of adoption, open records and redress, is going to happen. It's going to still be the same old, same old.

I'm ashamed of what America has become. As for our spider, I am ready to put the Raid to the bitch.

Vroom, Vroom

November used to remind me of cooling temperatures, Thanksgiving and preparing for the Holidays. Now, it includes a less enjoyable observance. Yep, it's good, old National Adoption Awareness Month and time for the farting of rainbows by clueless unicorns. But I am revving up to do my snarky best to keep the truth about adoption an obtainable commodity.

It's kind of like a drag race between us and them. Now, if I were a dragster, I would probably be a Funny Car, but when it comes to this issue, there is no mistaking the passionate power behind the rumble from my glass pack muffler. I just have to watch my fuel mixture because I can explode.

I intend to do my share of blogging in direct contradiction to the posies and idylls from the creators and sponsors of this annual farce. I love the fact that, at SMAAC, we have dubbed November to be National Adoption BEwareness Month. For us, this is a month for wearing our ribbons, for observing National Strange and Mournful Day (from a line from Paul Simon's "Mother and Child Reunion") and getting in your face with the Industry that trades in the flesh of children.

The lobbyists and the National Council For Adoption and other facilitator groups have done a good job of buying off legislators and conning the public with warm, fuzzy images that are anything but reality. We just came out of the fog an average of two decades ago. The adoption engine has been humming merrily along during that time. The Industry counted on our silence to keep their numbers up, but the supply dwindled while the demand remained strong so they had to adapt. Their marketing and PR techniques are top of the line. All we have are our individual voices.

I got my ribbon badge out of my jewelry box and am freshening it up. It's simple enough to put together with black ribbon for grief and loss, red for passion and righteous anger and white for hope. Most of us pin ours on with a stud earring with the birthstone of our child who was appropriated for adoption. In my case, that is a diamond (April) for my daughter and a pearl (June) for my son. I wear it everywhere and am happy to explain its meaning to anyone who asks.

I invite all my sister mothers, especially those from the EMS/BSE, to write letters to the editors, engage in discussion, write their elected representatives, blog, if you like, add this to your facebook page and get the word out. This is a race we need to win and it's not won in just one heat.

So, Ladies, start your engines, watch for those staging lights on the Christmas Tree and show the industry your rear bumper. Vroom, vroom.

Oxymoron of the Day: Ethical Adoption

The list of oxymorons in regular use is astounding. "Awfully good," "adult children," "a fine mess," and one of my personal favorites, "jumbo shrimp." The latest on my list is this one; "Ethical Adoption." This is being used by those who consider themselves more sensible, sane and realistic than those of us who want to see adoption cease and something more child-centered put in its place. Mention that someone is anti-adoption and you get the usual gasps of outrage (it's as if the flag had been burned) and the charges of anger (well duh) and bitterness.

I am against adoption because it cannot, as a means of creating artificial relatives, ever be child-centered or ethical. Those who think that can put an old product in a new box and it will be just fine, fine, fine are, I believe, not getting the point. As long as adoption, the transference of a child from natural kin to unrelated people with a legal writ declaring that they are parents to that child ,exists there can be no ethics involved. As long as it is seen as beneficial, in any way, then mothers can be swayed by popular opinion and presentation.

How can any adoption be ethical? It is about providing a couple with a child, preferably a healthy infant. It brings to mind another of my favorite oxymorons..."compassionate conservatism." Adoption has created a class of people in this country that I refer to as the Elite Self-Entitled. Rather than a Lexus or a McMansion or a flat-screen TV, these folks want reality changed for them. They want a child. They want to deny their infertility and they don't want to wait. Some of them, according to one study, don't even want to do the deed that creates children. Yes, that's right. Many are childless because their union is asexual. It's a recently discovered phenomenon but one that I can imagine is not all that new.

Now, simple biology would tell you that, barring other reasons for infertility, you have to get the baby IN before you can get it out. There are others such as Jillian Michaels, Helen Mirren and a few skinny actresses and bodyphiles who don't want to sully their bodies with pregnancy and childbirth but want the title of Mommy and the appearance of the normal family. Lots of them also love that automatic halo that society confers on the adopter. I wonder if some of these adopters I won't mention but whose initials are Angelina Jolie think that adopting can divert people's attention from earlier, kinky, strange and questionable behavior.

 So, we are supposed to keep adoption alive to cater to these people? Are we supposed to try to find a way to Bondo, sand, paint and polish the wreck and present it as a new, improved model just to keep providing babies for people who have tried for two or three years and declared themselves infertile? Fast-tracking is all the rage in everything and some people just have to make life meet their schedules, don't they? Again, they want what they want when they want it. The body may be shiny but the engine is still clogged and dirty.

Let's get something straight (and to my gay and lesbian friends, I apologize for that word). Parenting is not a right for ANYONE. It is not a right that heterosexuals have so homosexuals should have as well. It is not something that someone should have just because they have the house, car, career and bank account. It is something that happens according to biology and nature. Wanting to parent is not a guarantee of being able to attain parenthood nor should it be. Nature makes those decisions.

I guess adoption could be made somewhat more "ethical" if it were taken away from the churches as a means of increasing their numbers and doing a bit of Christian social engineering. I suppose it could be more ethical if attorneys were not paid to advise their adopting clients to run with the baby and ignore court orders if a natural parent changes their mind or never agreed to the adoption in the first place.  But to me, these concessions are too little and too vague.

Kinship, good, well-run group homes and legal guardianships have not been given a fair shake in this country. In many states, a grandparent, aunt or uncle who wants to care for a child whose parents are deceased, of diminished capacity or who abandoned said child are forced to adopt that child in order to keep the family intact. So a kid winds up calling his/her grandparents Mom and Dad and the mother is the sister and their cousins are their nieces and nephews and I'm My Own Grandpa. In my day, the family just stepped in and added the child to the household with no admonitions to call relatives anything other than by their correct title.

To me, it's simple and I speak for no one else but myself. Ethical adoption is as impossible as that old one about silk purses from sows' ears. So gasp and call me bitter. I am not ashamed and I think I have logic and common sense in my reasoning.

I am simply, unapologetically anti-adoption and that ain't no oxymoron.

Somebody Give That Lady An Award

Liza Minelli Chose Helping Children Over Adoption

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Covet THAT.

We're Heading For The Hills

I am really disturbed, on so many levels and for so many reasons, with the tidal surge of hate and intolerance that has emerged with the Tea Party gang. I hate to say it, but I find, in their numbers, many old friends who used to lean a bit to the left or, at least, were on the moderate side. The ignorance about and vilification of President Obama has left me with jaw dropped about the way these people lap up misinformation. I have my own criticisms of his performance, but I don't swallow hate-based lies. This is the kind of mindset that prevailed during the EMS. Seeing it out there, alive and squirming with malice, makes it more urgent for us to head for the hills, literally and figuratively.

Where we are moving, the nearest neighbor is a mile away and people mind their own business. If we are careful about what we watch on TV and read online, maybe we can put some kind of distance between us and the madness. I feel like there is a huge, nasty monster nipping at the heels of the moderate sector of our population. We are in very real danger of seeing religion worm its way deeper into our government. What that has to say about the future of family preservation is really frightening.

Since I know, personally, a few of these TP's, let me tell you what I know about just them. They are members and true believers attending fundamentalist, evangelical Christian churches. They were avid supporters of both Bushes and despised Clinton. They tend to question our president's citizenship and shudder at the thought of any social program to aid the people who need it. They see anything with the tags of "socialism" or "social welfare" as lurking shadows of communistic evil. They are unaware that with Medicare, Social Security, EOE, unemployment benefits, disability income, free public education and many other things that we take as our due, we are already dabbling in socialism. These people are appalled at the sexual behavior of others but feel very self-righteous about any war in which the US is involved, even  those predicated upon outright lies (and for every lie we bring to their attention, we get back, "well, Clinton got a blow job."). These are people who are hanging on to the repressive and bloody legacies of the Puritans, the Native American-killing "pioneers" and the McCarthy era. They really, really liked Ike and think Nixon got a bum rap. Reagan is, to them, a demi-god.

They see Glen Beck, Rush Limbaugh and Sarah Palin as great, political minds and will believe outrageous things if these sickos say they are so. And they believe that adoption is just the best damn thing since sliced bread. They want to keep maternity homes running and build more. They are the kind that blame the victim for her rape and blame the mother for her loss. They are the kind that think records should remain closed and that no single mother is good enough to raise her own child. Please note that this applies to the ones I, personally, KNOW. And it breaks my heart to see a couple of them, really intelligent women, go down this road. Rather than being the kind of friends that will say, "Hell yes, you got taken," they are the kind that are quick to assure me that I have been forgiven for my sin of fornication. I wonder at the group as a whole if these folks are so involved in it.

We have two choices, those of us who are middle of the road or lean to the left and who want to bring Big Adoption down. We can either fight or run. My husband is 70 and I am 65. We are not very scrappy at our time of life. I can write and I can blog, but I can't get out there in the hot sun and debate people who have no intention of allowing reason of any sort to sway their thinking. I can vote and I can write letters telling our leaders that something really nasty is going to happen, but I cannot, on my own, influence the US congress, the state legislature or even our town council.

If what I fear comes to pass and this political scenario becomes fact, then I am going to be glad to be hidden in our very private retreat in the hills, far away from neighbors, neighborhood associations, political block parties and surrounded by rugged individualists who mind their own business. I have even tried to persuade Hubby to emigrate to Canada, but the hills of WV is as far north as he is willing to go.

If I sound like an alarmist, so be it. I've been leery of this kind of political activism since Robertson tried to run for President and Falwell started up the, so-called, "Moral" Majority. Every time I dare to look, I see these monsters gaining steam and gaining ground. In fact, they are right on our heels. Unless we are really equipped and ready to fight for our rights and freedoms, I guess we had better run. But I hate to sound like a coward. I really want to preserve the momentum that began in the 60's when so much became so much more open.

Say, what about a group, with a PAC, banners and media coverage? We could, maybe, call ourselves, "The Humane Majority?"

It might be worth a shot.

That Night In The Rain

The blog post by Musing Mother about the surrender documents brought back so many memories. I had a long labor with my firstborn and had also been treated for phlebitis while pregnant. I was back from the hospital and moved from my upstairs dorm room to the large room downstairs that was designated as the "Mothers' Room," a title that I now find interesting and a bit cruel. I had a huge episiotomy so I had to spend a certain amount of time on the bed, covered by a sheet while a warm light was shone on my privates. That, sitz baths, Anacin and a lidocain ointment were all the relief I was given.

It was just after supper and I was under the light, again, when my social worker, a stocky little woman with blunt-bobbed, salt and pepper hair and thick glasses, came in. She gave me time to get decent and I noticed that all the other Mothers-With-Empty-Arms had disappeared and I was alone with Ms. Stone.

Ms. Stone was very solicitous. She got one of those stupid, inflatable, doughnuts cushions for me to sit on and brought me over to the little table that was in the center of the dorm room. It was the 12th of April. My daughter was six days old and I had left the hospital without her. It was raining, heavily, outside and the weather more than matched my mood.

Ms. Stone had brought the surrender document for me to sign. Fighting tears, I tried to read it through the blur and each word that I can remember was a knife through the heart. "The undersigned, Robina D. Kinney, does willingly and with full knowledge relinquish all parental rights, claims and responsibilities to the infant child known as Sarah Irene Kinney...." There was a lot more gibberish, but, for some reason, that one part stayed with me, brought to the surface of my memories after reunion. I signed because I knew I had no other choice. If I didn't  sign, I had been convinced I would have no place to go and no way to make a life for us. I had also been coerced into believing that I would be a toxic and damaging mother to my child. I signed while crying.

Ms. Stone seemed moved by my tears and asked me if there was anything she could do for me. I practically begged for one more visit with my little girl before she was taken away. Mrs. Stone made arrangements for me to be at the exit door at the end of the corridor and she pulled her car around. I opened the door and she opened the car door and I dashed the few short feet through the heavy rain and took the front passenger seat. I thought we were going to ride to the hospital, but she just told me to turn around.

There, in a blanket-lined basket, wearing the white outfit that my grandmother had sent me, was my baby. She was asleep, and sucking on the middle finger of her right hand. She looked content, but my heart was breaking. Ms. Stone remarked on how pretty she was. She did look like a little angel with folded wings. She was still wearing the pink and white beaded bracelet from the hospital and I asked if I could please keep the bracelet. It really meant nothing to anyone else since it had my alias on it rather than my real name. The name "Eve Knight" would haunt me for years because I spent five months of my life being called by that ridiculous name. Ms. Stone slipped the bracelet off my daughter's little wrist and gave it to me. I reached back and touched her and opened the door to get out. I couldn't stand another minute of that pain.

I stood in the rain at the door until the car was out of sight. The house nurse fussed at me, taking my temperature and hustling me into a warm bath. They couldn't send me home to my parents if I was sick. They could prevent most physical illness but not the deep sickness of the heart and soul that would never leave me. That night in the rain, with the lights of the hospital across the street making yellow puddles where they shone on the pavement, standing there, alone, with that little bracelet in my hand, will always be one of the most painful moments of my life.

14 months later, the victim of a violent date-rape nine months earlier, I stood in a parking lot, under a sunny June sky, with my newborn son in my arms. Still unwed, still deemed unfit even though I had not done anything but be with the wrong person at the wrong time, I kissed him goodbye...something I had not been able to do with my daughter....and placed him in the lap of a lady riding shotgun with the social worker there to take him back to Columbia, SC to the same agency that had taken my daughter. He was dressed all in yellow...another gift from my grandmother. I remember his shiny dark hair, which I learned, later, fell out and came back in blond, and how husky he was at eight pounds.

I didn't expect it to hurt every bit as badly as it did the first time, but it did and I clutched a second little hospital bracelet in my hand on the way back to the home, dry-eyed until I could get some privacy. I closed myself in one of the less-used bathrooms and sobbed until my throat was sore and my head ached. I still, to this day, do not remember signing surrender documents for my son.

On December 23, 1968, before they closed the lid on my mother's coffin, I slipped both bracelets into her hands and silently asked her to look after her grandchildren because I couldn't. Numbed with grief, for my children as well as my mother,  I was still trying to say good-bye. Those farewells just never took. How does a mother say goodbye to living, breathing children, forever?

In 1993, I reunited with both children, now adults, familiar strangers, and started learning a few hard truths about adoption, what it had done to me, to them and to all in my world. It has been a bumpy ride. My daughter and I are estranged for the second time in 17 years. My contact with my son, while cordial, is sporadic. I have learned to make my own peace and happiness, one day at a time, and have become, unashamedly, anti-adoption as it is practiced in this society. My stance has nothing to do with the nature of my reunions. It is about what I feel and believe in my deepest heart and a stance arrived at with a lot of thought and research and interaction with other mothers and adult adoptees.

My efforts are now directed to the mothers of my era, the EMS, and the injustices they endured. I don't have to explain or justify my stance to anyone. I didn't come to the place where I am now, in activism, overnight.

It was a long, slow process that began on April 12, 1962 in Charlotte, NC, that night in the rain.

Illegitimi Non Carborundum

It seems that, of late, there have been more and more cases of persecution of the innocent and those who speak the truth. Three friends go hiking in the Middle Eastern Mountains and are arrested by the Iranians who charge them with espionage. A young woman wants to marry someone of another religion and she is stoned to death. A whistle-blower is fired and persecuted in an attempt to silence him.

And, the far right and the religious fundies are on a tear in this country for no other reason, when you strip away all the rest of the palaver and specious reasonings, than the fact that our President, duly elected, is a mixed race man with features of the African American race. I think they would be just as nasty and irrational if the chief executive were a woman with liberal leanings. The Old Boys Club took a  beating and they are pulling out all the stops and using the ignorant and bigoted in their campaign. Their campaign has been so successful that a full 20% or more of our population now believe that Mr. Obama is a non-American-born Muslim. This, as we all know (or I hope we do) is slanderous Poppycock and the usual scare tactics that target the less astute citizens of our nation.

Now, we also have anti-choice zealots bemoaning the fact that adoption referrals from Planned Parenthood are decreasing. The number of infants surrendered by single mothers is also decreasing and the Industry and its backers are perturbed to the point that they are doing all in their power to persuade young women to "make an adoption plan(yuck)" and "place" their newborns with a "deserving couple." The message here is that the mother who dares to become pregnant while, single, poor or not having completed her education is NOT deserving of her child. It's a subtler and more insidious version of the same old persecution. The idea of a family headed by a single, young, less-than-affluent woman seems to really scare the bejeesus out of the Good Old Boys.

Along with the tea parties, Palinist goofball rhetoric and other such right-wing nonsense, we are now seeing an upswing in the attacks online and in the general media against adoption reform, open records and those investigating questionable adoption practices and the overzealous actions of the various state Child Services and Social Service agencies. The agencies, including the church-affiliated agencies, are pulling out all the stops and even haunting the adoption forums online to press their agendas.

This can, at times, really get me down. But I have adopted a new slogan, one that was used by General "Vinegar" Joe Stillwell in the Latin, "Illegitimi Non Corborundum," and used as a theme for a popular song by the Toasters, "Don't Let The Bastards Grind You Down." I have spent most of my adult life with opinions that were less than popular or politically correct as in "ain't adoption sweeeeet?" I have learned to hold fast to what I know to be true and understand that the more someone fights to change my views, the more they must feel threatened by them.

Well, to our adult children and my sister mothers, congratulations. They are lining us up in their sights and hauling out the big ammo. Adoption reformers and anti-adoption activists are the target du jour. They are afraid of those of us who are Senior Mothers because there was a lot of paperwork flim-flamming going on back then and the agencies, private, church-run and state-run, want to cover their precious behinds. That is also why they are trotting out an unprovable adoption myth, that of the non-existent guarantee of anonymity for the surrendering mother, to deny adult adopted people the right to their original birth certificates. We already know many, many reunited mothers and adult children who have discovered the lies of their surrender. That must really bother the ones who perpetrated those lies.

We have many, many mothers who don't remember ever signing a surrender document. We find that our children, whom we were promised would be swiftly taken to their adoptive homes, often were kept for months in foster care, without the knowledge of the mother, so that the officials could declare them abandoned. That nasty word is even in a lot of the paperwork. The bitch of this is that, had I known the time frame I had to change my mind and that my children were in foster care, believe me I would have done all I could do to get them back. The social workers of that day knew that, hence the prevarication. With reunions and the campaigns for open records, the secrets and the lies are circling around to the hindquarters of the social workers and agencies, trying to line up a good bite.

So, along with the decision I have made to refuse to allow these conscienceless bastards to grind me down, comes the satisfaction of another truism...what goes around, comes around. Karma is staring the Adoption Industry in the face and Karma can be a real bitch.

There's a little bit of hope for the good guys, yet.