Too Much Life Going On....

I was perusing the web looking for images of women juggling all the aspects of life. Most of the pictures were of women juggling home, children, mate and work or even items in a recipe. That's not really where most of us are, right now. The world is changing into a strange and scary place.

Most women are NOT singly focused on home and hearth or even jobs. We have our philosophies and our causes. These days, it's more like we are juggling chainsaws on a tightrope.

In every area of life, including the area of natural disasters, we are all cringing while waiting to see what comes next. The political scene, alone, is enough to make a grown woman cry. Like my friend said, there is more ugly stuff going on in the world other than adoption and some of it is worse.

That is not to denigrate the pain of those still working through the impact that having a child taken for adoption or being adopted has on one's life. It's just that if I had to pick a trauma, there are others that are a lot more crippling. I listed some of them in a previous blog. It seems we have a culture of victimology. "Get over it," is a bit harsh, but "recover and live" is workable.

I went through rape crisis counseling. One of the counselors said that, for her, it was about going through stages. First came the victim, then the struggler, then the fighter and, finally, the survivor. Funny, but she never referred to "victim" as a bad word. Also notable is the fact that many Mothers refer to ourselves, as a group, as survivors.

It was also important, in our recovery from being victims of rape to being survivors, to place the blame where it belonged. One woman wanted to blame her mother who was so insistent that she be "popular" that she encouraged her to date the guy who raped her. Many of us blamed ourselves for poor judgement of character or for choosing the wrong ride home, etc. ad infinitum. The fact is that we were afraid to narrow our focus on the person who was the real villain..the rapist. It was another way to avoid facing our fears and memories.

20th century psychiatry made blaming one's parents, chiefly the mother, for one's pain a popular concept. Many took that and ran with it. It gave them an excuse not to take responsibility for their own actions. It is always easier to blame than to examine who might be the real malefactor in adoption. It is especially difficult to blame a faceless Industry, a long-forgotten social worker and deceased parents. It is harder, still, for adoptees, to see the role of the adopter in the mix.

But once victimized doesn't mean forever a victim. There comes a point when it's not important how the jackass got into the ditch but how we can work together to get it out of there. As adults, we are responsible for our own survival, our own actions and words and how we respond to those in our arena of adoption activism. In every case where I have sought healing, I have found the tools were with me all along...inside me. So, if we looked inward for healing, perhaps we could look outward enough to work with each other and pull that damn donkey out of the ravine.

This issue is not 24/7 for me. As the title says, there is too much life going in. In the areas of financial stability, women's reproductive rights, the direction of our government, climate change and world-wide unrest, we are very busy keeping those chainsaws in the air. Our energies are being spread across a wider spectrum of causes and crisis. For OCD perfectionists like me, it is overwhelming. That is why the sniping, name-calling, carping, whining and otherwise making everything all about you in the adoption arena is trying my patience.

I am taking some mental health days...one or two a week. I'm retired, so that is no problem. Those are days when I don't worry about anything, turn off the news, step outside and know that the Universe is rolling along without the benefit of my august worry. While much of what goes on might somewhat affect me, not much of it is all about me...not even what happens within my own family.

Life today is frustrating. We are all survivors and we have earned a bit of serenity. There is no reason why we should allow our lives to be chaotic on a constant basis. Put down the chainsaws. Get off the tightrope. Now, breathe!

Doesn't that feel better?

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.

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."

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.

Being Offended

Most thinking people I know would be rightly offended by this picture. It exemplifies all that is wrong with religion, racism, arrogance and hate. But then, we are offended by many things.

I am offended by gratuitous vulgarity that is used only for shock effect rather than to make a point. I am offended by most Rap for this reason. I am offended by people who don't know how to behave in public with dignity and kindness. I am offended by badly-timed red lights and stores that run out of the special offers before I get there. I am offended by wife beaters, child abusers, date-rapers, loud car stereos, bullies and door-to-door missionaries. I am offended by Glen Beck, Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh, Richard Riley and Mel Gibson. I am offended by people who use handicapped parking spaces without a tag or mirror hanger. I am offended by political commercials that sling mud. If I tried really hard, I could spend most of my time being offended.

Richard Dawkins, an Atheist activist from the UK, presented a speech at UC at Berkely with this as the theme. He presented it well. There are times, he opined, when it is appropriate to be offended. There are times when something goes against the grain so badly, that so scorches your sensibilities to the core, that taking offense is the only way to respond. He is so right. I am not an atheist but I am an un-churched free-thinker and much of what he has to say appeals to me.

For me, it is the carefully crafted and ongoing efforts of the religious right and the government (on both sides of the aisle) and the adoption industry to turn back the clock and return us to the bad old days of maternity homes, shame and selective social engineering. What is especially offensive is the use of young, bubbly, natural mothers to promote this kind of horrific activity. Their website and facebook page are so saccharine as to nauseate. "Birthmom Buds," "Birthmothers Ministry" and "Ask A Birthmother" are among the greatest offenders.

I have, in the past, referred to these women as "Judas Goats" who cheerfully lead other animals to slaughter. It's really worse than that. They are participating in doing to the nation and to millions of young women what was done to them..brainwashing. The religious zeal that targets abortion rights has been handily incorporated by the adoption industry into a way to continue to promote infant adoption.

That brings me to another thing that I find offensive. Why do the adopters of infants insist on the idea that they are "rescuing" an infant from a fate worse than death? Why do they, in fact, want only the womb-fresh, healthy infants? Why do these self-entitled, Yuppie paragons ignore the multitude of older, special needs children in the foster care system that truly need the comfort of a home and people who care about them?

If what I have seen is any indication, they will have their fresh, warm, still-damp babies. The industry and its spin doctors and the churches and the pundits are carefully grooming a new generation of brood mares for the more entitled and that is what offends me the most...that there are those who believe that they are more entitled to a child than a child's own mother and that a mother-to-be will willingly walk into the beemommy trap believing the same damn thing.

1900 years ago, give or take a few, a cult was given a jump-start by a tax collector turned evangelist and prolific writer who claimed a vision on the road to Damascus, much like Joseph Smith later claimed a vision in the US that led to the LDS church. Both men were of questionable character and I can't see, from the teachings of either, where that was improved by their, so-called, divine messages. If you look at the dogma of most Christian churches, you will find, if your mind is open and you are Bible-literate, that they practice more Paulism than Christianity. Saul/Paul was a misogynist, judgmental and arrogant....all the things that the Jesus who is portrayed in most scriptures was not. The message of love gets lost in the regulation handbook, and religious extremism is spreading like wildfire.

Today, almost two millennia later, this dogma is being used to perpetrate the disregard for the most natural, biological and spiritual bond there is...that of a mother and her child. They have no trouble using God as a wedge to separate infant from mother and they do so with impunity. If nothing else, they use the old hellfire and brimstone fear tactics and lead the mother to believe that she will only be saved if she repents and surrenders her child. SS, DD.

So, yes, I am offended...I am offended by the machinations of an insidious industry that preys on the vulnerable in our society and I am offended that a religion, supposedly based on love, along with our national government, is in collusion with them. This treads badly on the principle of separation of church and state. I am offended by the unnecessary pain of millions of mothers and their surrendered children.

And if that offends YOU, too bad.

There Is Always "Plan B"

This online ad for Plan B "Morning After" contraceptive caught the eye of Musing Mother and then caught my eye. I know we were both thinking the same thing. If there is something that can prevent the zygote from implanting and developing, why doesn't every sexually active, single young woman get this? 72 hours is 3 days to prevent an unexpected pregnancy. The sooner you take the pill, the fewer cells are present in the zygote. It is flushed out in a regular menses just as many other fertilized ova have been. Not all  fertilized ova implant and gestate. That's simple biology. No one considers that either an abortion or a miscarriage. In fact, women don't even know when it happens.

As much as I love my adult, reunited children, if this had been available when I was an infatuated teen, and later, an assaulted one, believe me, I would probably have been ordered by my parents to take it. I do know that they give it, now, to rape victims in the ERs of most hospitals. Though my pregnancies were unplanned and problematic, I loved my children and, once I had been through gestation and birth, wanted nothing more than just to hold, love and raise them.

This is just another little bit of evidence to prove the point that, not only have things changed greatly since our day, but that there are not just unnecessary adoptions~ there are unnecessary pregnancies. I can understand a woman forgetting her pill, or a moment of passion becoming so intense that a condom and foam are forgotten in the heat of the moment. But if you can get a simple pill from your doctor or pharmacist to take the morning after the heat has subsided, then for Pete's Sake, do it!!

I am more and more convinced that there is a conspiracy to keep young people ignorant of the simplest and most effective birth control methods. We've all seen how well "abstinence only" works (not) and being sensible seems, to many people in love, to be less than romantic. C'mon people. You can be "swept away" and still take time to take a pill, or use a condom...it's simple, fast and easy. Being in love or lust doesn't mean that it's okay to be careless. We've come too far in the areas of medical science and contraception to have to provide babies to an Industry that destroys little families for money.

So, the choices you have are now increased. You can prevent pregnancy beforehand, you can prevent it in the 72 hours following unprotected intercourse, you can legally and safely terminate a pregnancy or, if you feel you must carry to term, you can keep and raise the child YOU created without the social stigma of our era.

All those choices are the most responsible ones I can think of and adoption isn't among them.

* Note: Never say that I won't admit it when I am off the mark. The drug that causes the zygote (fertilized ovum) from implanting is not the same as "Plan B" and is still in the testing stages. There is a drug that will aid in completing the emptying of the uterus when miscarriage is unavoidable and the newer drug is based on that one. I know that one is real because they gave it to my daughter when she started miscarrying.

Tears For My Country

I have always felt, and still feel, that I live in a wonderful country. Notice, I didn't say "the greatest" nor did I say "perfect." There are many things in our history of which we can all be justifiably proud and there are many shameful mistakes from which I wish our government and power structure could learn.

If the USA were a person, I would say she is suffering from OCD and addiction. One of the hallmarks of OCD is repeating behaviors...often destructive and non-productive ones. It's insanity at its most insidious.

I still see the bumper stickers, from time to time, that state "My country, right or wrong." Sometimes I see the old one, "America. Love it or leave it." But that first truncated quote goes on to say that, "when it is right, I will support it. When it is wrong, I will work to change it." It's like the love a mother has for her children. It's unconditional, but a good mother doesn't support or enable bad or destructive behavior. She allows and encourages her children to take responsibility for their mistakes and hasty actions and to learn from the experience. Sometimes, we have to let go and leave it up to whatever Higher Power in which we believe to carry a load that we cannot.

The Serenity Prayer asks for acceptance for the things we can't change, courage to change the things we can and the wisdom to know the difference. We can't change the past. Neither I nor any group to which I am affiliated is trying to accomplish the impossible. I'm smart enough to know that, Einstein and his theories aside, time travel is not a luxury we can currently afford ourselves. But to bring attention to a massive mistake in hopes that our government can see the lesson to be learned...that I can do.

As I watch my nation's struggle and the efforts being made by the right wing to establish a state religion, legislate personal sexuality and reproduction, and to keep the power and the money in the hands of the elite, I want to cry for the image I had of America as a child. But I also know that it is good when we no longer see things as we want them to be but as they are and were. From that vision comes something I think of as the strength of America...the activism of its citizenry.

Yesterday, I wrote about Reproductive Predation. The reason so many feel entitled to engage in that behavior is because of a corrupt segment of our society who thinks it is all right to prey on the young, vulnerable and poor for their own needs. This mind-set got its start with the "perfect solution" of the post-WWII era, the BSE/EMS. Because it could be done, back then, legally and with impunity, massive numbers of young women were stripped of all autonomy and their infants. There was no "choice" involved and the methods were so punitive that they would cause gasps of horror if tried in the present day. I'm not talking about just our parents, but an entire society, government and "profession." We were fodder for the onset of a terrible social experiement that has evolved into the slick, sleek, well-funded and government-supported industry of today.

I don't know if I can do any more than hold up a mirror to our nation and hope that she sees the truth in her reflected image. If it means I need to chain myself to the White House fence, well, it's been done before. We were encouraged by subtle threats to keep silent. For decades, many of us kept our secrets and some of us only told those to whom we were close. Now we are talking, and it seems to upset many people. One would almost think they were afraid for our stories to be told in detail.

Well, the proverbial "can of worms" is opened, but instead of worms, it is releasing a bunch of gray tigers. And we're after the people who took our cubs.

1945

These two could be my parents..well they were off by a few months, and my father was an Army Sergeant and my mother was a office clerk in SC. They were married in 1942, right before my father was shipped out to Europe, where he was wounded in action. I was born on July 14, 1945, after the victory in Europe and a month before the surrender of the Japanese in the war in the Pacific.

As this picture illustrates, these boys came home glad to be alive and lusty as most young bucks are. Prior to that time, most unmarried mothers found havens in places like the Florence Crittendon Homes which were founded to help give these young mothers and their infants a better start in life, together. Adoptions did happen, but not on a large scale. Only later, as the numbers of unwed pregnancies began to rise and social work became a "profession," did Flo Crit and other such establishments morph into adoption-oriented clearinghouses.

With the emergence of the field of social work on  that scale, came the concept of adoption as we know it now. It was the "perfect solution" for the perceived problem of teen/unwed pregnancy and the increasing numbers of couples wanting to adopt. In many cases, hubby came home from the war with infertility issues due to a "case of the mumps." The mumps were not always what caused the problem for these fellows. But it seems that, by that time, rather than dealing with and accepting the fact of their childlessness, more childless couples wanted to adopt. Thus the rising numbers on both ends began the burgeoning adoption industry and the adoption-minded response from state agencies. Looking at it from this end of the time scale, it was cause and effect and the attitude that human beings could engineer anything. The good, old American way of supply and demand went into high gear.

Adoption, which was not the way most mothers before had handled pregnancies while unmarried, became, more and more, the Idea Whose Time Had Come. It was supposedly a win-win situation. The parents of the pregnant girl got their shameful secret swept under the rug, childless couples got an adorable infant and all was well. If the mother got a bit stubborn and wanted to keep her baby, well, she's the one who lifted her skirts and it was perfectly legal to mistreat these wanton girls to "rehabilitate them." We were isolated and treated like criminals, sneered at by medical professionals and sent home, broken-hearted, with the advice to say nothing to anyone about our terrible secret.

The numbers spiked as the war babies and post-war boomers started growing into nubile young girls and randy young boys. The hypocrisy of the times was ubiquitous and the autonomy of women was not even a spoken concept. The popular theory of the mental health profession at the time was that girls who became pregnant (i.e., had sexual activity) prior to marriage were psychologically defective, even delinquent, and gestating, laboring,delivering and surrendering their child in secrecy was a way to cure that emotional and psychological defect. The religious leaders saw the loss of our children as our way to redemption for our sin of fornication. The reason we were singled out is because we were the only ones whose fornication bore fruit. So it was either a shotgun wedding...hard to do if the father denied paternity and the burden of proof was on the head of the frightened mother...or a trip out of town to "visit an aunt," during which time, the "problem" would go away and the family honor would remain untarnished.

As the sixties progressed into the latter years of that decade, women started looking askance at the double standards and outmoded attitudes towards us, our contributions to society, our abilities and our sexuality. By the early 1970's, things started to change. Women became more outspoken, more in control of their own destinies and less inclined to allow others to make decisions for them. With the legalization of safe, medical pregnancy termination and the increasing availability of birth control for even the single woman, there were more choices for women. In 1976, 13 years after I had been coerced into surrendering my second child, I was invited to a baby shower for the daughter of a friend at work. She was single, in her freshman year of college, and had the loving support of her parents in HER decision to keep her child. The father had reluctantly signed an agreement to help support the baby. I attended for a short while, then went home and wept bitter tears, holed up in the bathroom so that my two raised children couldn't hear me. Keeping and raising a child by a single mother was no longer a horror and a shame to the majority of people.

As these new choices started appearing, the number of adoptable infants started declining. From what was a bounty of baby-flesh for the facilitators to market, it dropped to around one infant for every 40 potential adoptive couples. In pockets of backwardness and for parents who were still trying to present themselves as the progenitors of perfection, there was still pressure on young women to surrender and agencies and attorneys who made their daily bread from this were not about to let these isolated cases know their options.  It was also another way of after-the-fact birth control. For those who complain about abortion being used in this manner, this was seen as more "acceptable." For the religious, thus was born the adoption rather than abortion campaign and more social engineering to be had by all. Hooray. A lot of the newer mothers who "made the decision" to surrender are now in support groups, dealing with their grief.

A lot has come down the pike in the 65 years since that sailor smooched that pretty nurse in the middle of that huge celebration. Most of the women of my daughter's and granddaughter's generations would no more put up with what was imposed on my generation than they would shoot themselves in the foot. I have gotten a good bit of my information for this post from reading some books about the times, most notably Rickie Solinger's "Wake Up Little Susie" and Anne Fessler's "The Girls Who Went Away." I also have been able to read a lot of the articles written by Karen B. W. Buterbaugh who has done extensive and exhaustive research into the subject. But, more importantly, I lived it. I watched it happen. I saw the effects of repression and change, first hand. And I believe the evidence of my own eyes and ears.

I saw a president assassinated and another chased out of office for his own arrogance. I saw the first steps of a human being on the moon. I went from "My Little Margie" to the "Mary Tyler Moore Show" to "Murphy Brown." I was delivered by a woman doctor and always thought that was something unusual. Now, three women who have specialized in the OB field are delivering babies on TV. To anyone who says that women who came after us had no choices, I have to say, not knowing their family situation, horse feathers! I, myself, have helped mothers-to-be avail themselves of social programs to help them until they could get on their feet. I have also gone with one to the Department of Local Health to obtain birth control after she terminated her pregnancy. That was also more than 15 years ago.

I am not here to argue any of these points, what I know, I know. What I have seen, I have seen and what I have learned, I have learned. I cannot be forced to defend my position by leading questions with an eye to debate. As far as I am concerned, the issue is non-debatable. It happened...call it the EMS or the BSE or just "those days," it still happened and within those time frames.

So here you have it, as I have witnessed it. I won't argue it and it needs no defense. It is not our duty to justify or prove our facts to anyone. Most people can look this stuff up  for themselves. The truth stands up to anything anyone else might want to say. Again, I wish all people in this battle success in the areas they have chosen for activism.

Me, I'm all about us EMS mothers, aged into grandmothers and AARP members, who went away and came home, changed forever.