The Devaluing of Women and Natural Family

As shown in my previous post, the value of the natural family and women in the US is fading, fast. It is easy to forget that the first settlers in the New World were the Puritans whose rigid, judgmental, misogynictic dogma would, had they had the numbers to accomplish it, have become the state religion of the infant New World Colonies.

Our founding fathers from the 1700's were, for the most part, Theists or agnostics, intellectual thinkers and doers. Even then, women were not considered when they proclaimed that "All men are created equal." Women in the US, today, walk around in a pink cloud of assumed equality when, as shown by the provisions in the previous post of the healthcare bill, we are still an underclass with no say about our own bodies, reproductive rights or freedoms.

Look at the rest of the world. There have been female monarchs, prime ministers, presidents and leaders of national governments everywhere except here. Think Golda Meir, Indira Ghandi, Margaret Thatcher and then see us, where a woman can run, but doesn't seem to be able to win the highest office in the land.

Another result of our capitalistic system is the criminalization of the poor. It seems to be an accepted fact that poverty precludes the right to parent. Yet many high-achieving citizens were raised in poverty. Try thinking about Abraham Lincoln, for instance. But these days, the small families of unmarried mothers, especially, are seen as nothing but breeding farms for adopters who put off child-bearing until it was too late.

I was raised in a mill village in SC. We never had a lot of "things" and money was always tight, but we had a good childhood and were encouraged to excel. My grandmother made most of my clothes, my mother worked long hours as did my aunt and other members of our extended family who worked to keep my sisters, my mother and me together after my father left us. Other kids went to the fair every year with a twenty-dollar bill in their hand. We did chores to earn the princely sum of $5 each and had to forego cotton candy and more than one ride on the Scrambler. Yet there was no thought of allowing us to be raised by adopters rather than in the bosom of our own kin.

But, as technology advanced, so, it seems, has the idea that one has to be affluent to be deserving of anything, including children. One single mother, needing help, was villified as a "welfare queen" even when she went on to become a doctor and a pillar of the community. The mass American psyche is just too lazy to pick apart the stereotypes to get at the truth.

That brings us to the giant step backwards for women. I get really disgusted with NOW when they back legislation that only settles for little parts of what is needed. In the present wording of the healthcare bill, we and our reproductive rights are worth less than a man's ability to achieve an erection. Birth control will still be hard to come by for the less affluent woman, but hubby can take the magic pill and turn out babies for adoption on a regular basis. Gosh, you might think the adoption industry and the big drug company lobbies had a hand in that little bit of inequality. And, with this bill, all the good old boys can take the pill at the club so that they can service their mistresses before they go home to wifey. Ah, life in the USA.

Despite the fact that single motherhood has, on the surface, become more acceptable, anti-woman bills are being pushed in state after state to punish and profit from one person...the single mother. Murphy Brown aside, we are moving in reverse, sociologically, at an alarming rate. I fear for my great-granddaughter and what she might have to face when she matures.

I voted for Mr. Obama and I apologize to no one for doing so. But I am disappointed that, in order to get the health care reform bill through the congress, he might be allowing the kind of inequality that made that FOX reporter think he could insult the leader of the free world in an interview. He'll receive my letter today and I hope someone with some influence reads it. You can take away my faith in the system, but not my hope that it can be fixed.

For the sake of women in the US, single mothers and natural families, let's hope this bill doesn't pass as written. I'm 64 years old and my husband and I are comfortable. But I wasn't always in this position. I suffered because of that fact. It's time we moved ahead instead of retrreating to the bad old days. Unless a significant number of strong women speak out, that is exactly where we are heading.

I sure don't want to go there.

Playing The Abortion/Birth Control Card

IT IS CONFIRMED BY JOHN IN SENATOR CASEY'S OFFICE IN WASHINGTON, DC!! This IS part of the verbiage of the healthcare bill as it now stands.

"Sen. Casey’s alternate plan will further reduce the number of abortions by:

* creating a federal Pregnancy Assistance Fund, which will receive $250 million over 10 years to provide funding for assistance to pregnant and parenting teens and college students, as well as pregnant victims of domestic violence;

* increasing federal funding for adoption by $1.2 billion over the next two years.

If there are any bubble-headed Pollyannas out there who cannot see the disparity in this, then a lot of my friends or former friends are not as bright as I thought they were. This shows just how little the mother is valued in our system. As a very astute friend put it, "this shows that adoption is the priority over family preservation."

This will make it more difficult for women in the direst of circumstances to obtain a safe, legal termination if that is needed in their case. It would be an out-of-pocket expense and would, I am sure, decrease the number of providers because the number of women who could afford it would go down. IMO, Casey is pandering to the industry and the self-righteous Right Wingers among his constituency.

Isn't is peculiar that Viagara is covered under this plan but birth control isn't? This is unacceptable.

ENOUGH!!

I have had it! I have spent the last few days with my husband, working to realize our dream of a retirement home in the mountains of West Virginia. We have purchased a 6.25-acre tract that fronts a trout stream, has a natural spring on the property and puts our nearest neighbor almost a mile from us. Ah, blissful peace, quiet and gorgeous views and no jetport glide path...we are excited about this.

But, while this wonderful thing has been happening, I have watched our group of mothers, who are tired of being dumped on, being dragged through the mud on blogs and message boards. I am totally fed up.

I can almost understand the adopted people who are being so vicious. They really have no conception of what the laws and life, in general, were all about in the EMS. Getting some of them to read the history is futile. They see the swinging 60's as a time of drugs, sex and rock and roll and don't realize the limitations of that kind of life to large cities and/or small but loud groups. Even in that decade, we were still seen as deviant and scofflaws if we had babies without the "legalization" of marriage.  But, enough about that. These kids will either learn or they won't.

What really pisses me off is the mothers...good women, really, but not exactly supportive of their sisters...who pursue the belief that we have some kind of guilt-based OBLIGATION to support whatever the adoptee groups want in the way of open records legislation, regardless of how that legislation might treat the mother. Women who were formerly our friends are accusing us of misrepresentation on forums (that didn't happen) and chiding us for our refusal to be good little beemommies and put up with the nastiness.

I don't suffer the loss of friends very well. To see the factions and the fighting is heart-breaking. To be seen as the enemy by, not only adopted people, but other mothers is painful and frustrating. Yeah, you've succeeded in causing us some unpleasant moments. BUT, you haven't taken the fight out of us.

So here it is. We can either find some common ground and work together or I will be just as content to sit on my mountainside and watch the stumbling, bumbling and industry-run results and shake my head. I am tired of being judged by people who don't know me, watching women who have good minds and hearts losing their backbone to misguided guilt and seeing good friends being attacked on other venues. It's stupid, unnecessary and a waste of time and talent.

Oh, don't think I would be running away. I will still speak out when the ignorant diss mothers and their grief and loss. I will still engage in a smack-down whenever anyone tries to call me a "b****"mother or talks about how freakin' wunnerful adoption is. I will do everything in my power to keep young women from surrendering if I have a way to communicate with them. But I refuse to contribute what talents and energy I possess to timid, one-sided "baby steps" that are blatantly anti-mother.

Last night, I learned that one of the most knowledgable and caring mothers I know, who has been an activist longer than any of us, was mangled on another blog's comment section. I was tired from our long drive from WV to FL but I was so steamed it took me a while to get to sleep. Had I jumped in, I doubt if what I have to say would have been coherent due to fatigue and anger. I accepted a comment from the mother who publishes that particular blog and explained where we were in disagreement. Yet, over there, there was no one to agree to disagree with my friend.* They just wanted to tear her to shreds. I won't go look because I don't think it would help my state of mind. At this point, I am just ready to fight and I need to cool down.

This is the reason I don't publish argumentative or hostile comments on my blog. This is a safe place for our considered and thoughtful opinions and ideas....not a place to fight off the onslaught of offensive attitudes. But don't underestimate any of us. We have had enough and we are not afraid to take off the gloves and give as good as we get. Obviously, facts, reason and intelligent, rational thought are not effective.

If this is an example of how women treat each other, no wonder we haven't had a woman as president, yet. There seem to be more cats among us than lionesses.

( *I want to make a correction to what I have written. This is what I get for jumping before I read everything. It seems that there are some mothers, among them the mother who publishes the blog in question, that do agree with us about the medical records situation. I am sorry for my error. To the others, I give my children what they need out of love, NOT obligation. To use that term in a mother/adult child relationship is really obscuring all that the mother-child relationship is all about. )

Ugliness; My Mama Told Me So

I can remember when, as a small child, my mother would chide me when I pitched a tantrum or sulked. "Where is my pretty little girl?" she would ask. "Is she hiding behind that ugliness? You better watch out or your face will stick like that." It would usually snap me out of my  pique when she said this, and we would talk about whatever was bothering me.

Online, of late, I have seen enough ugliness to last me a lifetime. Mothers accusing other mothers of something they didn't do, just because we don't follow their line of thought is bad enough. But what we are hearing from some of the adopted people is so hateful and ugly as to be grotesque.

One commenter on a previous blog described it best, so I quote; "at one time, I believed that first mothers and adoptees had common ground, common interests, that we could work together. but it is being called an "abandoner" and being the target of anger, that more than anything has convinced me that there is little or no common ground.
e.g. -- what one mother had said on one message board:



"... sometimes a mother had as much choice in the surrender as a rape victim has about being raped. Just as coerced sex is rape, no matter what type of coercion is used or at what point the victim states 'No!,' coerced surrender is not a 'choice.'..."


response from adoptee: "Yeah. And we all crawled out of our mother's hoo-hoo and put OURSELVES up for adoption, right?... Givemeafuckingbreak."


and "Your birthers are victims crap doesn't fly here."


and, as with previous similar comments, all other adoptees showed with their tacit silence that they agreed.
so, sadly, I am no longer convinced that there is any understanding or common ground between the two groups, adoptees and natural parents. Maybe not even enuf for open records or adoption reform."

I wonder if the people making these comments about mothers realize just how petty, infantile and ugly they sound? Their logic suffers, as well. The vast majority of us from the EMS WERE coerced into surrendering. It is historical fact. When there is no choice given, none can be used. It was the facilitator, the industry that "put you up for adoption," We didn't give birth and boot you out. Many of us fought, argued, begged and bargained in order not to lose our babies. This is why we use the term "surrender." We were backs to the wall and waving a white flag because it was ALL WE COULD DO, Givemeafuckingbreak, too.

And yes, us "birthers" (what a horrid word) did suffer pain. Who wouldn't when they are told, persistently, that they would be toxic to their own child if they kept them? There was not only the grief of loss, but the pain of being made to feel worthless, unfit and abandoned by family and our babies' fathers. So your denial of the mothers' pain crap doesn't even get on the runway, here.

We have come to a bit of an impasse, here. Or, as was said in the movie, "Hud," "What we have here is a failure to communicate." said the chain gang boss as he held his rifle in his hand. The adopted people who have assumed this ugly, viscious persona will find little to no cooperation from mothers. How can we, when we are treated as if we are OBLIGED to roll over and let you walk across our prone forms? (And I have a word or two for a couple of mothers and adoptees on that "Obligation" idea.)

So, as noted by the commenter, some of us are dropping out of the fight and seeing to our own issues. What's the use when we are disrespected and reviled, not only by adopted people, but some of our own sister mothers as well? It's lose-lose before we can even get a good start. And to our sister moms who don't mind being used as rugs and feel that mothers are less worthy than the adopted person, and who will take on the label of abandoner with a sweet smile...GROW A SET!

OK, Kiddos...say bye-bye to Mommy. Bye-Bye.

PS: PLEASE SEE MUSING MOTHER'S MOST RECENT POST!!

Sitting In It

I used to be held static by my emotions, unable to grow and doing myself a major injustice by justifying my emotion-driven attitudes by saying, more or less, "I don't care what the facts are...I just know how I feeeeeel. *sniffle"

In my late 30's and early 40's, I knew that my knee-jerk, emotional reactions to life were causing me and others unnecessary pain. I figured it was past time to grow up and entered a treatment program. It was there that I first heard this comment and it is now, one of my favorites, crude though it may be.

"Many people," said my friend in the program, "sit in a warm pile of shit until it becomes so comfortable they start ignoring the smell." I learned how true that was because changing my thinking and adjusting my emotional responses was scary. Change is scary, but the rewards are worth it. I learned, then, how to link my head with my gut. Practice, practice, practice. I had to look myself in the mirror, every day and tell myself that I WAS worthy of happiness and that I WAS a decent person and had NOTHING of which to be ashamed. I could forgive myself my missteps and stand tall.

To anyone who defends holding on to stinking thinking by saying that emotions don't respond to logic, I have to say you are both right and wrong. Emotions are not logical. And, being illogical, we have to be careful that we are not ruled, in our actions and attitudes, by emotions that are illogical and erroneous. And yes, emotions can be changed if we are willing to work at it.

I spent a big part of my life hating my father who abandoned us when I was 5. I mistrusted men, yet wanted, desperately, to find a male of the species who would counterract the message I received as a small child...that I was unworthy and a cast-off. Those feeling were exacerbated by the deep pain my mother lived with, day in and day out, because she really loved my father. Then I was abandoned by the father of my firstborn and raped by the father of my second child. I came to see all men as selfish, untrustworthy and out for only one thing. I lived by a "use first before you are used" mantra..very emotional and how I, indeed, felt, but neither right nor productive for a good life.

Unfortunately, for my first husband, I brought those feelings into my first marriage. That we lasted as long as we did, to raise two fine children, was a miracle because I treated him very poorly based only on an old tape, running in my head that said he and all men OWED me. He wasn't the right man for me, any way, but I wanted respectability and children I could keep so I used him for that. It wasn't fair or right for either of us or our children, who were actually relieved when we divorced.

Funny, I am now married to a wonderful man and I have male friends and I no longer tar them all with the same brush. Gee, I actually changed my thinking AND my feelings. I did it by practicing fairness and compassion and a lot of other really neato spiritual values. (*note that I said spiritual...not religious.) I actually was abandoned, not once, but twice, yet I managed to not see all men as "abandoners" and stopped acting like they owed me something for the way my father and a couple of them used my innocence and naivete'.


I decry the kind of "counseling" that allows people to sit in their pain (shit) and spin their wheels without ever reaching a better level of feeling and understanding. I did some inner child work. I embraced her, forgave her, comforted her and then slapped her on the butt and told her to grow up. She appreciated the comfort and the spanking.

So, when it comes to emotions, how we perceive others, what we feel we should expect from others and how we express that, it seems that feelings can respond to logical thinking if you keep at it and really want to feel better about life, in general. It is very simple but it isn't easy. It takes WANTING to grow and learn and feel better. It takes recognition of the fact that you can't judge every member of one group of people by the unfortunate actions of a minority. It requires fairness and compassion and rejection of stinking thinking. Mothers and adopted people should be in the fight together, but for some very stinking thinking, from adoptees and other mothers who are sitting in their own warm piles of guilt and self-righteous martyrdom.

You can overcome that kind of thing. Or you can sit in your warm pile of shit until you can no longer detect the stench and your butt-print is embedded in the crap.

I Am A WHAT???????

I no longer feel safe within the larger community of mothers of adoption loss. The anger of the adoptees and the unresolved guilt of many mothers, especially those who did not go on to have other children, has allowed a new label...Abandoner. The vicious, hostile sound of that reverberates in the heart of every mother who was coerced and/or forced to do what she was told was the only possible thing she could do for the well-being of her child.

I sat at my laptop, in a motel, last night and read some of this crap and almost cried in frustration. Adopted adults are demanding that we place ourselves in the path of legal jeapordy because they suffer from "emotional abandonment." Let's see..I suffer from the emotional perception of lack of riches so maybe we need a law to make me a millionaire. Everyone, whether they contributed to my particular financial state or not, would be forced to feed the kitty. It doesn't matter that I am solvent and my needs are being met. I feel emotionally poorer than Bill Gates so that is enough, isn't it?

Then there are the mothers...women with whom I felt a bond of sisterhood for having endured the same horrible situation and loss. But these women seem to be so overwhelmed with guilt or so enamoured of the idea of self-sacrifice that they are content to be seen as abandoners and feel that we must offer our last drop of blood to the adopted people of the nation. NO, to these women. I DID NOT ABANDON MY BABIES!!!!!!!!!!! How can a kid who is under the control of her parents, frightened and confused and made to carry an unbelievable load of shame be a willful abandoner? And, whether you agree or not, willful is the only adverb that will suffice in the true definition of abandoner.

It doesn't matter what we were compelled to sign or had signed for us. It doesn't matter what the emotional perception of the adoptee might be (especially the rejected ones who want to hate all mothers). It doesn't matter about the unresolved guilt and desire for martydom of these mothers. What matters are the facts and, if one is emotionally sound and sane, the facts will translate into the proper emotions.

About 30 years ago, I realized that I had problems and I decided to do something about them. I went into a program for eating disordered people and I learned that I was operating on old, childhood misconceptions and old tapes running in my head. What I had to do was to learn to correct the misconceptions and burn those old tapes. A simple concept but certainly not one easily accomplished, I still wanted to be at peace and sane so I had at it and guess what? All that guilt and misguided sense of carrying the responsibility of the happiness of the world on my shoulders went away, bit by bitter bit. I am certainly not emotionally perfect, but I am sound enough in my self-image that I refuse to pick up a burden just because it is thrown at me.

The size of my world is getting smaller and smaller. Right now, there are just a few mothers that I can count as friends and from whom I get genuine support. There are also a few adopted people who see the truth behind the harsh and harmful lies and I can communicate with them on an equal basis. Other than that, my husband, children, other immediate family and my little dog are it. Trust is a valuable commodity and a few former friends have lost mine. I grieve the loss both I and they have suffered.

I am not the mother of all adopted people. I do not carry the responsibility for the happiness and satisfaction of all adoptees. It is psychopathically hateful the way we are spoken to and about by some of these "adults." I have reunited with my adult children and we have our own situations with which to deal but we deal on a mutually respectful basis. Hey, try it. It works.

Moreover, just because Mary Lou and Sally Ann are having a grand old time pounding their breasts in true martyred-mother style, I don't feel constrained to join the guilt party. I'm disappointed in so many of my sisters who would sacrifice themselves rather than demand respect.

Were it not for the few notable people I have mentioned before, I would be feeling very alone and unsupported. I wonder how long it will be before I stop caring?

We Have To Do What?

Freedom of association


Main article: Freedom of association; US Constitution

Although it is not explicitly protected in the First Amendment, the Supreme Court ruled, in NAACP v. Alabama, 357 U.S. 449 (1958), freedom of association to be a fundamental right protected by it. In Boy Scouts of America v. Dale, 530 U.S. 640 (2000), the Supreme Court ruled that a New Jersey law, which forced the Boy Scouts of America to admit an openly gay member, to be an unconstitutional abridgment of the Boy Scouts' right to free association.

There it is again...that "by implication" thing. So this means that we are free to associate with whomever we please and, also, NOT to associate with a particular person if we do not wish to. While I find the anti-gay discrimination behind this example a bit off-putting, I understand the premise. This is akin to the freedom of religion which also, by implication, protects our right to freedom FROM religion. I am learning so much from my friend, I never thought I would find constitutional law so fascinating. It is important to know, not only what it says, but also what it implies and how it can be interpreted.

We spoke again, last night. He had been giving the whole issue of mandatory medical records provisions in some of these dirty bills a lot of thought and done a lot of reading. He related that there have been laws and regulations that have slipped by, that walk all over the constitution but that leave the door open for some really effective class-action suits. His advice was that, if these measures pass, we should watch, very carefully, how these provisions are used, especially by the facilitating entities and have a good attorney in the wings.

In talking to him, I related how unimportant we mothers are considered to be, as far as our rights are concerned. I opined that our rights and our feelings are ignored, as though we were there just to be used. He countered with an opinion that sounded sort of right to me. He said, "They might want you to think that you are unimportant, but I believe many of the adoption pros are scared to death of you along with the adoptive parents and these adopted people you have been telling me about." Wow, the natural mother as Big Bad Wolf. I wish the world would make up their minds about us. It's a wonder we are not all suffering from multiple personality disorder, We are either careless sluts or noble heroines or troublemakers or loving moms or just convenient uteri or goblins out to eat up open records bills. The mind boggles and none of it fits.

We have been marginalized and ignored for a long time. For many years, many of us followed the edicts of our families and the social workers and kept silent. Many still allow the fear of discovery to keep them in hiding. I wish I had come to my senses decades before I did. While I never really kept my two surrendered children a deep, dark secret, I went along with the happy, sappy adoption myth. I can remember when a very sweet young woman I worked with found herself to be with child. As she talked with us and mulled over her options, I would break out in a cold sweat. When she decided to keep, I felt a constricting pain around my heart that had nothing to do with heart disease. I also remember thinking that there was a mother and her child who would never have to wonder, hide or question.

I am proud that I can experience the unconditional love that the mother feels, even when it has to be tough love. This kind of love seems to be confusing to many adopted adults. For many of them, "parental" love has come with requirements and conditions. I love my children just because they ARE. They don't have to fit any criteria or burden themselves with my emotional welfare. And I, as their mother, will do what I think is right for them, even if they don't like it.

And, if any of them, raised or reunited, step over the line with me, I will back off and not feel guilty for doing so. Mothers are not the property of adoptees or raised children to do with as they wish. We are not whipping-boys or unimportant bystanders. I am part of a group of mothers who will not sacrifice our rights on the altar of the poor adoptee, nor will we allow ourselves to be bled dry, emotionally. That is not good parenting. How could any adopted person respect a mother that would allow herself to be used, her needs ignored?  And believe me, the healthiest kind of love has mutual respect as a component.

So rail against us, argue and slam us....but don't ignore us. We know our rights and are learning more about them, every day.

An Uncommon Sadness

There was a time when I thought there was no greater pain than having my two oldest children taken from me. I have worked through my grief and accepted what I could not change and started trying to discover what I could change.

My quest has led me to learn of things that have added a new layer of sadness to the greatest tragedy of my life. As disenfranchised girls with the naivete of the times, we were deprived of the most basic of human rights. Now, when we are older and wiser, our efforts are being sabotaged by our own sister mothers.

Some still carry a burden of unearned guilt which they seem unable to overcome. These are the ones who make themselves body slaves to the issues of the adopted adult. They are content to sacrifice themselves and, unfortunately, the rest of us, via poorly-conceived, proposed legislations in order to expiate their insecurities.

I call these mothers "the Ladybirds." They flitter around trying to sow wildflower seeds in a sewer figuring that it will mask the stench. They decry what they perceive as our anger and bitterness and even go so far as to accuse us of staying in our "victimhood." What they don't realize is that they are victims of their own lack of self-respect and are trying to pull us into the same dark hole with them. My personal belief is that many of these Ladybirds need to grow a set.

Then there are the adoption Divas. These are the mothers who want to be the experts, the go-to persons for anything and everything associated with adoption. They leave the conditions of surrender behind and concentrate on the end results. They bully, wrangle and endlessly dispense what they think is wisdom from their busy keyboards. When questioned or crossed, they get really nasty, pick up their toys, and move to the next group to recruit disciples. The Diva may actually have a lot of savvy and worthwhile things to offer, but these are lost in the maze of her self-promotion. I learned, to my sorrow, that there are more than one of the Diva-types out there.

So we, who want to see justice and equality for the mothers of the EMS are having stumbling blocks placed at every pathway by our own sisters. These women cannot lend support to anything that will either truly alleviate their guilt or take away any portion of the spotlight they wish to be focused only on them. It is disheartening and frustrating to want something positive for all of us only to have our own sister mothers wishing us ill.

I am better at following than at leading..at emotional issues rather than data and numbers. I am independent in my thinking...no I do NOT walk in lock-step with anyone but myself. But that and $5 will get me a mocha latte grande. It seems there are no compromises left.

At 64, I realize that my  time is limited. While I may live to be 100 (or not), it is a fact that more than half my life is over and each day, month and year from here on out is a gift. Our quest for justice has an expiration date. Time is our antagonist along with the industry, unknowingly aided by the Ladybirds and the Divas. I was looking forward to a retirement full of peace with no regrets. But, if there is no justice for the mothers of the EMS, then that regret will go to the grave with me.

And, for that, I feel an uncommon saddness.

If Not Us, Who? If Not Now, When?

AUSTRALIA APOLOGIZES FOR THEIR EMS
(http://www.abc/.%20net.au/local/%20audio/2010/%2003/05/2838001.%20htm?site= perth.). (For More)

WA is poised to be the first State to publicly acknowledge the aggressive adoption practices which resulted in thousands of mothers being unlawfully separated from their babies after giving birth out of wedlock.
Health Minister Kim Hames has revealed he is personally overseeing the creation of a memorial to the families affected by State hospital and welfare practices during the 1940s to the early 1980s.

Dr Hames is also likely to read an apology on behalf of the State Government either in Parliament or at a dedication ceremony opening the memorial at a yet to be determined location. Dr Hames said many women and families had been emotionally damaged and he wanted to help them heal. "You look back on those attitudes of the day and wonder how we could be so harsh," he said.

"Things like taking children away from their mothers as soon as they were born and not letting them see or touch them. We are apologising in the same way as with the Stolen Generation, recognising that those practices . . . were ones that today wouldn't be acceptable and that they caused considerable hurt and harm."

Experts say tens of thousands of WA babies were taken illegally when their unmarried mothers were prevented from seeing, touching, naming or bonding with their children immediately after birth. The practice, which has been linked to post traumatic stress, was illegal under the Adoption of Children Acts but widespread at public hospitals throughout Australia. Also common but illegal was asking women to sign adoption papers earlier than five days after the birth.

Royal Brisbane and Women's Hospital apologised for their "ill treatment" of unmarried mothers in May last year.

Christine Cole, convenor of the NSW-based Apology Alliance which lobbies on the issue, said a memorial dedicated by a State health minister would be the most significant acknowledgment by authorities "probably anywhere in the world".

"These adoptions happened for two key reasons," she said. "First, it saved the State money because if a child was adopted they didn't have to pay for foster care or mothers' benefits.


"The second was this eugenics-based notion that young women who gave birth out of wedlock were feeble minded (*or deviant *rw) and unfit mothers."

Australian Medical Association WA president Gary Geelhoed said the memorial would be symbolic but "very, very important".

Once again, another nation steps ahead of us in addressing the huge cluster-fuck we call the EMS or BSE. Every word in the article above could apply to the US and to the mothers who were isolated, shamed, coerced and coldly divested of their infants.

While Origins NSW is not completely  happy with the actual presentation of the apology, it is a whole lot more than we US mothers have even a chance of receiving unless something big happens. They are talking about tens of thousands of young women. Here in the United States of Adoption, we are talking in terms of millions.

This is just another example of the Puritanical heritage that still guides the thinking of our powers-that-be and the general public. We are valued so little that we can still be seen as unfit and brood stock for the fit. I'd immigrate to the Land Down Under except for the fact that I don't like the weather, there.

The mothers down there have seen a lot of success in a few decades. It was hard fought-for and the struggle was a debilitating one for many. The late and sorely missed Dian Welfare was a ball of fire and a champion for this cause. So many others fought the system and won moral victories even when they lost court cases on an individual basis. The thing is, they worked together and the government was not so bogged down in the bottom line and the arrogance of  "Might Makes Right" that they could afford to ignore these people and their issues.

Our government has apologized for slavery,  for using people in experiements, and for the suffering of the Native Americans. All these things happened in the past but they affected groups of people, profoundly, and changed the course of their histories and lives. These groups are large, but not that much larger than the hordes of, mostly Caucasion, middle-class, girls who were hidden, warehoused and harvested of their babies.

I have seen individuals, even ministers, learn more tolerance and understanding over the years where our plight was concerned. Yet our elected officials only want to keep us hidden and cover the industry's large, smelly ass by intoducing legislation that calls for us to violate our own constitutional rights. They need some kind of loud wake-up call.

We are fractured, factioned and so many of us are damaged. But sooner or later, we need to be heard. So, why not us and why not now?

The Boogeyman Cometh

Ah, the fears of childhood, that something was lurking in our closet or under our bed, ready to snatch us and eat us alive. I spent many a night as a little girl, scared of the dark and being alone, quivering under the covers, my imagination running wild and down dark corridors.

Of course I grew up and learned that those monsters, those awful boogeymen, were not real......I thought. But in recent days, real boogeymen have appeared who have a taste for natural mothers. If you don't believe me, go read Musing Mother's latest post. She cites legal chapter and verse and it is a horror story for those of us who surrendered children during the EMS/BSE.

California has already gone one better on the medical forms. Now, all surrendering mothers have to provide an intricate, family medical history AND DNA. G-Men and Big Brother and The Company, Oh My!

What get me is the fact that, in order to legitimize their quest for open records without threatening their adopters and to gain the sympathy of sponsors, the adopted adults have used the medical records issue as a tool to pry open the door for legislation. Adopters fear the possibility of reunion so reunion was not on the table as an issue. Instead, it was medical records that were being pursued. It has worked only too well. And it is working to place us, their mothers, in the hotseat, once again. We are being pushed down the road to liability, even though the map says "here be monsters." All they want is their OBC's. But you give this to a sponsor or have an attorney involved and the next thing you know, there is a list of conditions and requirements and loopholes. One of those loopholes makes a nice, mother-sized noose.

This is why I have a problem with mothers who blindly support every open records bill without realizing that these legislations can potentially cause us a world of misery. It's not bad enough that we were screwed out of our babies as young girls. Supporting these contaminated bill is the same as bending over and providing the Vaseline. How much pain and suffering are we required to go through to satisfy the misguided guilt of a few?

I will NOT let this happen without a fight. I will blog about it, ad nauseum, until my fingers drop off. Once again, we are disrespected and made the ultimate perpetrator of a non-crime. I am sick to death of the "you spread your legs" school of thought. No, we weren't the only ones who "spread our legs" by any means, But we are the ones who got caught.

Once again, let me remind anyone involved in the creation and sponsorship of these bills that you are playing fast and loose with our constitutional rights. I can guarantee you that there are some of us that won't let that slip by without a fight. There may be snow on our roofs, but there is still steel in our spines. I don't have my own teeth or my own knees anymore, but my mind works as well, if not better, than it ever did.

Coerced surrender was bad enough. Mandatory medical forms are totally anti-mother!

Sitting In The Sue-Her Sewer

Well, I have learned that I was both wrong and right about the mandatory medical information requirements on open records bills. No, we will not be forced to submit them and no, we will not be imprisoned for not submitting them or not having all the information. Not bad, huh? I was wrong. Mea culpa.

HOWEVER, it seems that there has been a history of "wrongful adoption" lawsuits, brought by the adopters, in just about all the cases, against the agencies, both private and state, where they complain about a lack of complete information on the child they adopted. They usually seek damages including, but not limited to, medical expenses, legal expenses, psychiatric expenses, loss of companionship of said child, and other punitive damages. The states are covering their arses with each bill that is introduced that has that medical information provision included.

By the use of subrogation, a new term to me, the states and private agencies that are sued by adopters and adopted people and lose can then, because of the medical information requirement, turn around and sue the mothers for information they say they did not receive. When you think of subrogation, think of a faulty automobile. If you are injured in an accident caused by a faulty auto part, your insurance will pay you for your injuries and lost transportation. Then, they can turn around and sue the auto manufacturer for what they lost in paying out your beneifits. Sisters, we mothers are sitting in a cesspool, waiting for the first flush. We can be sued, by virtue of the medical information provision, by our own, adult children. Some adopters might want to skip suing the middle man and go straight to the source. Oh, Happy, happy, joy, joy.

 I decry the current "dirty" bills and passed legislations that demand more than is reasonable from us and the people who sponsor and write them. I cannot believe that agencies and state facilitators have nothing to do with the way these things are worded. If our children all hate us that much, then why even try? We might as well retreat into the closet, or change our names and move to RatsAss, Mongolia. The mothers who are of the "all and everything for the adoptees" ilk can take their guilt and shove it. You are betraying and possibly destroying other mothers when you don't question and object to dirty legislation that puts your sisters in the line of fire.

Mothers have rights and we SMAAC Moms are tired of being treated as a repository for everyone's angst and disappointments. We are not a bottomless source of scapegoats for the industry any more than we are brood mares for adopters. We are factioned, fractured and one hand knows not what the other one does. I am Gee Dee tired of having to argue that we are as worthy of equal treatment under the law as any other citizen including our adult, surrendered children. This is just one more reason why we need to be able to get each other's backs.

Now, we don't assume or pretend to speak for all mothers, but we will not walk in lockstep with the ones in denial and the ones who live mired in guilt. Self-respect is a good and positive thing...something we deserve to pursue along with other aspects of happiness. It isn't just a matter of our civil or human rights anymore. It is a matter of our CONSTITUTIONAL rights being dragged through the septic tank. I haven't seen anything in the US Constitution that denies equal rights due to sex and/or pregnancy outside of marriage. If there were such a provision, there would be millions of people in a world of hurt.

No, it is assumed entitlement, assumed moral superiority and the almighty, capitalistic bottom line that makes us such handy targets. Look well. There is no apple on my head waiting for the arrow of litigation. This crackwhore, slutty barfmuggle has HAD IT with this nonsense. I will protest this crap until I am in the cremations chamber. I am not going to spend the last part of my life being pushed back into the "bad girl" slot by the industry  or the government or our children. I am no longer the frightened naif that was isolated and coerced and shamed by those that should have protected me.

I grew up and this Mama don't play that game.

Compulsory Medical Forms/ Why We Object

This is just plain talk..no cutesy tag lines or clip art. When we say that every person should have the same rights under the law, are we including the mothers? We are not if there are invasive and disrespectful requirements of the mothers that are not also applied to the adopted person and the adopters.

For instance; Jane Doe is a mother whose great, great uncle, John Doe, died of syphillis. It is not something those in the family who know about it talks about. It has no bearing on the health and well-being of the adopted person. It is nobody's business, isn't it?

Or, for insance; Jane went through a rough patch in her marriage and had an ill-advised affair. That is part of her psycho-social history, but is it the business of the state, her adult, surrendered child and that child's adopters?

Or, for instance; No one in Jane's family or in the family of the man who fathered her child has ever had cancer, AS FAR AS THEY KNOW,  but her adult, surrendered child develops cervical cancer. Should Jane be held liable?

Bastardette, in her blog about New Jersey bill S799 was direct and to the point. This provision of the bill is "intrusive." It allows for the ultimate kind of disrespect for mothers while tying up the adult adoptee in trying to meet ridiculous requirements in order to know their origins.

The ultimate lie is that this kind of muddying of the legislation for open records is done to "protect the mothers' privacy." Now, tell me how a compulsory medical form requirement from mothers does anything to protect her privacy and to protct her from frivilous lawsuits and liability? This only makes sense if the drafters of this rider to the bill hears strange voices in his/her head. This legislation is another in a long line of state bills that screw the mothers and throw a bone to the adopted citizens. It seems that "equality" is all for the industry and adopters.

There are things in my life that are my business, only..that I would not even share with the children I raised. Why should I be forced to answer these often insulting questions to have them shared with the state and adopters? Oh wouldn't it be boon to adopters, especially, if Jane had, at some point, been exposed to Herpese or gtenital warts. "See," they would say, gleefully, "We told you they were all sluts!" They, of course, won't mention the bout with clamydia that caused their infertility.

To those who draft these bill and then add all these provisions, Make. Up. Your. Minds! Either you are "protecting the mothers' privacy" or you are invading it. You can't have it both ways and you are losing your grip by pitting the adoptees against the mothers. We are noticing and some of us are getting together and talking. Just go ahead and say bye-bye to the adoption industry dollars in your campaign trunks and start getting real.

We mothers from the EMS aren't getting any younger, but over the years, we have become a lot smarter. Think about it.

You Don't Own Me

We moms have had some lovely and enlightening interactions with adopted people, lately. That is why I am so dismayed by this kind of thing.

The mother-haters are alive and kicking and spitting their acidic venom over at Yahoo Answers. THIS is why so many moms think twice about letting our adult children into our lives. Some of us can take it and give back as good as we get. Other mothers are still dealing with delayed and repressed grief and the re-living of the trauma of coerced surrender. They are one, woman-sized, exposed nerve and this kind of thing hurts...a lot. It hurts no less than the pain of the adopted person. It's just a different kind of pain for different reasons.

So, when  the newly-awakened mother of adoption loss sits down at her PC and Googles "adoption," she often gets smacked in the face with a lot of frightening and hateful posts. If I were an unreunited mother and I read this stuff, my reaction would be, "to Hell with this crap. I'm outta here." I would fear for my health and life where some of these posters are concerned.

What amazes me is the attitude of entitlement. Some of the middle-age mommie-haters act as if they own all mothers (not just their own) and that all mothers OWE them something. Guess again, Kiddies. Those of us who went on to have and raise other children wouldn't take this from the children we raised, much less from the children we didn't. We don't owe you anything but civility, courtesy and whatever else we choose to share. If you strike me, I strike back. Being an unmarried mother doesn't, regardless of the Puritanical and punitive attitudes of some, make me a second-class citizen or a spineless wimp.

Let me make one thing clear. All the truths about coercion and force, aside, when a mother tries to do what is best for her child to the best of her knowledge and ability at the time, that is not, repeat NOT, abandonment. I know that there were some mothers who did just casually leave their babies (although that number is miniscule in relation to those of us who were coerced), but you cannnot paint us all with the same brush. I don't call you names. Why call me names? You don't know me and you don't own me.

I have many adult, adopted friends with whom I enjoy mutually respectful relationships. The same is true of my relationships with my adult, reunited daughter and son. I know that you hate-filled people are a minority, as well. But, you are a loud, obnoxious minority. And, to the one whose mother, after 22 years, backed away, I can see why she did. I wouldn't want to have anything to do with you, either.

We are not here to be the objects of your punitive attitudes and actions. We are not responsible for the fact that you prefer to carry the blackness of resentment around inside you. We are not perfect, but guess what? NEITHER ARE YOU.

I thank the Goddess for those many adopted people who are willing to open their minds in understanding and hold out their hands in friendship.  We are all part and parcel of a traumatic tragedy and we all carry our own bit of emotional damage because of it. I can understand the "feelings" of being abandoned, but you have adult minds and the reality does not support the feeling. Embracing the truth is quite a concept, and it can be done.

But hear this and hear it well. I don't owe you anything but what I choose to give and you don't owe me anything. That is the adopter that thinks they are owed something by the children they raised. I will treat you with respect only as far as you show respect for me.

We are not your possessions. You don't own mothers.


*I am finding it necessary to add a postcript to this post. NO, feeling abandoned, and "emotional abandonment" are NOT true abandonment. This is what, in a 12-step program, would be called "stinking thinking" and a barrier to real emotional health. This post is not here to argue the issue. It is here to state, in no uncertain terms, that we did not abandon our children, that we are not obligated to be their servants and that the idea that most of us had any kind of choice in the matter is erroneous. And, to one commenter, my parents were not abusive, but, in that time and that culture, they WERE boss. I was old enough to be forced to sign surrender papers but not old enough to have any say in my children's futures. If you want to hold on to erroneous emotions, be my guest, but put it on your OWN mother....not the rest of us.

Time To Lay This Burden Down

"Those of us, who are less than perfect can never understand the reason for this lifelong punishment for what is, often enough, scarcely a sin, certainly not the mortal one.” ( The late Jean Paton, Adopted Person and Activist, talking about mothers of adoption loss.)

As mothers from the EMS, many of us have carried the burden of imposed guilt for decades. Some of us have awakened to the fact that, though treated like second-rate criminals, we have committed no crime. Some call sex outside of marriage a sin, but, as the esteemed, Ms. Paton observed, it is hardly a mortal sin. It's actually a very human act, programmed into us to continue the species.

I feel we are on the cusp of something exciting. We are reaching out to our children and they are reaching out to us in a new way. Yes, our goals are defined by our different circumstances, but we are edging closer to the time when we can watch each others' backs. While what we want and what our adult children want is geared to our separate needs, there is no reason we cannot stand in support of the goals of each. Let's face it. The way it has been done, so far, with mothers only taking a subservient role and our needs being seen as "clouding the issue," isn't working all that well.

This isn't going to sit well with some adopted people, the industry, some "martyr  mothers" and adopters, probably. It's a bold idea but one that is overdue. Quid pro quo works well if given a chance.

We mothers that are in this particular stage of activism are hoping to recover  the human rights denied us for so many years. Equal access to records would mean that mothers from the closed records eras could learn the fate of their children. That would be no small gift to mothers still in search. Those of us already reunited would have vindication. We are fighting for respect and acceptance of the motherhood we never surrendered. Given no options other than surrender, we gave up our parental rights and responsibilities, NOT our motherhood or our right to know the fate and welfare of our children. We are hoping for eventual recognition of the crimes committed against us in the name of "the perfect solution."

Some people, especially those who oppose the mothers' right to equal access, still trot out that old onus of shame for "spreading our legs." When we try to explain the coercive and judgmental society of that era, it is if we are speaking another language. "No one held a gun to your head," many say. We say, "They might as well have." Ann Fessler's "The Girls Who Went Away" and Rickie Solinger's "Wake Up Little Suzie" are the go-to books for a real picture of the times and mores that caused us to be treated with so little regard for our dignity, rights and feelings.

Unaccessable, closed records, for mothers, is a continuation of the original punishment laid on us by society when our children were taken from us. The punishment continues in the erroneous picture of the mother of adoption loss as a slut, slattern, crackwhore and potential abuser. Yes, there have been some, but they are the minority. But, hey, there are adopters who haven't been saints and who have abused and even murdered the children they adopted. That doesn't mean they all are homicidal.

Someone said that it "didn't matter" if we were sluts, that we were still the object of discrimination. But, yes, to those of us who have had that self-righteous finger pointed at us when we dared come out into the light..it DOES matter. No matter what anyone else says, I, personally,  suffered from this labeling for years. I am ready  to deny and defy those who are still into blaming and shaming. This is not something with which I expect our adult children to be able to indentify. Yet we both have suffered from heinous discrimination.

I am blinking back tears, as I write this. I am overwhelmed by the memory of the pain of always feeling "not as good as." I never defended myself against the lies told by my daughter's father, the lies in the non-identifying information my daughter received and even the assumptions of my own family as to my character, until just a few years ago. Standing tall and speaking out as a woman of values and character has been my salvation. Perhaps, in our quest for cooperation and better communication, we can give this gift of renewed self-worth to mothers still hiding their "terrible secret."

It's time for all of us to lay that particular burden down and live our lives out in the light.

Oh, I'm Just A Bill

Yes, I'm only a bill and I'm gonna get you slutty  beemommies all riled up! Mission accomplished, Billy-Boy.

Take a look at this MO proposed legislation in its entirety. MO SB594 is out to get some ass-coverage for the facilitators of adoption and some sideways body-slams for the mothers. Hey people, we're already black and blue from the first trauma of separation and, for many of us, the rough road of reunion. Seems like the only good reunions are the ones where either the adopters have passed away or where the mother "knows her place" and settles for crumbs.

As this discussion continues, and believe me, we are not letting go of this, we are learning just how hard it is, here in the United States of Adoption, to get even a semi-clean bill for open records on the table. A truly clean bill would give unrestricted access to the original birth certificates for adopted people and the same kind of access to the amended "birth" certificate for mothers. Then Uncle Big Brother should step back and let the parties progress on their own.

Unfortuntely, what we are getting are specious, conditional passages based on the erroneous idea that mothers can't be trusted to share information with their children, privately, and that the state and agencies need to remain in control of what is done with the infomation once the adopted person has it. And where are the adopters in all this? Are they helping "their" children? If they are helping, how are they helping? I have talked to adopters who didn't know I was a mother of adoption loss. I have been told that open records and reunion are their worst nightmare. The state and the agents and SW's know this and they are not about to offend their primary source of revenue.

People think that open records will fix things. It is just a first step. How many mothers out there fell for the line about new, improved, "open" adoptions? How many had the doors to contact shut in their faces as soon as the adopters could come up with a good excuse? How many women still live in fear of their shameful secret becoming known? How many mothers and adult children have paid the price of their unnatural separation in the coin of addictive disease, depression and even suicide? Why does this supposedly free country still allow such a prudish and unfair view of the mother? We have progressed, technologically, but spiritually and socially, we are still in the dark ages. There are few to no REAL programs to help adopted people and mothers through their trauma.

We need a massive education program for the American public. We need to yell just as loud, if not louder, than the Christian Right and the adoption industry lobbyists. We need to let the nation see that we are everywoman...not sluts, crackwhores or slatterns. It would help if our children carried that message for us, as well. We need to expose the full extent of social engineering being attempted by certain groups. We don't have a thing of which to be ashamed, either mother or adopted person. C'mon, all of you. You have got to be tired of this "you spread your legs and made a choice" for the mothers and  "you are so lucky to have been adopted" for the adopted people crap.

The MO bill is a symptom of a national disease, that of puritanical and punitive attitudes and self-serving motivations. These attitudes and motivations have spawned more than offensive legislation. We have been paid lip service and lauded for our "loving sacrifices" until we want to hurl. Don't give us some second-best pats on the back in the guise of (gag) "barf-mother's day" celebrations. Don't put out studies designed to make us believe you see the forest rather than the trees as a way to placate us. Don't take our personal rights away from us with demands for medical information that could plunge us directly into a quagmire of lawsuits or worse. To me, this just proves that we are still being judged by the self-righteous (and secretly insecure).

Maybe we need a bill that would, if passed, elevate natural mothers to the same level as every other citizen in this country. We are not slaves to what happened to us when we were coerced into surrender, nor are our needs secondary to those of adopters or our surrendered children. We are the equal of any one of you, out there, morally, intellectually and spiritually. Such a bill would be a clean one. It would simply state that no natural mother of adoption loss can be forced, coerced or otherwise manipulated to do anything that is not required of every other citizen in this country.

I wonder if it would pass.

Open Records; The Final Break in the Bond?

I hate to see hostility between adopted people and mothers. It hurts. To be the object of such resentment is off-putting and frustrating. To see that bond, that has already been twisted by separation and assumptions, broken by an argument on records issues is heart-breaking.

A mother from another country attended a conference of the AAC, not too long ago, and was appalled at the overt hostility, the marginalization of mothers and some of the mothers' assisting in their own marginalization in this one-sided cause. If anyone has watched, one of the provinces in our neighbor to the north has passed an open-records law, imperfect as it may be with the disclosure veto attached, that includes both parties, mothers and adopted people, as having rights to identifying information. They don't share many of our national traits and taboos.

This fact has brought to the attention of some of us, the rigid, unforgiving nature of our American culture. We have two forces at work. One is the capitalistic drive for profit that makes anything (or anyone) a consumable "product." The bottom line is the god here and those that profit from adoption will fight to maintain it. Self-entitled PAPs will fight to maintain the supply.

The other thing is our Puritanical heritage. This is not the way most other nations think, unless you want to count the Muslim nations and even these theocracies are not fans of adoption. We got stuck with the most repressive sort of Christianity and, despite the hard work of the founding Fathers who were free-thinkers for the most part, it still lurks in the minds of the masses. It invades our bedrooms, our right to choose and our legal structures. It makes us a prudish laughing-stock in the rest of the world. It corrupts our citizenry with its assumption of ultimate righteousness. It makes criminals out of unmarried mothers and saints out of adopters and those who facilitate.

It speaks words of hate and entitlement into the ears of our lost children. I remember my daughter telling me, at our first meeting, that "it was OK," if I didn't know who her father was. I think I  must have looked at her like she had just farted in church, because she became very flustered. I tried to put her at ease and told her that I most certainly DID know who her father is. I asked her where she got such an idea and she said, "its just what I had always been told about girls who had babies and gave them up for adoption."

Now that most open-records bids are not "clean" (meaning open OBC's only) and carry with them punitive requirements for the mothers, we are seeing the community of EMS mothers and adopted people growing farther apart. And who encourages this? Sorry, Kiddos...but your adopters and those who facilitate adoption are culpable, no matter what you might want to think. How could a clearly-stated bill, advocating OBC's and identifying records being made available to both adopted adult and mothers be "clouding your issue?" And don't give me that "you spread your legs" and "you made a choice" garbage. That insults my intelligence.

This series of posts has been difficult and emotional for me. I have worked hard, for many years, to get out from under that umbra of shame and unworthiness. I have learned that I am not a bad person now, and I wasn't a bad person then. I have learned that devils can come disguised as saints and that all was not and is not as it seemed or was presented.

I do know  a number of adopted people who are kind, fair-minded and want our help. We want our children's help, too, and it is not in having separate but equal organizations, bills and goals. It may have two sides, but it is one page. Keeping it simple and in one package would be the ideal way to go. It has been asked before, but here goes nothing.

Maybe, we could do it together without all the hubbub? Just think about it.

Cutting Off The Nose....

.....to spite the face. I used to wonder what that meant when I heard that phrase used. Well, according to Wikipedia, it means, "...an expression used to describe a needlesly self-destructive over-reaction to a problem. 'Don't cut off your nose to spite your face' is a warning against acting out of pique, or against pursuing revenge in a way that would damage onself more than the source of one's anger."

Now while many adult adopted people would not admit to harboring vengeful anger against mothers, some of the recently proposed and some passed legislation concerning open records makes some of us feel otherwise.

Just take a look at what the MO. bill would require of mothers.
(Thanks to my friend, Musing Mother.) This would be a form that mothers would have to fill out, completely, which would include but not be limited to;

1. Congenital or genetic history.
2.Psycosocial history. (WHAT!!!!! THAT is nobody's business but our own!)
3. Chronic diseases.
4. Infectuous diseases (Why...these are not inherited?)
5. Allergies
6. Pregnancy and birth histories
7. Causes of deaths of (natural) family members that may affect the medical history.


This opens the door to a world of woes for the mother. Being legally  required to furnish this information, even on those family members that have not given their permission for this, would leave us vulnerable to lawsuits, imprisonment...you name it. So, I guess my main question is why the people who are pushing for open records in the different states want to gain their civil rights by violating ours? Do you resent us so much? Do you honestly feel so entitled that our rights as human beings to share only what we see fit about our private lives can be disregarded?

I have signed many a document stating that I did not ask for, nor was I ever promised anonymity, especially
where my children were concerned. I have always felt that my children had the right to know who I am. But I never signed on to be invaded and disregarded. Many mothers in the US are still fighting for respect and acknowledgement of the fact that we were used as breeding stock for the social engineers. It's bad enough that those who seek open records assume that they are entitled to a pound of our flesh, but we are not even considered as worthy of being equal recipients of those opened records. What is going to happen is that those in opposition of these bills will have some new ammo in the form of those of us who reserve the right to share only what we see fit about our lives, our histories and our ailments. Better no open records law than one that would put such an unfair onus on the shoulders of the mothers. We are people, damnit!

I am tired of the stereotype of the crackwhore, promiscuous, careless slut who just wanted to get rid of the "problem." I am tired of hearing "relinquisher" and "abandoner." Those descriptions are  not, by any means, an accurate picture of the average mother of adoption loss. Most of us wanted our babies. Most of us were in committed (at least on our part) relationships. Most of us were dependent on our families and constrained by their actions in our "behalf." Most of us were shamed, blamed, isolated and had to work for years to gain back a modicum of self-esteem.


If I was a non-reunited mother of adoption loss and I read these proposed laws and some of the venom that our adult children post, online, it would scare the reunion right out of me. I don't let my raised children place that kind of crap on me. I will not allow it from my reunited children, either. Fortunately, I have gained their respect and I don't see that happening. But I worry for my sister mothers. We are women with hearts that were broken. We bleed red and cry tears just like anyone else. We deserve the same protection under the law and the same respect for our rights as anyone else.

Now, I will agree that the basic civil rights of the adopted person are violated by denying them access to their basic, identifying information. But non-adopted people don't have the right to require, by law, such intimate information from their mothers. Why should the adopted have more rights than the non-adopted? Where did such a sense of entitlement originate? If our adult children want all of us in the fight for their records, then maybe they should consider our feelings, as well.

By all means, demand your original birth certificate. Contact your mothers. Learn about your heritage. Most will be glad to share with you. And then ASK, respectfully and privately, for the history you seek.

Attempting to make us legally liable for this kind of thing is just pissing off any of us who has any self-esteem, at all.

Just A Bit Of Constitutional Info

In reference to the "lively debate" (more like a spite-fight) referred to in my last post, I would like to share the learned opinion of a friend of mine who teaches an introductory, constitutional law course at CFU.

I had asked him about the constraints, both written and implied, by the HIPAA regulations. His answer gave me a lot of food for thought.

Citing constitutional premise, he referred to the guarantee of freedom of religion. He said that this important freedom, PER IMPLICATION, also can be truthfully and successully argued to guarantee,  for the idividual, freedom FROM religion. It is a tacit understanding of that legality. In other words, because of the foresight of the authors of the constitution, no one can be forced to believe, participate or observe any organized religions, sects or associated dogma if they do not choose to do so.

He then posited that, since the HIPAA regulations were made law, it made, in effect, the medical and psychiatric history of each person the sole property of that person. While it does keep medical professionals from arbitrarily sharing our information, it also, PER IMPLICATION, keeps anyone else from being able to access that information on demand. Were such a demand to be attached to, say, a bill seeking open records for adult adoptees only, and were passed, it could be challenged, probably successfully, by the individual to whom such a demand would be made. Implied here is that we can refuse to comply and our physicians can, as well.

While I decry the involvement of the ACLU in keeping adoption records closed and original birth certificates sealed, I would think that they would have a really good time with this one. I would have no problem seeking out the help of the ACLU is anyone were to feel they were entitled to my personal information.

What I am wondering is what helpful person decided that this demand should be part of any law granting adult adopted people the right to their OBC and adoption records? If the authors of these bills are working hand-in-hand with adoption professionals, then that answers my question. Most mothers, if asked by their adult children for help with medical issues, would be happy to dig into the family history and find out what they could to help. But when private information of one citizen can be demanded, by law, by another  citizen,  then something has gone badly awry with our system of individual freedoms.

My friend is an attorney and an educator. This is not an area where he has delved deeply and his views and answers were from his knowledge of constitutional law. But I really liked what he had to say.

It would really look bad for the open-records group if people started filing suit against their natural mothers for information and compensation for medical problems. In fact, it would look downright snarky and entitled.

It would also look like someone wants to punish mommy.

Schisms and Stand-Offs

Sometimes I feel like the dog chasing its tail AND the tail being chased. In all the emerging activism, begun by the phenomenon of search and reunion by those from the closed-records era, there seems to always be all manner of clashing and cross-purposes going on. It's making me dizzy.

I really hate it when these heated debates break out between adopted people and mothers. We should all be arm in arm, but that isn't happening. I love my reunited, adult children, dearly, and, as an extension of that, I have special feelings for people who were adopted. I ache for them, especially now that my eyes have been opened to the real consequences of closed, secret adoption on  both mother and adult child. The adopters got the kids, the facilitators got the dough, the social workers got the smug satisfaction, our parents got "re-virginized" daughters back without the neighbors knowing, society got their self-righteous 'I-told-you-so's' and we, mothers and children, got the shaft. You'd think we would be together on the same side, wouln't you?

Well, I didn't factor in a few realities when I was in early reunion. One was the fact that we moms still are being seen as the villains of the piece. That has been bolstered by the many lies told our children, either deliberate or from misinformation and assumptions. Another was the resentment caused by these lies and a lack of understanding of the tenor and disparities of the times and our experiences. When our own children call us "birthers" and treat us like naughty secrets and whipping girls, it can get painfully discouraging.

Another was underestimating the industry, itself. In the effort to cover their clupable arses, they have managed, once again, to present the mother as the goat with skewed tales of "guaranteed privacy" and anonymity. The fact, of course, is that the anonymity was there for the benefit of the adopters to protect these righteous souls from the intrusion of the slutty beemommie. The agencies and workers were also less than thorough in getting medical histories, there were some unknown factors..things we didn't know would crop up until way after we surrendered, and when the adopted person became ill with what could possibly be a genetic problem, the adopters cried "foul." For instance, I was 43 years old when my father developed Type II Diabetes. Until then, none of us had any idea it ran in the family. I have it. The agents and agencies are just trying to lay it all on us to avoid lawsuits in the future.

Many of the movers and shakers in the industry are attorneys, who also make up the majority of our elected officials. There's a lot of power there and they feel free to manipulate and wag the dog with impunity. Now there is a debate raging about the proposal that mandatory family medical histories be required from, you guessed it, the mothers. Now, there are many things we didn't know about our families and their medical histories at the time of surrender. There are also things that are no one's business but our own...things that we don't need to even tell our raised children.

If our adult children would give most of us a chance, we would, as I DID, give all the important information, in person, without coercion or legal pressure, voluntarily. Yes, there are mothers that are going to decline contact. Hell, there are adopted people who decline contact with their mothers, It goes both ways, M'Dears.
But we don't OWE you anything more than we owe our raised children. Respect and caring should be a two-way street. We were coerced, browbeaten and punished enough when we were made to surrender. I am tired of it and will not put up with any more. I am not a servant to any of my children, I am not a villain, I am not a slut and the rights of others end where mine begin.

Just as those who wish to adopt are not entitled to a child just because they want one, our adult children are not entitled to a pound of their mother's flesh. They ARE entitled to their original birth certificates and the right to seek us out and see if we can answer their questions. By the same token, we are entitled to the amended birth certificate and a way to learn how our children have fared.

I have good friends who are adopted and I respect them. I have good relationships with my own adult children, reunited and raised. I have shared more than medical information with my reunited children. I have shared my love, stories of their grandparents and great-grandparents on my side, and my care and attention to their issues. I even sought out the families of their fathers to get medical info when they needed it. It was asked of me....not demanded and I was not made legally liable for their illnesses. My daughter has Lupus. Actually, there is no history, at all, of lupus in either my family or her father's as far as I know. Should I be forced to pay her medical bills because it wasn't in the records when she was adopted? Should I be subject to legal prosecution if that wasn't included in any information I gave her? Why are we still being punished?

I was a decent person then, who was caught up by forces over which I had no control. I am a decent person now and support human and civil rights for everyone. But I have self-respect, something I wasn't allowed to have as a pregnant teen. I have the self-respect to stand up and have a say in what happens to me and my life and the strength to follow through. For me, this issue is a moot point. I can't see my two, adult, reunited children making this kind of demand on me. We know it all, now and there is no need for them to sue for medical information. I do want them to have the right to their original birth certificates. They are not that interested in it. I am.

But I represent a marginalized, repressed group of women, and many of these mothers are just now getting their sea legs in this ocean of issues. They deserve respect, as well. They have suffered, differently. but no less than their children have.

Plus, you can catch a whole lot more flies with sugar than with vinegar. Cliche' but true.

(*reminder...this blog remains an argument/debate-free zone, dedicated to offering the perspective of a specific group of EMS-era mothers...you can pick me apart, elsewhere...have at it)

Connection Between Disaster and Adoption

A friend in Canada guided me towards this article on international adoption. I was very interested because it seems to follow the content of another conversation I was having with another mother's group about the unspoken criminalization of the poor. It seems that the poor are begrudged their children in this country and conned out of them in other nations.

We've all read or heard, at some point, of how children were taken for "medical treatment" or to a place where the parents told them they could attend a school, only to have those same children show up in the US as adopted "orphans."

This article from the Toronto Globe and Mail is a great summary of the problem. The passages in boldface are ones that struck a chord with me.

One sure consequence of disaster: adoption


Siri Agrell. The Globe and Mail. Toronto, Ont.: Feb 6, 2010. pg. F.5


When a group of American missionaries was arrested last weekend after trying to bring 33 children out of Haiti, troubling questions began to arise about the impulse to whisk kids out of disaster zones. But trends in international adoption have always followed close on the heels of war and humanitarian disaster, according to Queen's University professor Karen Dubinsky, whose book Babies Without Borders: Adoption and the Symbolic Child in Canada, Cuba and Guatemala will be released this spring.

The story is always the same, she tells Siri Agrell . The disaster produces interest in orphaned children, an adoption system is opened, scandals develop and the system closes down. Move to another location and repeat.

Korea

The adoption of foreign children began in the United States during the Korean War from 1950 to 1953, when an American evangelical couple named Henry and Bertha Holt began a campaign to fight communism one child at a time. "They had missionary zeal and the Cold War behind them," Ms. Dubinsky says. "Some historians say they single-handedly invented international adoption."


Vietnam

In Canada, the first spike in international adoption began at the end of the Vietnam War, spearheaded by three Montreal housewives who got involved in a U.S.-led campaign called Operation Babylift. More than
3,300 infants were removed, although it was later revealed that not all were orphans. The project earned notoriety after an Operation Babylift plane crashed after takeoff in Vietnam, killing 141 children and volunteers. The adoption campaign led to a change to Canada's immigration policy, creating a new category for unaccompanied babies.


Cuba

From 1960 to 1961, 14,000 unaccompanied children were sent from Cuba to Miami as part of Operation Peter Pan (*see the Daily Bastardette's archives for more on this). Although parents were promised that they would be reunited with their children, more than 7,000 were permanently stranded in the American foster-care and orphanage system after the Bay of Pigs invasion ended U.S.-Cuban relations. Decades later, one of those children - Maria de los Torres- would sue the Central Intelligence Agency for access to documents that revealed Cuban parents were responding to an American rumour campaign suggesting Fidel Castro was about to nationalize children. Now, there are rumours of a Hollywood movie about the event.

Romania

After Nicolae Ceausescu was overthrown and executed in the 1989 revolution, media attention directed at the sorry state of Romanian orphanages created a bump in interest about adoptees in former Soviet Bloc states.


Russia

In 1990, Russia made adoption open to foreign parents. Ms. Dubinsky says interest was fuelled by U.S. investigative television shows that aired hidden-camera footage of substandard orphanage conditions. Unlike with other countries, the narrative around Russian adoptions focused on the physical and mental health of the children. (* And so many Russian adoptees suffered so much after being removed from their country and adopted...it was in the news. rw)


Guatemala

In the early 2000s, Guatemala had the dubious distinction of having the highest per-capita adoption rate in the world. Civil wars in Latin America drew international attention to the region, and soon the poor country was cashing in on its children. "In Guatemala, it just started to become a business, nothing more," Ms. Dubinsky says. "It was a country in deep poverty that began to see its only value in exporting its children." (*Which also meant that the market had to exist for the children to have monetary value. And many of these children were not voluntarily surrendered. rw)


China

The increase in adoptions from China did not emerge out of a single event. The introduction of the country's one-child policy in 1979 and the Tiananmen Square massacre a decade later drew global attention to the country's human-rights abuses, and adoptive parents to its shores. (*And the one-child policy gave adopters the perfect excuse and assumptive rights to a child-savior's halo. rw)


Indonesia

In the aftermath of the 2004 Asian tsunami, many well-meaning families rushed to adopt as an immediate way to provide help. "That's probably one of the first times that ever happened," Ms. Dubinsky says. "It's also the first time mainstream child-welfare organizations started saying it wasn't the right response."


Ethiopia

Adoptions from Africa were not popular until the late 2000s, despite decades of well-publicized suffering, and were influenced by the celebrity families of Angelina Jolie and Madonna. Ethiopia experienced a surge of foreign adoptions three years ago.


Middle East

Although recent global conflicts have been focused on the Middle East, Islamic nations are the exception to the adoption trend. Muslim nations do not allow Western-style adoptions, although they do have a system for caring for orphaned children. "It's an interesting parallel," Ms. Dubinsky says. "I don't think we saw the same kind of human-rights coverage and calls to adoption agencies after the Iraq and Afghanistan invasions." (*I am going to say it. When it comes to adoption, the Muslim nations have the right idea. rw)


Haiti


Ms. Dubinsky is troubled by the news that one of the same Miami groups involved in the Cuban airlift of children in 1960 has re-emerged in Haiti, calling itself Operation Pierre Pan.


And so it goes....when those whose work is adoption get worried about how it is being done, things have really gotten bad. But this was legally done to millions of young women in the middle of the 20th century and the reasons used were youth, poverty and marital status, or lack of one. None of those things are criminal in nature. Poverty still seems to be a good excuse for the DFC to confiscate kiddies, still, here at home. It is sinful and criminal, obviously, to be poor.

So now, abroad, it is a crime to keep your child within your family if a disaster has hit your homeland or if a war or invasion happens.....or, if your nation's politics are just not too popular with Uncle Sugar's enforcers.

I wonder if there are any people who have adopted, internationally. who might even be the least bit concerned about how that child became available and who was hurt to procure that child for their benefit?

Letter To The Editor

I don't know if it will appear in the paper, but I had to write the Orlando Sentinel and express my dismay over the antics of "Sister Mary." (see post below)

To The Editor;

I read, with appalled fascination, the story of "Sister Mary," aka, Laura Maria Caballero, on the front page of Sunday's (2/14/10) Sentinel. After reading it twice, I had some questions of my own about this person.

How did she become a guardian ad litum for Lake County? Is she an attorney or, in any way, certified for this position? And what moral authority did she possess to justify, coercing, hounding and otherwise making life miserable for these parents? Most importantly, since when is kidnapping considered false imprisonment?

Her tactics reminded me of the bad old days of maternity homes and forced surrenders. Families have problems. Many people are poor. Does that give this woman, or anyone, for that matter, the right to indulge in social engineering by taking their children?

I would tell her friends to see that she gets help and to stop making excuses for her. What she did was wrong. She should not be allowed within miles of any child.


Robin K. Westbrook
Sanford, FL