Humility

In seeking wisdom thou art wise; in imagining that thou hast attained it - thou art a fool. Lord Chesterfield

Whoever said that youth was wasted on the young was so right. I would love to be young and know what I know now, and that is that I don't know it all. I can still learn. I can still be humble enough to have the grace to ask and consider and think rather than hanging doggedly on to one perception of any situation. While I am loyal to my friends, I don't always see things in the same way that they do, but I am open to hearing what they have to say. In any event, allowing my friends the right to see things their way is part of being humble and part of being a good friend.

Too many people equate humility, a spiritual value, with humiliation, or being made to look foolish in front of others. These folks are the ones who have a hard time saying, "I'm sorry," or, "I was wrong" or even, "I could be wrong but let's agree to disagree." In my current and only, last and forever marriage, we use the rule of humility #1...we'd rather be happy than be right.
If we can say that we are sorry or even agree to disagree and allow the other person the right to their beliefs and opinions, then we have a basis for a strong relationship. We are in our 19th year of marriage and I love him more, every day.

It is when we dogmatically and perversely insist on being right and having everyone else march in lock-step with us, that we do ourselves and others an injustice. I have not been entirely innocent, in my life, of having that attitude and I can see it in others because I have seen it in myself.

I want to tell one vociferous and very NON-humble but prolific poster on the Internet, especially posting on the forum of a certain older and established organization that purports to support the natural parent that, Honey-Bunch, you can call yourself a GoddessMother if that blows your skirt up. But don't try to dictate what the rest of us choose to call ourselves. If you can answer, happily, to the "b" word, then knock yourself out. But I and many others don't like it, won't use it and feel that is our earned prerogative.

Another thing I have learned to recognize is the emotional bullies among us. These are the ones we have to block from our inbox because they will harass and fume and spout until we either lash out or come around to their way of thinking. These are the ones who will play to the gallery and gather sycophants by seeming to see things their way. They want control and adulation and will settle for people being in fear of them.

Then we have the intensely emotional martyrs who live in the pain rather than using that pain and anger to find their way to a better place. These are the ones who will complain, over and over again, about the same perceived insults and injuries but will not learn from others that there is healing and a healthy way to deal with what has transpired.

Finally, there are those of us who have to be jolted, now and again, in order to re-examine their accumulated "wisdom" and recognize what is and what isn't real. I have argued points with people until everyone grew tired of seeing my posts. I have debated until my fingers ached. I have explained myself, ad infinitum, and I just said "WHOA!" I don't have to explain myself, over and over again to the same people. I'm not going to change anyone by doing that and no one is going to change me by doing the same in reverse. Hey, it's OK to let a disagreement stand and go on to other things. What a concept! I wish I had thought of it, first, but I didn't. Here's that "humility" thing again that forces me to admit that I got this piece of advice from my youngest daughter, Bless Her.

So, I can say that, in my 62+ years on this planet, I now know what I know, but I also know what I DON'T know. I do know that being right all the time is not possible for anyone, including me. Not everyone is going to jump on the BSE bandwagon with me or be tolerant towards certain other people. But that's OK. I'm going to do what, to my knowledge, is the best I can do and leave the others to find their own way and care about them all on their journey. Who knows what someone else might be able to teach us from their journey? Now, if I can just stick to this idea..................

Correction on Previous Post

I made a mistake that merits a correction on my previous post. I inferred that there was no one doing anything about obtaining a hearing for BSE Moms and that is inaccurate. BSERI, a reasearch and investigation group, is doing more than their part and seems to be the only organization that is. It is a closed group and, therefore, what they are doing, how and when, is not for the general public until they are ready. I agree with this tactic and support BSERI.

I also would like to tell the younger moms who seem to feel we are either wasting our time or being insensitive to their pain that they are not totally seeing the big picture. When you are confronted, head on, with your mortality, as many of us have been, and you have been a part of a MASSIVE and overt program of eugenics and discrimination, then you have to fight for your right to be recognized and heard. Our days are numbered and our lives will count for nothing if this heinous period in our national history is not laid open for all to see the ugliness and injustice done to millions of women and their babies.

Because they were able to do this to us, it made it possible for them to do it to you. SH** rolls downhill. They have changed the modus operandii but not the crimes. That we know. We are talking about public shaming and discrimination done to millions in one fell swoop, so please, don't begrudge us our justice.

Go Ahead, Make My Day

This is one old BSE Mom that gets grumpy when the time changes and if there is anything to make me grumpier, it would have to be the same old arguments about the same old subjects with no one changing anything but the amount of space taken up in the comments section.

Dear Hubby remarked, as he walked out the door into the unnatural darkness to go to work, that he was glad I was facing this day, unarmed. Sometimes, frustration can make you feel old, tired and ineffective.

I am about ready to go with "Barfmuggle" in her comments about the need for attention to the BSE and its ramifications and the damaged multitude that resulted. You'd think that would be reason enough. I, personally, believe that you have to go back to the beginning in order to make changes down the line, but, at times, I also don't give a rat's ass. Just let's have an honest look at the most massive eugenics effort in history because it merits investigation on its own.

There are so many out there that think if we address this heinous period of real history, it will take away from their experience and others, still, who refuse to see the parallels between the BSE and the Civil Rights Movement (and said parallels are as plain as the nose on Barbara Streisand's face) and would deny the fact that this injustice deserves the same kind of redress as any calamitous, historical event.

So, I am a part of one group that wants to lump the BSE in with all the other eras and feels "hurt" if we think that it was different, and another group who is making inroads into the investigation of that era and to NO group that is doing a damn thing about it in the way of seeking a public hearing. It could be that, until action is taken, this is all a moot point anyway. But, I will still sign my name with BSE Mom as an identifier and I will still, as my hair gets whiter and whiter, hope for that day of judgment when we are vindicated and someone will say, out loud, that we didn't deserve the labeling, the judgments and the taking of our children for adoption with such arrogant impunity.

And NO, I do not think that adoption will always be with us. If I believed that, I think I would start saving up pills. There will come a day when the wisdom of legal, preferably kinship, guardianships will be the law of the land. Dr. King....I have a dream too.

And while we're at it, could we please abolish this daylight savings time nonsense?

No Room For Diplomacy

With so many factions dividing the original family preservation activism movement, it seems that the old arts of tact and diplomacy have been tossed out the window. This has become such a self-serving society that a lot of people have forgotten that any movements forward in any cause happened when people were able to put aside their differences and work together.

I fear that the integrity of the entire endeavor has been lost in a quagmire of who's right and who's wrong and who wants the spotlight and who can't tolerate whom. Swirling around in this gigantic eddy, trying hard to keep its head above water, the fight for action leading to justice for mothers of adoption loss, especially those of the BSE, is going down and no one is listening to anyone who would throw out a lifeline.

The BSE is a part of all mothers of adoption loss, those from that era and those that came afterwards. During the BSE, the guidelines and strategies were formed that have led to the power the industry holds today and the social mythology and attitude towards adoption as one of the ultimate "good things" and the relegation of mothers to the pit of "birth"motherhood. Unless the injustices of the BSE are addressed, acknowledged and atoned for, we are just in for generations and generations more of the same old shit. At my age, I ain't gonna mince words.

There is no one "voice," no one heroine for the mothers of adoption loss. We are all experts in this field and we all have our voices. There is no rule that says we have to have it all one way or the other. There is no way that what we might present would be totally perfect, every "i" dotted and every "t" crossed, and no one person owns the BSE. We are all capable of doing research and reaching out for an ear in our government. I have written letters to editors and to congressional representatives and senators and even adoption agencies until my fingers are raw. I have begged and pled with young moms not to fall into the trap that was set by the early eugenicists and our silence. Some I have helped and other have fallen into the abyss.

Yes, I'm frustrated, confounded, disappointed, angry, and, increasingly, hopeless. That doesn't mean I am giving up, but it does mean that I don't count on others to do what I have to do myself and I, most surely, won't be enough to get the job done, alone. When it comes to diplomacy, I have failed, miserably. I will do better to back away from that self-appointed position (kinda arrogant of me to try to take it on in the first place) and try to figure out where to go, next. Sisters, I don't love you all, but I do love most of you, like many of you and can tolerate...well...MOST of the rest. The thing is that, unless you are trying to place absolutes on the rest of us, then I can work with any of you. We don't have to be bosom buds to do that.

Time's A'Wastin'

The Baby Scoop Era moms, and I am one, are getting older. While they say that 60 is the "new 40," we all know, with the certainty that comes with reaching or approaching that seventh decade in our lives, that we are in the final quarter of our time on earth. Many of us are retired or getting ready to retire, settling our wills, estates, making plans for the possibility of a need for assisted living...all those things.

And for those of us who lost children during the most heinous era of eugenics and social engineering in our nation's history, the time for justice and redress is slipping away. Many of us have given up any real hope of there being definitive action towards a public hearing and some kind of acknowledgement and apology from those in power.

African-Americans received an apology, Japanese-Americans who were incarcerated during WWII received an apology, the Tuskegee Airmen received an apology....where is ours? We are dismissed with a wave of the hand and the trite observation that "that's just the way things were back then." Yeah right....and slavery was "just the way things were" prior to the 1860's but that doesn't make it just or right.

This is another example of how little motherhood is honored in this nation if there is not a man's name attached to a woman's and if she is not wearing that gold band on the third finger of her left hand. The BSE was a time of no autonomy for females and no honesty about what programs were available to the young mom-to-be. We were warehoused like gravid livestock until the product was delivered and then sent back to our parents with the admonition to forget and sin no more.

Let me give the average American woman a head's up. If the current power structure and the fanatic, religious right have their way, "the way it was back then" will become the way it IS, now. If our tragedies are not addressed in a public forum with proper redress, then our granddaughters and great-granddaughters had better stock up on the birth control and trust no man. Right now, women have some control over their reproductive lives, but that will go bye-bye in a hurry if the eugenicists can make it so. Seeking justice, loud and clear, for the BSE mothers, and we number in the millions, will serve as more than just as a recognition for our pain. It will also serve as a visible and authentic cautionary tale for what might possibly happen if we are not very, very careful with our votes and our opinions.

Those of us who are in the final quarter of our time on earth need to speak up now and speak up loudly. Our sisters who are still in that dark closet of shame are invited to walk out into the sunlight with the rest of us and feel the warmth of truth, honesty and vindication. They took our babies, but they could never take our motherhood. We gave no adopters the "gift" of a child. Rather we were emotionally bullied into thinking that we would be toxic to our own flesh and blood or physically restrained from keeping our babies or even seeing them. We were not "heroines who did the right thing." We were scared kids and young women who were isolated and brainwashed and forced to enter into a most unnatural agreement. Even as minors who couldn't vote or drive or even marry, in some instances, we were still allowed to sign a piece of paper surrendering all our parental rights.

Remember this truism. "The more things change, the more they remain the same." Our time is here and we need to hurry because, time's a'wastin'.

Them As Don't Want To Know

My maternal grandmother was from the hills of Tennessee. She used to call herself a "ridge runner." She had only a grammar-school level education, but she was a smart lady. I remember talking to her about the Civil Rights movement of the 60's (she was a die-hard Democrat) and how it seemed that people couldn't see the injustice right in front of their eyes.

Her words to me were, "There's a lot of wrong that goes on in this world, and most folks turn the other way and don't look. Them as don't want to know, ain't goin' to learn."

I look around me at the people involved in adoption, on either end and see so many of "them as don't want to know." I see mothers cozying up to adopters and facilitators and undoing years of hard work done by many of us older moms as we tried to lay the foundation for protest against this heinous and unnatural practice. I see people who accuse others of "adopter bashing," just because some of us hold adopters responsible for creating the demand that fuels the market for womb-fresh newborns. I see younger moms coming along and booting us BSE moms out of the way and demeaning our years of experience and knowledge. I see adoptees searching just so they can attack their mothers rather than listening to the truth.

At a natural mom's forum, we had the usual adopter post that stated how she was offended by us calling ourselves "natural" mothers because that indicated that her "motherhood" was unnatural and "it would confuse adoptees." I submit that the only things that confuse adoptees are adoption itself and the many mixed messages they get from those who adopt them. It's like the ultra-dogmatic acceptance of one belief without even exploring another. It is the desire to remain ignorant if learning the truth upsets the status-quo and the adoption applecart.

Heaven forbid that the holy adopters might get knocked down off their self-constructed pedestal and be seen as human beings who coveted, didn't care about the pain caused to the mother, and became obsessively possessive when reunion occurred. Nope, let's still see them as the saints the industry and they have painted them to be. That way, the adoptee can feel free to abuse the mother and protect the adopters, regardless of the hostility and demeaning treatment they dished out to the mother.

Nope, we are not going to be able to "educate" a great number of people because they are, as my grandmother said, "them as don't want to know." We need to look to the general public with our educational efforts and stop giving adopters any credit for anything except getting what they wanted.....period.

The Veiled Mother

I know it must look like I am awfully lazy in writing blog entries, but I have been the recipient of so many Gems of Great Value of late and this short excerpt is another one. It speaks to and from my heart. Please note that I have edited the "b" word in this piece, but this woman has done a good job of "getting it."


From the author of the Burning of the Marriage Hat: http://www.burningofthemarriagehat.com/questions.html
"Invisible Veil"
by Margaret Benshoof-Holler

She could have been any of the veiled Afghani women that have been written about in the U.S. media since September 11. But the woman I stood listening to one Saturday afternoon last fall in Sacramento, California was an American woman whose veil was invisible, whose story had been silenced and hidden.

Her child had been taken away. It was as if it had died. Except there was no funeral, no wailing wall for her to pound her fists on and cry! The woman was expected to just get on with her life and pretend that she hadn't just given her child away.

With thirty-some years of internalized emotion still causing her voice to quake when she recalled signing her name on the relinquishment papers, the fifty-six-year-old woman in Sacramento spoke of the pain and grief of losing her daughter to adoption. As I listened, I was reminded that here in the U.S. we often deal with loss by covering up our emotions.

I was also reminded that the U.S. was bombing Afghanistan because we lost over 3,000 very dear people. No one, though, ever went to war for these women whose losses were in the millions of newborn lives. The exact number of women who gave children up for adoption during the era of the 60s is not readily obtainable. The numbers jumped from 50,000 in 1944 to 175,000 in 1970, according to one source. Another source estimated the number of women who relinquished children to adoption in the 1960s and 70s reached a peak of 250,000 a year. The stigma associated with getting pregnant out of wedlock then contributed to a need for secrecy.

The need to hide these pregnancies meant complete information was not always gathered. Thus the reason for approximates rather than exact figures. Nonetheless, it is unquestionable that a large number of women gave up children for adoption during the 1960s and reached a peak some time in the 70s.

And, if even half of the women who gave their children up for adoption in the 60s had banded together their voices would surely have been heard, but they had not been taught nor encouraged to use their voices. Societal dictates, including puritanical attitudes about sex, women, and pregnancy, silenced the voices of many women for many years.

When one loses a child, mother, father, or husband to death, there is a funeral and a time of mourning. That hasn't been the case for most of the 6,000,000 (*****rw)mothers in the U.S. who have lost their children to adoption. Relinquishing her child to adoption is looked upon as a single mother's duty for getting herself into that situation to begin with rather than a deeply painful separation of mother and child. In that respect, not much has changed since the 60s. Societal attitudes towards unwed mothers consider adoption a logical consequence to out-of-wedlock pregnancies.

Guilt and shame kept unwed mothers' voices stifled during the McCarthy and post-McCarthy era of the 60s, but a small group of (*****)mothers began, in the 1980s, to find the children they gave up for adoption in the 60s. They began to come to terms with their loss. It is only with the advent of the Internet that more (*****)mothers have begun to come out of the closet. Many still only talk about what happened to them with each other in much the same way that veterans of World War II and Vietnam only talked afterwards with those who understood what they had been through. Post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms effect a number of (*****)mothers.

When President Bush proclaimed November as National Adoption Month in 2001, he did not mention or honor the large group of American women who have lost their children to adoption. He did not present a plan of prevention for unplanned pregnancies or a way to provide free daycare to help financially-strapped mothers keep, rather than give up their babies to the adoption industry. His strong adoption stance appears to fall closely in line with one of his apparent supporters-the Edna Gladney Home in Fort Worth, Texas, which was one of the biggest contributors to the National Council for Adoption in their effort to keep birth records closed. President Bush didn't address the issue of opening birth records either. Closed birth records cut adoptees off from knowing who they are and do not protect (*****)mothers because the majority of them want to be found.

Even though U.S. women have progressed since the 60s in the areas of education and upward economic mobility and many single women are raising children on their own today, there is still a stigma about anything related to a woman having a baby outside of the confines of marriage. I see it in the way that stories about single mothers are reported in the media. Young mothers are made to sound like criminals if they want to keep their children.

One-hundred and forty million people in the U.S. have an adoption in their immediate families. Engrained views and practices pertaining to loss, sex, and adoption help keep many, like the (*****)mother in Sacramento, veiled and hidden. In this respect, the U.S. tends to fall behind every other industrialized country, most of which have stopped separating the natural mother from her child after it is born except in extreme situations.

The woman that I stood listening to in Sacramento was coerced into giving her child up for adoption in the 60s. She was then encouraged to keep the whole thing hidden. Her story stayed that way for over thirty years. It is time that we recognize and honor her motherhood.

"Invisible Veil" © copyright 2002 by Margaret Benshoof-Holler

From The Heart Of An Adoptee

Celeste has asked us to post this where people might read it. I am very moved by her words.

What If?
©2008 Celeste Billhartz www.themothersproject.com

I used to be for adopting. That’s what happened to me. My single mother gave birth to me and I was adopted. Just like millions of other kids. Most of us went to good homes and had good lives.
Many of us think otherwise, now. I guess the biggest reason is this: our mothers never got over losing their babies.

Why is it still socially acceptable to take babies from young mothers when we know, now, they will never get over the loss?

Think back to your first pregnancy. What if you were constantly badgered and told you had no business keeping your baby because you were single, and too young, and too poor to provide for him/her, that a married couple is waiting to provide him/her a much better life, and you are selfish for wanting to keep your baby?

What if, in that 9 months of psychological duress and brain-washing, you began to doubt your natural instincts to be a good mother? What if you believed that all the adults in your life knew best -- so, you signed an agreement to surrender your baby?

Remember how you felt about your baby, after giving birth? Would you have wanted to keep him/her – no matter what agreement you signed months, or weeks, or days before?
Today, as in our mothers’ day, most girl/mothers change their minds, after giving birth, but everyone around them demands that they honor that agreement. The young mothers want to keep their babies! Nobody listens, nobody cares, because adopters -- checks in hand and names picked out -- are waiting for their babies.

I urge single young women to keep their babies. DON’T SIGN ANY AGREEMENTS, and read everything you do sign at every agency, health center or religious organization.
I urge /grandmothers/aunts/cousins to help young mothers keep their babies within their families. If your daughter, niece or cousin is very young -- or irresponsible, step in and file for Kinship Care or Legal Guardianship. Don’t give her baby away! Please, don’t do that to her. She won’t be young and poor, forever.

I urge mature women to form support groups to help mothers and babies get a good start in life, together. Don’t hurt young mothers by separating them from their babies.
Finally, I urge women to NOT adopt, no matter how much you want a baby of your own. Adopting is legal, of course, and it is immensely profitable for brokers and agencies -- but it is terribly unfair to young mothers at the most vulnerable time in their lives.
Please, don’t be part of that treachery and covert theft.

Talking About Coercion

It seems that there are a few people coming out of the woodwork who are, seemingly, willing to listen to those of us who want to tell the stories of how we were coerced into surrendering parental rights to our children. I just finished sending off an account of the methods used to talk me out of my child.

It's funny that most people and even some of our children don't understand that there are more ways of forcing someone to one's will than just holding a gun to their heads. Although there are many mothers who were restrained, placed in prison-like environments or mental hospitals and who were forced to signed papers while drugged, never allowed to see their children or, in some cases, to even know if they had a boy or a girl, there are also stories like mine.

I consider my coercion a conspiracy by three parties; my parents/family, the social workers for the home and the state agency and the Bible-Belt society in which I lived. People see the 60's as an era of "free love" and open-mindedness, but that was only in more, shall we say, advanced locales. Hippies were a small portion of the population. Where I came from, you at least pretended to be a virgin until you were married, birth control was unavailable and the only safe, medical abortions available were out of the reach, financially, of the rank and file. Back-alley abortions were too scary to risk for most of us.

My family was adamant that I would surrender. My father made the statement that I would not be "bringing any bastard babies into his home." I look back at that and see that my father, a serial philanderer, had no room to talk, but remember that I was 16. My mother was also wanting me to return to her a "born-again virgin" and to fulfill her dreams for me. I was told I would have no place to go with my baby and that we would eventually starve to death. I wasn't the most sophisticated person in the world and I believed that.

None of the social workers that "counseled" me ever mentioned that there were programs provided that would have helped me. No one told be about the fact that teens could be emancipated if their parents were not supportive. Nope, all they wanted was to get their hands on those babies as fast as they could. All they told me was that I would never be able to handle parenthood at my age and that I would be destitute and place my children in danger. By the time they got through with me, I felt lower that a snail's trail. I was told to go and sin no more and went home like a zombie with two holes in my heart that never, never healed. The scars will always be there, because, even if I am reunited, my babies are gone, forever, enjoyed by other women who felt more entitled to them than me.

To all you adopted people out there, please listen to your mothers when they tell you what happened and read about what society was like in the time that your mother went through her ordeal. And remember, too, that, for most of us, pregnancy was unexpected, but YOU were wanted and loved.

Thanks, But No Thanks

I have noticed a disturbing trend in the community of those affected by adoption...a trend to "soften the message" and to "compromise." While I think that a lot of us can meet in the middle in areas where we agree and put aside the areas where we don't agree, there is such a thing as asking too much.

Such an impasse, where too much has been asked of some of us old broads who have been there and done that, has recently been reached and we have had to stand our ground. What I would love to ask everyone in adoption activism and natural family preservation is, when is enough, enough? Where can we draw a line and say, "this is as far as we are willing to go?"

How can we be anti-adoption, yet pro-adopters? That just doesn't make sense to us. Those who adopt or who wish to adopt are the ones who are fuelling the industry that continues to enforce a social myth, has a huge congressional lobby and is part of the misleadingly named Child Welfare network. Many good, but financially disadvantaged people are having their children taken from them for little to no good reason, and many of us older moms, now reunited, are having people the age of our children demand that we pay ultra-respect to the people who adopted them by forcing us to call them "parents." Yet, these same adopted people will refer to us as "b****mothers."

We are being corrected by "professionals" half our age who have no idea of the reality of the experience of the mother of adoption loss, especially those of us from the BSE. We are tough old birds. We have been through the worst that our families, social workers, uncaring medical professionals and our own children can put us through and we have survived with our self-esteem and zest for life intact. Still, we are having our hands slapped by very young adoptees who erroneously think that, if we use the term, "adopters," we are disrespecting their feelings for their adopters. How can we make them understand that we respect their feelings but hate the self-serving act of adoption?

I have a friend at the YMCA. She is in her late 70's and adopted two children, now adults. She and I have been around the block, a couple of times, over this. She knows I respect her as a fellow human being... Heck, I even like her...but that I don't respect her feelings for the mothers of her adoptees (they are her "worst nightmare") or her act of adopting. She told me that women like me scared her to death because we don't allow her to maintain her fantasy of being the superior woman to "parent" the children she adopted. She is, if nothing else, honest.

The bottom line is that we moms cannot operate where we are not allowed to be honest and where we are not respected as the original and true parents of the children we had taken for adoption.

And let me make one other observation. When a person who is, admittedly, neither a true adoptee nor a mother, comes on a support list and starts asking leading and intrusive questions that sound like an interview, it isn't paranoid to suspect that person of ulterior motives. I am no one's lab rat. If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck and swims like a duck, it has to be a duck. I doubt that many of us will go back to a place where there is this kind of atmosphere. Thanks, but no thanks.

Exploration of Exploitation

I am wondering if the government and pro-adoptionsts, at large, will ever cease using and exploiting the mothers who had children taken for adoption? It would seem we are still of some use after being harvested for our desirable, healthy infants. I was watching a History Channel segment of "Modern Marvels," last night. The subject was edible nuts, and I noticed how they used every part of the nut..not just the tasty kernel, but the shells and other by-products, as well. Nothing was wasted and that is the good, old US of A way, to squeeze every last penny out of a "product." I think that the industry has seen our babies as the "nuts" and us as the "shells."

The adoption industry is doing its best to recruit mothers of adoption loss to work with them, telling new moms how wonderful it is to give these usurers their babies. That seems to work with the more naive, those addicted to the pats on the back the industry and adopters give them, and those that just have to believe that it was "for the best" or the grief and anger will overwhelm them, ie., those in denial.

There have been moms recruited for "studies" only to find their words and thoughts used in pro-adoption literature and by the industry to see how they can use these bits of info to make adoption look better to the unsuspecting, upcoming mothers-to-be. That's how the so-called "open adoption option" came into being, a carrot to dangle in front of the mother's nose. One such mother, a friend to many on the Internet Mothers' Support circuit, had just that terrible thing happen to her. She recently passed at the young age of 63, of ovarian cancer. I didn't know her, but many did and loved her and, I am told, her story is a sad one. What was done with her most traumatic experience is criminal. I can't say enough horrible things about any entity that would do such a thing.

Then there are the poseurs, who haunt the support group boards, asking leading questions about the mothers' feelings and experiences. These people, who don't let you know what they are really all about, are carrion crows. They feather their "nests" (ie., books, master's theses, studies for social work and adoption agencies) with our pain and anger and are doing so without our knowledge and/or permission. Some of these are also potential adopters who want to know all about the thoughts and feelings of the mothers so that she can use the information to her advantage when she acquires her adoptee.

All in all, it seems like the facilitators, exploiters and adopters are going to use our poor, abused carcases until they are all used up. We are the food for the vampires of adoption and eugenics, and their fangs are firmly embedded in our jugular veins. We moms from the BSE have struggled for years to regain our voices and our autonomy, and they want us to lose even that, again. Our language is censored and our opinions are scorned. For other, younger moms, the realities of how they were used are just now hitting them and the shock is only beginning to wear off and turn into righteous anger.

The underlying beliefs of the mavens of adoption come out in the open, every so often, when someone lets something slip or when someone sticks their wingtips down past their tonsils. There is our current chief executive who would return us to the days of maternity prisons and wholesale baby-snatching and then there is someone like Rep. Larry Liston, R-CO, who just outright called any teen, past or present, who becomes pregnant while unmarried, a "slut." I don't think this elected jackass will hear the last of that one for a while.

We have to be more on guard, now, than ever, and that is not paranoia. They really ARE out to get whatever they can from us to further their own aims...increasing infant adoption and keeping us silent and submissive. Sorry all you eugenicists, adopters, wannabe adopters, agencies, social wreckers and other facilitators...NO CAN DO. Our days of hiding in shame and allowing our sisters to turn their babies over to you without a struggle or in an uninformed daze are over. We are respectable, caring, decent, empowered women and we will not "go silently into that good night (Oh how I love a dramatic phrase)" without drawing blood and shouting out our cause.

So, users of mothers, beware. We're on to you.

No Words Needed

Today, I turn my blog over to ...another blog! Someone did their homework and put it into a very readable format. This is a timeline for the way adoption as we know it, today, has developed and infiltrated the rights of natural families throughout this nation.

http://babyscoopera.blogspot.com/2008/02/marketing-adoption.html

I get a lot of flack, especially from adopted people who defend their adopters even though they know what part they played in the tragedy of their adoption, and those who think we can "educate adopters" about the fact that there is NO such thing as a "Triad." Someone else described it best as a lop-sided rectangle..at the larger end, there are the adopters and the army of facilitators that make adoption possible. At the smaller end are us moms and our children. Needless to say, we definitely are on the "loser" end and adopters and facilitators are on the "winner" end.

So read the blog above and see what a methodical and determined bunch the adoption "professionals" and the eugenicists and adopters really are.

HOSTILITY

Every so often, I get my eyes really opened to the fact that our surrendered children were put through a massive mind-f***. It is most apparent on the groups where adopted people and moms post together. Those of us who haven't had to confront much hostility in our reunited children get a full dose of it on some of these groups.

We are not talking about very young reunitees with post-adolescent hormones and angst still a-blooming. We are talking about adults who have held on to the idea of the careless, abandoning mother or who is in a bad reunion and decides that all us moms are demons from the underworld, here on earth just to give them a hard time. It amazes me that, when confronted with documented history, personal stories and the examples of what really happened to the majority of us, they still bring out that old "you have to take responsibility for your part in the adoption" bit. We can thank the adopter, Nancy Verrier, author of "The Primal Wound," for that one. Just when it seemed that an adopter was going to support what we had known all along, she slips that "mothers should apologize" zinger in and we are off to the races again, us against adoptee infantile rage.

Sorry, my collective babies...NO CAN DO. If you are desiring of an abasing apology and a blood sacrifice, then try to hang your own mother on that cross (although, if she is smart, she is probably keeping her distance from you), but don't tar us all with the same brush, for two reasons. One is that it is neither right nor fair and the second is that we aren't going to allow it.

Since the Hostile adopted people in question are at the ages that shows their mothers were of the Baby Scoop Era when they were coerced into surrender, we will address just that time frame. It's something that adopted people and even younger mothers can't even begin to understand. That complete lack of autonomy, choice and self-determination is an alien concept and one that many don't want to accept. Why? Well, because that might mean that their adopters lied to them and society lied to them and they would much rather believe the lies than accept the truth because the truth comes from US, the mothers who lived it and there are not words horrible enough to describe it. They want to punish mommy and punish they will if they can find a way. Luckily, not all are of that mindset, but enough are to let me know that there were some major lies being told to vulnerable, adopted children by the people who were supposed to have their "best interests" at heart. Some of the most heinous, horrific lies were told during the BSE and adopters and social workers told them with impunity.

Things have changed so drastically in such a short time, that younger women, including some of our sister mothers, cannot conceive of such a situation, therefore, it suits them to believe that it wasn't so or isn't important in the allover scheme of things. That's a pity because addressing the BSE would be one of our strongest arguments against adoption. Opening our children's eyes to the truth would be a wonderful side benefit and maybe, just maybe, they could purge themselves of some of that hateful anger.

Why haven't these mature, adopted men and women in their 30's and 40's who think mommy should beg their forgiveness and take their attitudes with meek submission been taught simple courtesy and respect? These are people who need a lesson in compassion and old-fashioned manners. And heaven forbid you intimate that the ones who adopted them might have swayed their thinking against moms for their own benefit. Where do we all learn the most where our own behavior is concerned? That's Right!!! At HOME.

This is why I cannot begin to say enough about how the BSE and the young, now much older, mothers caught up in that heinous time needs to be addressed, and given redress in a public forum and adoption condemned for the nasty social experiement it was. It still is nasty, but they hide that nasty behind the pink bow of so-called "open" adoption and offer young women "scholarships" and then turn around and call us all crack-whores and unfit. SOMETHING has got to change and we old bats with the flabby arms and the holes in our hearts seem to be the ones who need to get on our ponies and ride into the fray.

It just makes me wonder, with some of the more hostile, angrier adopted people, what that is going to leave for them to use as a target. Here's an idea...how about the industry and those who fuel that industry with their demands for healthy infants and toddlers to "cure" their infertility? Stop shooting at the wrong targets, my children. We're survivors and, even if you draw blood, you're not going to get us kneeling in front of you and begging your pardon. Mea AIN'T culpa!

Keep Potential Adopters Out of Labor and Delivery!

If ever there were a truly compelling example of emotional coercion, this is it. I read the most moving account of the emotional conflict, pain and a mother's courage on this site; http://rondidondi.wordpress.com/2007/10/24/my-days-without-poowee/

This story has a happy ending, but too many similar ones don't. In most cases, the potential adopters love-bomb the mother-to-be, calling her a b****mother before the child is even born and then crowd into the labor and delivery room as if they were children on Christmas Eve, crowded around the fireplace and looking up the chimney. These particular PAP's came with an entourage, family and friends that were hugging the wannabe "mommy" and congratulating her as if SHE were the one in labor. SHADES OF "THE HANDMAID'S TALE." This mother needed privacy at one of the most pivotal points in her life. NO mother should feel obligated to allow potential adopters into the presence of her private miracle.

If one is to adopt a child, then I would think that they would want the mother of that child to be truly and fully informed and totally understanding of exactly what the ramifications of surrender are. Unfortunately, agencies and adoption social workers don't really give the full story..one that should be given to the expectant mother by those of us who have been there and done that. Instead, They tell her that she'll get past it and that they will provide "counseling. Often, the PAP's get ansty, push in and buy gifts and do all in their power to make this mother feel emotionally obligated and responsible for their future "joy." A lot of mothers go through with the surrender for this very reason, not wanting to disappoint the PAP's, and then suck up the pain or go to a private support group, online, to pour out their sorrow.

When did our society start putting so little value on the bond between a mother and her child that we make adoption look like the best thing to come down the pike since sliced bread? In my era, it was a wholesale slaughter of the mother/child connection and it begat a generation of mothers in silent pain and children growing up with issues of rejection and confusion. It's the Same Stuff, Different Day, in the present time. The package had a bow on it and that is all that has really changed. Open adoption isn't worth the paper on which it is printed. In most states, it can slam shut just as soon as the insecure adopters can find an excuse and the mother can do nothing about it.

I've made this statement before, but I don't know if PAP's hear it or want to hear it. I feel badly for you if you can't have children of your own. But that doesn't entitle you to the offspring of others. You create a market...a demand, and it is up to agencies and adoption social worker to find the confused and fearful mothers in "crisis" (unexpected) pregnancies to fill that demand. Coercion is alive and well, as was pointed out in the blog that I linked in this essay. Unexpected doesn't mean unwanted and helping that mother keep her child is the best thing anyone could do. "I also feel compassion for those with no legs, but I don't think that means I should give them mine. (this is not original but was first said by a friend of mine)"

So, potential adopters with your baby-lust in full bloom....go to this link and read about that pain. I cried..tears of pain and frustration and, finally, tears of joy. She has her baby back with her where he belongs.

A Place For Mothers

It seems that the more things change, the more they stay the same and mothers are the ones who get it in the end. I don't often see the wisdom in combining support groups of mothers, some of whom have been rejected by their adult reunited child, and adopted adults, some of whom have been rejected by their mothers or are just angry at their moms and moms in general. It always seems to wind up in a fight for control and, I am sorry adoptees, but the control issues are usually yours.

I have seen a lot of frustrated anger when we have refused to apologize for something we did not do (willingly give up our children) or refused to pay obeisance to the people who adopted you or to agree that your adoption was "for the best." When you do that "Inner Child" work, maybe you should teach that child that the only thing in life that one can control is oneself. No other person, be it your child, your mother, your sibling, your spouse or significant other can be under your control. And try to remember that we suffered from a "Primal Wound" also. Being separated from your own flesh and blood is a terrible, unnatural and wounding thing.

The last thing that mothers need is to be required to pay homage to adopters and to "respect their feelings." It is adopters that don't respect our feelings, that refer to a pregnant, usually single woman, as a "b****mother" before she even gives birth, that fight, along with agencies, legislators and facilitators/attorneys, to take away precious time in which a mother can bond with her child and make a more informed decision (if agreeing to release your infant to others forever could be called a "decision"....I call it an act of desperation with little real information). And, it has been anecdotally proven to me, beyond a doubt, that adopters are the ones who are hateful, nastily jealous, possessive and give conditional love (it's us or HER) when we come back into the picture at reunion.

Another thing that mothers don't need is adoption social workers, agency personnel or adopters sneaking onto various boards, "seeking to understand" when all they really want to do is change the nature of the board and our "erroneous" thinking. The passive/aggressive nature of some of the questioning done by these folks gives them away in a heartbeat. I have heard all of the stories of children abused by their parents and crackwhore mommies and dumpster babies. But you close your mind and hearts when we talk about the many adopters who have abused, emotionally, sexually and physically, the children they have adopted. Some have even murdered these kids. But it's us moms that are the eternal villains in your lexicons.

Mothers are angry because we have been at the bottom of the heap, disrespected and disregarded for more decades that I can count. We are not guniea pigs for a Master's Thesis or a "study" to find out what crumbs can be thrown out to us to keep agencies in business. We are certainly not punching bags for angry adopted people. Most of us are channeling our anger into activism and that is healthy. Anger, itself, is just an emotion, like all others. It's how you use it that matters.

So here we go again, wasting time explaining ourselves and our need for respect when we could be making a difference and facilitating real change. We laugh, we love our spouses, we cry over loved ones who die or become ill, we worry about our own health, take fun vacations, watch movies and try to do good jobs at work and at home. We do not spend our time, 24/7. writhing in psychic pain over our mutual tragedies. A lot of us are healing, quite nicely, thank you, and leaving behind those who sit in their misery and spin their wheels. That anger I spoke about is not our weakness, but our strength.

I have 3 groups where I feel I can speak my mind about my role (which is only one facet of my life) as a Baby Scoop Era Mother who had children taken for adoption. On the others, I have to walk on eggshells. Where's the respect in that? Well, this is my blog and I can bitch if I want to. I love it.

When Art Does Not Imitate Life

I have added a link to this post. It is a terrific op-ed piece by Jess DeBalzo who is a wonderful original family preservation activist. Like me, she is not afraid to call herself "anti-adoption."

http://www.opednews.com/articles/life_a_jessica__080128_a_horror_show_called.htm

Her review of the movie, "Juno" echoes my concerns about the impact that this film might have on our country and the young women who go to see it. It presents adoption as just the peachiest thing imaginable and the only alternative to abortion. How precious and how inaccurate! Showing the heroine keeping and raising her child would have been much more accurate and fair to the average single mother.

It makes me wonder who funded it and authorized the writing of the script. The anti-reproductive choice/pro-adoption, or, so-called, "Child Welfare" consortium seems to have a lot of influence and money to use to lobby and, I imagine, to make a film. Adoption is, as we have often stated in our groups, on our websites and in our blogs, a big-money business that uses young moms like breeding tools to fulfill the demand for healthy infants for the adoption mills.

Juno is played for laughs, but there is nothing laughable about losing your child to adoption. The aftermath, as it was portrayed in this piece of fantasy-fiction film, is so unrealistic as to leave me with my mouth open in profound shock. The grief that goes along with this "decision" is life-long and profound. The "decision" is often based on incomplete information and industry propaganda and "love-bombing" by wannabe adopters. On the whole, this movie is a slap in the face of mothers and adoptees who know how it really feels. The person who wrote this is either an adopter, not involved in adoption at all, or a mother in deep, deep denial.

If all it had taken for me to get past my losses was to have a boyfriend drop in with a guitar, then I wouldn't be on this blog today, would not have spent years searching for my children, would not have been blessed by my daughter spending years searching for me and would not be so adamantly working to prevent just what this movie unashamedly promotes. My feelings are echoed by thousands of mothers and adoptees and millions more, still in that "closet of shame."

Let's get real, Hollywood. You have insulted the intelligence of some very savvy people, here, and made a mockery of an American tragedy. What are you going to follow it up with? A movie about euthanizing senior citizens and babies born with birth defects? Jeez!!

The kids at the top are my great grandchildren and the one mugging for the camera, my Jantzen, would not be with us if my granddaughter and daughter had followed "Juno's" example. Thank God, they didn't. He keeps us laughing with delight and extreme love and he knows who his family IS.

Honk If You're A BSE Mom

Can you imagine the cacophany of noise if every woman who had a child taken during the Baby Scoop Era were to honk her car horn in concert with all the others? They would hear the noise on the space station.

This is the biggest group of mothers who had children taken for adoption from the same time frame in the US, and so many are still sleeping the sleep of denial, believing they "had a choice" and "made a decision." But I am wondering if more would come out of their "good beemommy" closets if the BSE received the attention it deserves. We are talking millions, here. If it had caused deaths (and in a few cases, it did), it would have been called genocide. A few hundred moms might make a difference, but think about the combined energies of a few million mothers, awake and aware that they got exploited, screwed and robbed big time.

When we talk about needing numbers to make change, I cannot help but think of all those mothers who just need some gentle shaking and the cold water of truth on their faces. If the issues of the BSE go public, some of these women...hopefully, a lot of these women...may wake up and want to join in the fight. With this many angry mothers, attention would then segue to the mothers who came after us. People will start wondering if the "old days" are really gone. From the numbers of younger mothers who have joined the various activist groups, I think the only thing that has really changed is the number of women affected by the industry.

No one wants to leave out any mothers that have been hurt by the adoption machine. It hurts, just as much, to have lost your baby to adoption in 1993 as it did in 1963. There were still isolated pockets of shaming and blaming and appalled parents and frightened, pregnant young women after the early 70's. Seeking justice for the BSE will mean a good chance of a re-examination of the entire system and justice for all mothers from all time periods.

I am a big believer in doing things for mothers of today, preserving and protecting the natural family and reducing the number of adoptions....especially those of infants. BUT, I think we have to have a starting point and for that, we have to look backwards and study our history to find out why adoption is so powerful in this country, today. The BSE, like the era of Jim Crow laws, is a historical reality, it happened and it had millions of casualties in the mothers and children who were separated by the repressive, judgmental mores of that time.

Seeking justice for past crimes is nothing new and it is not regressing nor refusing to move forward with our lives. Many of us have done just that and moved forward, in the case of some of us, with steely resolve. Living in the past is not what this is about. Learning from the past and using the excesses and oppressions of that evil time to put the Man on the spot is what it is about and what it will always be about. I only hope to see this in my lifetime and time is growing short. I have been blessed with great-grandchildren and I want them to know that their "Big Mama" fought the good fight for their future.

Those sands in the hourglass run a bit faster as you get older. I would love vindication and acknowledgement to be part of the rewards of my "golden years." I think my sciatica and arthritis would hurt a lot less. I know it would do my heart immeasurable good.

A Society In Denial That Big Brother Is Here

Wow! Sorry to tell everyone this, but Orwell was right. We think we are in charge of our own lives and our own families, but that is a total delusion. Maybe Orwell's vision of "Big Brother" was a bit more "film noir" than real, but the basics are all in place. Big Brother isn't just coming....he is here, now!

Take, for example, the Goliath of the lobby, The Child Welfare "group." Somehow, I suppose through the liberal application of favors and $$$$, this group has been influencing the legislation that allows the government and the "Child Welfare" people to decide who gets to be a parent. Hell, these misguided folks practically ARE the government.

Not only did we natural moms have our children removed from us because we committed the ultimate sin of being single, sexual and less affluent, but the less affluent natural families of married parents are, now, also in jeopardy. A messy living room and not enough veggies in the fridge or patches on your kids' jeans can get you an appointment with a SW and your children a one-way ticket into foster care and adoption. Heaven forbid if you have real problems because, rather than working on fixing the family problem, they slap a band-aid on by taking the children.

What is wrong with this picture? It seems that natural parents are seen as lacking something that potential adopters seem to have, according to this misbegotten system. The tales of abusive adopters and fosterers seem to get swept under the rug, while the dumpster babies and drug-addict moms are the focus of attention by the media and those who stand to gain by the capture of adoptable infants and toddlers. The older children can often return to their families after a long battle, but, for some odd reason, the little ones stay gone. Could it be that it's because these are the desirable, adoptable kiddies that make the potential adopters', adoption social workers' and agencies' collective mouths water? Could it be.......(church lady, here).....this particular SATAN???..the Devil-Dog Eugenicist???

The Child Welfare system and their lobby seem to be made up of attorneys, agencies, social workers (who should know better), "right-to-lifers" and any and all eugenically-minded persons with their Utopian schemes (the Christian Far-Right comes to mind). Their agenda is cloaked in the deceptive, pink, satin blanket of "what is best for the children," but too many of these children and their true parents, sadly, know better.

In the majority of cases, the separation is painful, permanent and a true tragedy..the worst thing for the family involved, be it a single parent or married parents. What is really best for families is for all these agencies to work to keep them together. They need to discard the system-commissioned, biased "studies" that say a single or poor parent is bound to do something heinous, stop teaching coercion methods, quit playing God and get to the real task at hand which is saving the Heritage Family from oblivion.

Let me ask anyone who is reading this who has not lost a child or a parent to the machine....How would you like it if there were someone at your door, demanding your child be turned over to them for facetiously-worded reasons? How would you like to be deemed "unfit" for not having a McMansion, Lexus and the handy tuition for private schooling? How would you like to be labeled a future abuser just because you are single? Is this an unfair assessment? Damn Skippy, it is!

And for all of you who haven't been smacked by adoption, if this institution is so darn, sloppy-kiss wonderful, then why aren't you donating one of your offspring to the industry? Somewhere, there is probably an infertile couple who is much more fit to raise your child than you are...doncha think?

We still have votes, we still can have a voice and it is past time for this voice to be raised. There are a precious few, doing this job for the many who have been injured by Big Adoption and the misnamed Child Welfare system. We can, at least, let our umbrage be known by writing to newspapers, legislators and anyone who needs to hear the message. It only takes a few minutes to write one letter a day or a week. Even that will fill the email inboxes and snail-mail boxes and someone will take note. That wheel needs to really squeak out loud to be heard. We have to stop letting the Bottom Line ($$$) grease that wheel and allowing adoption social mythology to be the only voice that is heard.

I would like to add that I received a lot of my information on this subject from a dear friend who is in the thick of things, trying to do her bit for natural families. This isn't conjecture...this is well-observed fact.

Ohio To Further The Adoption Machine's Power

As Introduced
127th General Assembly
Regular Session
2007-2008
H. B. No. 7
Representative Brinkman
A BILL
To formally state the General Assembly's intentions in its upcoming deliberations on reforming Ohio's adoption laws.BE IT ENACTED BY THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF OHIO:
Section 1. The General Assembly hereby sets forth its intent to reform Ohio's adoption laws by ensuring timely, safe, and appropriate adoptive placements, reducing adoption expenses, and generally promoting adoption in Ohio.


The complete bill is many pages long and includes a section on "abstinence education," with a token clause for open records for adopted people, excluding many of those born in the BSE by the wording "born before 19 so and so". I have a gut feeling that this heinous piece of crap legislation is the industry's reply to the media scrutiny it has received since the Stephanie Bennett case and the infamous "caged adoptee" debacle. The agencies and attorneys and right-to-lifers are coming back with guns blazing in Ohio.

Let me urge everyone to look up the bill, see who is sponsoring it, and write to the Ohio legislature, the Ohio news media and your Aunt Gussie in Toledo if you have to. Those of you who are Ohio residents and voters, PLEASE let your representatives in the state house know that you are not in favor of this legislation as it stands.

While we are at it, No, I didn't see "Juno." I have better sense than to put myself through that kind of emotional torture. But it is getting the nod in the form of rave reviews from the far-right, anti-abortion rights fundies and now has been nominated for an academy award????? That's another cause for your cards and letters. If there ever was an unrealistic portrayal of the results of loss of a child to adoption, this one is the worst.

I and too many of my friends who have had our children taken for adoption know how it really feels, and I can guarantee you that having our "boyfriends" come to see us, afterwards, with a guitar, would not have made us a bit happy about our grief. From what I have been told, Juno shed a few tears, but that is not how it really goes, folks. You don't jump right back into your life as if there are wonderful times ahead. A mother, even a TEEN mother, MOURNS for a long, long time.

Short post, today, friends. This one calls for a dose of medicine for my tummy before I eat. The news is grim on the natural family preservation front and we have a lot of work cut out for us. I'll be writing a lot of letters and emails this afternoon, but until then, Pepsid AC, take me away from this adoption-soaked-addicted society for just a little while.

She's Baa-aaack

This is me in 2006, unhappy, unhealthy and weighing 312 lbs. I started on a serious weight-loss program after this picture was taken.

This is me in February of 2007, starting to feel the effects of the esophogitis and at about 240 lbs. I was in Hilton Head with some dear friends and eating Rolaids and Tums like they were candy.

And here I am on Christmas Morning, well at last and down to 178. Healthy, happy and glad to be alive.

2007 has been the year that was. Two trips to the hospital, a bout with severe depression, losing over 100 lbs., hubby having to have a basal cell cancer removed, my faithful car going dead on me in the middle of traffic and almost being hit by an oncoming idiot, getting a new PT Cruiser (Yay) and watching a lot of people, that I love and admire, caught up in some disturbing and frustrating problems within the anti-adoption community. We have started off the new year with hubby undergoing orthroscopic surgery for a badly torn meniscus. Life IS.

I am trying to re-charge the batteries for Anti-Adoption Truth, the MSN group I started as a place where the public could read the interactions and frustrations of those of us who have been gob-smacked by adoption. I would love it to be "neutral ground" where all involved can come and talk about the things that need to be spread around the web and placed in public view and also to rant about the things they hate about adoption...what it has done to us and to our children. I hope all my friends will read and heed and join back in the discussion side of things. It's a safe group...readable by the public, but the membership is by approval, only.

Its a bit late for this, but I do have a wish-list for 2008. At the top of it is the hope that my husband will finally give in and retire and we can move away from Florida. On another personal note, I am hoping that, when my reunited son gets out of prison in a few months, after a 6-year stay, he will be able to get his life on track and be comforted by knowing that I love him, no matter what. I am also hoping that this nastiness in Iraq will end and all our service people, especially my grandson, will be coming home. I think there has been enough death.

I have great hopes for the up-coming election. I would like to see the far-right religious faction out of politics and out of government. Mike Huckabee will definitely NOT get my vote. When this country went on its conservative binge, it threw the baby out with the bathwater and now many of our personal freedoms, including the right of a woman to make her own decisions about her body, are in danger of being lost if we don't make some major changes in our national and state governments.

In the world of natural family preservation, at the top of THAT list is the hope that the community of activists can come together in such a way as to start generating some real change and that the crimes against mothers, starting with those of us from the Baby Scoop Era, finally get addressed in a public forum. The time is long past for an official and very public apology. In recognizing what was done, in genocide-proportions, to unmarried mothers in the BSE, we will be a step closer to finding justice for all those who have had their children taken for adoption by the clever machinations of a major industry.

I am hoping that more young women will take advantage of the fact that birth control is available to them, even without their parents' consent, through local health departments. I am hoping that more mothers-to-be learn that there is another option other than surrender to adoption and will keep and raise their babies.

I am hoping that more states will get on the bandwagon and open the records for adult adoptees AND their mothers. No one should have to beg a judge for something that is theirs by right. In that vein, I am also hoping that adopted people and mothers can meet in the middle and realize that their best chance is in supporting each other, not just mothers supporting the adoptees.

I am hoping for healing of the wounds of the millions around the world and here who have felt the effects of this unnatural and painful separation. I am hoping for the fearful to no longer fear the truth, for the angry to understand and for the silent to speak up. Nothing can ever give us or our children back the years that we lost, but we can work together to help heal each other. We'll always carry the scar tissue, but it is past time for us to stop the bleeding.

Yep, it all sounds like a pipe dream, but dreams are good, according to the man whose life we observe today. He also had a dream and was killed trying to make it come true. So, Dear Granter of Hopes and Wishes, if not this year for the adoption stuff, then please, before I die, let me see a few of these things come to pass.

All Y'all think it over, y'hear?

A Crime Against A Family; As It Happened

For those of you who have been following the plight of Stephanie Bennett, her parents and baby Evelyn, here's the scoop, as it happened. It is about time that more of us speak out against this kind of outright abuse of authority, abuse of a minor's relationship with her family, and sheer using of a family's plight for profit. "A Child Waiting" agency, and those who own and run it, have a lot to which they need to answer, in my opinion.

There is more to this than what you will read below. Legal actions loom and those who used and abused this young mom are going to have to answer for their unethical and, yes, criminal, activities. This family was torn asunder by a mythology that would make a natural family pay with their own flesh and blood for being less than affluent, and a mom for being young and frightened.

Shame on the school counselor, the agency, the "independent" attorney and several "others" that were involved in taking this child from the family that loves and wants her! Shame on the potential adopters for not taking the high road from the start and returning Evelyn to her true family.

As I read this, I remember how easily I was, at this age, coerced, frightened and made to feel responsible for everyone else but myself and my baby. Get good and mad, Stephanie. You have a right!


11/05 – Stephanie found that she is pregnant and hid it from her parents until 3 weeks prior to delivery. She is tall, this is a first pregnancy and the popular baggy clothes worn by young people made that possible.

4/17/06 – Stephanie delivered Baby Evelyn Joann Bennett and named her for her Great Grandmother and her Grandmother and her Mother. The plan is that, with her family’s support, Stephanie will raise the baby.
Stephanie’s parents are not wealthy people and Stephanie and Evelyn go on Medicaid.

4/06 - Stephanie told her parents that the father was a school friend, with whom she had never had sex. She was desperately trying to protect her family. She lied to her parents because she was afraid of the real father who had been making serious and repeated threats against her family. Stephanie attempted to protect them from him and what he would do to her family, to her and to Baby Evelyn.

9/07/06 – After 5 months of repeated and serious threats to her family’s health and safety and emotional abuse from the putative father of her child, Stephanie approached Thomas Saltsman, Counselor, at Glenoak High School. Stephanie originally went to discuss a schedule change, but mentioned adoption. As soon as Stephanie mentioned adoption, Mr. Saltsman turned, got a brochure from his desk for A Child’s Waiting Adoption Agency and arranged a meeting for the next day in his office.

9/8/06 – Stephanie signed the initial paperwork that began the process. Mr. Saltsman signed as witness, in his office, at the high school, this was the ONLY meeting between Stephanie and the agency people, until the agency worker came to take Baby Evelyn on 9/12/06. There was no counseling nor protection offered to Stephanie. An attorney was present, as Stephanie’s "independent counsel", but she also handled adoptions for A Child’s Waiting Adoption Agency on a regular basis.

9/12/07 - As a policy, Medicaid demands the name of a father, or they require DNA testing on any possible ones. The young man that Stephanie claimed was the father in order to protect her family’s safety from the real father went to have his DNA tested. Stephanie was to bring Evelyn in for her test to see if they matched, but Stephanie never came. She had already run away, as directed by the agency rep in the school guidance counselor’s office, to avoid the DNA testing. The involvement of a father in the proceedings would complicate things for the agency. Proven fathers have rights that require protection. DNA evidence is proof of paternity. No proof and there are only putative fathers, who legally need not be consulted. Evelyn was not tested, as she had already been taken from her mother by the agency.

9/12/06 – Stephanie and Evelyn ran away (at the agency’s suggestion, in the Guidance Counselor’s office, to Carrol County where Stephanie’s parents could not interfere). Also the last time Stephanie saw baby Evelyn. The agency rep came to this place and picked up baby Evelyn.

10/2/06 – Judy and Ranza Bennett got temporary custody of Baby Evelyn; went to the agency in Copley Township in Summit County accompanied by Copley Police. Agency told the police that they had spoken to the 17-year-old but told her that they could not do business with her while she was a minor and that neither child was at the agency.

10/16/06 - Judy and Ranza notified by Canton police that they were to appear in court on 10/17/06. Not informed as to why.

10/17/06 – Went to court, still no information as to reason. Stephanie appeared accompanied by A Child’s Waiting. Court placed Stephanie into a Respite Home due to allegations of abuse made against Judy and Ranza Bennett by the putative father who had been making the threats against Stephanie and her family, which stated that there was neglect and abuse against both Evelyn and Stephanie. A case worker came to their home to investigate the charges of abuse.

10/18/06 – Stephanie ran away from the Respite Home and called a friend, who called the caseworker who advises him to take Stephanie to Family Court. While in court, Stephanie tells the judge that she wants to return home to her parents and her sister. The Lawyer for Child Protection told the Judge that there was no sign of neglect or abuse in the home. Evelyn’s pediatrician stated that he had no concern about Evelyn being in the home.

10/18/06 - Stephanie then told her parents who the father actually was (there is no more information about the father available beyond this as yet, as charges are pending and any information leaked could jeopardize their case). Her parents attempted to find an attorney who could handle the case and would work for payments that could come later, for Stephanie and the baby.

Dec. 31, 2006 – Rick Armon’s article appeared in the Akron Beacon Journal.
Early January, 2007 - Sandy Young called the Bennett family to offer help. They said that they could use it.

Jan of 07-. Hired Paul Reiners to defend Stephanie. He agreed to work on a pro bono basis, unless they won the case. In that event, they would owe him standard fees.

1-19-07 - The first time Stephanie went to court in Summit Co. with Mr.Reiners, and was not allowed in the court room. Paul Reiners came out of the court room and told Stephanie that the Magistrate, Diana Stevenson, had put a gag order on all parties involved in the case.

2/2/07 – Judge in Stark Co. ruled that the custody order of Ranza and Judy Bennett was no longer in effect; That another court had precedence.

2-21-07 - Stephanie went back to court in Summit Co, where she is still fighting for the return of her daughter Evelyn. This date was to determine if the Surrender could be overturned. The judge was to rule on this matter on March 27, 2007. The briefs were to have been turned in on the 23rd and she would rule several days later. Paul Reiners had said that he would have several witnesses subpoenaed including the putative father. He also had indicated that he would depose Joe Soll to testify to the effects of the coercion, the loss of her daughter, the psychological impact of the threats and the emotional abuse that Stephanie had been subjected to. He did none of the above.

March of 07 – Fired Paul Reiners

March of 07 - hired Jennifer Lowry, who obtained a continuance on the ruling by the judge and obtained the court transcripts. She could find no evidence of any gag order on any party to the case. She still prefers to have Stephanie remain silent, as a matter of choice, and to protect her, but her parents and the attorney are not so bound.

April 07 – Obtained copies of the complaint filed against the agency in the matter of Stephanie Bennett by her mother. The agency was found to be not in compliance in numerous areas. A copy of the findings is attached. So far, no actions have been taken against the agency by the state, despite being out of compliance.

April 9, 2007 – Meeting with Jennifer Lowry. She was excited about the Bennetts having a copy of the complaint. She also has started to construct a reunification plan.

Concerns of The Aging

Wow, I cannot believe I have not posted here since 2/20. That shows you that time flies when you are a sick puppy. I'm taking a leave of absence and telling everyone why to deal with "neglectful bloggers guilt syndrome" as much as anything else.

It all started out with me being a good girl. I was determined to lose the weight, stop the diabetes in its tracks, get rid of my GERD, lose the CPAP machine and start living like real people. My husband was diagnosed with Crohn's Disease just last year. He's pushing 68 (doesn't look it, though*wink) and I wanted to be in good shape in order to take care of him. Add to that the fact that this silver hair and wrinkles causes one to become much more aware of one's own mortality...FINALLY, real resolve with my weight issues surfaced and I was on my way.

Unfortunately, the "purple pill" had been doing such a good job for me for so long, that I just took it for granted I was covered and went about using, as diet foods, some things that are listed as real GERD "no-no's." I drank copious cups of coffee and tea, ate citrus, tomatoes, onions, and spicy foods and occasional chocolate was my tiny reward when I was good. I started counting carbs, fats and calories and walking and the pounds started slowly melting away. I am down from an all-time high weight of 312 lbs. to 229 lbs. and still losing. BUT, I brought a little "friend" with me who now make its painful presence known, in spades.

What can I say about severe erosive reflux esophagitis? Well, it can turn into cancer, it burns and hurts and disrupts your life like a son of a bitch and it is a long-term battle to overcome this devil of a condition.

What does it feel like? Imagine the worst heartburn you have ever experienced..where the burning, pressure and pain invade your chest, upper abdomen and even your upper back. Try to imagine how it would feel to have someone trying to inscribe the preamble to the constitution on the inside or your throat up to your soft palate with a wood-burning tool. Try to think of that happening several times a day, or sometimes, all day long without a break. Your esophagus, throat and upper tummy look like rare hamburger under an endoscope exam, and it feels worse. Your appetite is in the basement (I lost 8 lbs. in one week) and your sleep is very compromised. Your body starts to become a tense "container" for this dragon and there is no comfortable position.

Now, while you are dealing with this and taking the 14 doses of 6 different medications I am taking at this point, you are required to go on living, eat (lots of luck), sleep (yeah, right!) and interact with others. If you are really fighting, then you are sleeping on a bed with the head so elevated that you keep thinking you are going to slide off. And sleep is almost impossible. I actually slept 7 hours last night for the first time in weeks. I was awake from 3:00am, Friday to 8:00pm, Saturday. When I yawn, my entire body spasms.

Then, although you do have to eat, the list of foods that are off the chart for this condition are huge. I can't even have mustard, right now. What I miss most is what my doctor thinks might be the big culprit at aggravating my GERD...COFFEE (wah!)! As I started losing weight and trying to regain my health, I used coffee as a stop-gap measure when I was craving food and it worked.....too well. I also was trying to "substitute fat and calories for flavor" which had me using lots of onion, garlic, tomato sauces, lemon....well you get the drift. Poor little purple pill, it couldn't keep up with the abuses. The upshot is that the combination of stress, food acids and caffeine sort of did the "Funky Chicken" on my upper digestive tract.

People tend to take the food they eat and a little bit of heartburn for granted, but take a look at my endoscopy pictures and you'll never do that again. YUCK!! If you have GERD, take care of it.

Speaking of stress, I don't think that you can be under more of a burden of frustration than if you are pro original family preservation in and adoption-besotted land. While there are other stress factors in my life, adoption, because I care so damn much, is one of the biggies. Unfortunately, it is also the one easiest to set aside. For now, that is what I intend to do, groups, blog, everything. My health has taken center-stage and the fight is on. So, dear readers, enjoy what I have written so far. I won't be adding to it for a long time. But, just to let you know where my heart will always be, I will leave you with these words. Adoption Sucks!

The Visit

This past weekend, I had the wonderful experience of meeting up with three of my sister Mothers of adoption loss at Hilton Head Island in SC. It is a beautiful place and full of history. We had a terrific time, watched "Loggerheads," cried, ate seafood and chocolate and talked....a lot, mostly about our adoption trauma and our reunions.

Just down the road from Hilton Head is Savannah, Ga., home of Paula Deen's "The Lady and Sons," beautiful, historic old homes, the setting for "Midnight In The Garden Of Good and Evil," former home of song master Johnny Mercer....and the setting for my second loss to the adoption machine of a newborn child, my son, that I would be forced to endure within a 14-month span. I gathered my courage, much like the mother in "Loggerheads," took out the directions that I had been holding for a few years, since I found out the building still existed, and went to visit one of the sites of my incarcerations. (*Interesting note..in "Loggerheads," the mother went to visit the home in Charlotte, NC where she gave birth...that is where my daughter was born and I would be willing to swear that it is the same building that was shown in the movie...that front door is "very distinctive." Whoa!)

The road that led to the former Florence Crittendon Home/Savannah is now paved...it was dirt when I was there as are a lot of coastal community roads in the deep southeast. But there was no mistaking the long, low building, now a bit spiffed up, with the inlet out back and the shrimp boats docked on the other side of that inlet. What used to be a place to hide our "sins," is now a rehab/short-term nursing facility. The area over to the side of the east wing where we "girls" used to go to sit in the grass and enjoy some sun was given over to paved paths and benches and wheelchairs were moving up and down the paths.

I only meant to walk around the outside, but found myself going up to the door and going inside. There was a receptionist and I just blurted out to her why I was here. She had worked there for nine years and she told me that I was not the first mother to re-visit the place. Some cried, she said. I didn't until I got back into my car. The large, 6-bed room where I stayed is now one of the physical therapy rooms. Where my narrow bed stood, there is now a raised exercise mat. The little bathroom off to one side is still there, 43 years later, but quite a bit modernized and there is a whirlpool where the large closet once was. Where there was once cold tile, there is now carpeting or parquet flooring except in the PT areas. But I felt the hair on the back of my neck rise as I looked at that exercise mat. That was where I had sobbed my little bit of "allowed" grief before I just shut down, emotionally.

The visit was brief, I thanked the very kind woman who had helped me, and left for home. I left something behind me, though, and that was the last shreds of any trust in or respect for ANY of those who would have had me believe that it was OK for me to act as a walking, disposable incubator for someone else. These people from then and from now who predate on the vulnerable, are nothing but shriveled, dead souls as far as I am concerned. I cried as much for the fury as for the sadness.

Once the tears stopped, I thought about my poor, damaged son...conceived in violence but gestated with love. I thought about the man he might have become had he not been used as a prosthetic "cure" for an infertile couple...if I had raised him within his true family. I thought about my daughter, as well, wondering what direction her life might have taken had she never been separated from me. Both of them have struggled and we, all three, have lost so much.

I found what I was looking for, though, in both the weekend with my sisters and my visit to the place of my second great sadness. I know what we all have lost and we moms have not just lost our babies. We lost the adult children we would have had because the ones with whom we reunite have been altered from their natural course and influenced by other forces. No wonder the adult adoptee is so conflicted. If I had spent my life being "adjusted" to fit in with a clan that was not my natural fit, I would be confused and pissed as well. We, also, were forever altered by our loss and our mistreatment by those we should have been able to trust.

Some might ask why I would "torture myself" by visiting the Savannah Florence Crittendon site. Others would want to know why I couldn't just leave it in the past. The truth is that, as mothers grouped together for healing, we learned that very few counselors really know anything much about loss to adoption, other than the usual platitudes that we were force-fed from the first. No one but other mothers really understands the wrenching, soul-deep pain and anger that this business of adoption engenders in us all. So we find our ways to come to terms with things. It's a life-long process and that's OK. We are allowed happiness along the way of this process.

I'm glad I went. I smiled with love at the shades of all the girls I could remember...Susan, Cathy, Frannie, Deidre, Alice...cried for my beautiful, lost baby boy and the sad, defeated girl that said good-bye to him, and I drove home to Florida where husband and happiness awaited. I'm sending my children some "Thinking About You" cards, today. No matter how it turned out, my two oldest children, you are loved just as you are. Mama just had to go lance an old wound.

Revisiting Our Youth

I love it when truth intervenes in and disrupts the flow of adoption mythology. As hard as the pro-adoption factions, adopters and wannabe adopters and the ultra-elitist eugenicists try to keep the skewed lore of the culpable, sexually careless slut-mom alive, it is being slowly eroded into farce by more and more concrete information on what actually went on and goes on in the private lives of women and men.

New studies have shown that we weren't the only ones who "couldn't keep our pants on." It seems that nearly everyone, including the saintly adopters, were "doing it," too. I think the figure quoted was 95%...that's 95% that didn't anymore reach the hallowed marital bed with virginity intact than we did. Who'd a thunk it?

The only difference with us is that we showed the results of our passion and emotion. In the Baby Scoop Era, there was no access to birth control, period, for the unmarried woman. The guys could have used condoms, but you know what they say about the erect phallus and its lack of a conscience. As we have seen in the present day, prudish parents-in-denial and other super-conservative influences try to bar the availability of birth-control measures for the young. And, sometimes, even the best birth control doesn't work.

Some of these girls were just lucky, others had well-to-do families with good connections that could obtain safe abortions for their daughters, even to sending them to other countries where it was legally available. Others were pushed to marry when a pregnancy occured. I attended one or two of these "shotgun weddings" when I was in my late teens. The presence of a wedding ring on their finger when they gave birth to these "6 and 7-month" babies kept these women out of the pre-marital sex stats for some reason. More than that, it kept their babies out of the adoption pool and home with their moms where they belonged, so, even if the marriages didn't turn out great, maybe those forced nuptuals weren't so bad if that was achieved. And, lest we forget, adopters have bad marriages and get divorced, as well.

A great many of these daughters and sons contracted STD's, which, along with delayed childbearing, lifestyle choices such as smoking, overeating, drug use and botched abortions, are cited as the main causes of infertility (look it up). Clamydia and PID were prevalent if not talked about much, and I remember that, during WWII, there were a lot of GI's rendered sterile by the "mumps." I assume that gonnorhea just got a different nickname back them. The numbers of those rendered infertile by "no good reason" is a small one. (That "delayed childbearing" really gets me, as well, since there have also been good, scientific studies to show that our most fertile years are not in the mid-30's t0 late 40's but much earlier in our lives. I mean, Well, DUH!)

These are the same adopters who will now chastise the mother for "choosing to have sex" and will jump at every woman who has an unplanned pregnancy that comes at, perhaps, not the best time in her life and court her until they have divested her of her infant and her heart, then do all they can to dump her. When some of these people, especially the wannabe adopters, start telling us that we "should have kept our legs closed," I want to say, "You should have taken your own advice." And talk about your double standards. Has it been forgotten that there was someone lying between those "open legs?" The unmarried, young or financially challenged pregnant woman is the target of all this criticism while everyone else, who did the same damn thing, gets off with a wink, a nudge and a "Whew!"

Wake up, world! Adopters are not chaste and saintly. They are as subject to all the shortcomings of humanity as any of the rest of us. They have tripped over their own peccadillos and made their own mistakes just like everyone else. They get divorces, abuse, batter, have affairs, steal, cheat, and lie in the same proportions as the rest of the population. They have done nothing outstanding to merit the children they covet over the mothers of these children. Something is very skewed when these people can judge us moms as morally unfit or unfit in any other way..lack of funds is immoral???

I was very naive for a very long time. I bought into the idea that I was one of just a few stupid girls who should have said "no." I didn't protest my heartache or even address it, because I let a very unjust society decide my worthiness to do so. I compared my inner truth to the outer lies of those around me. I weighed my worth on a scale that was tipped against me. Well, now things are back in balance, big time! I will talk about how horrible it is to have children taken for adoption due to a fallacious idea promulgated by facilitators and their clients. I will tell young women to reconsider, to keep their babies, to spare themselves and their children the pain of that unnatural separation. I will tell the truth of what happened and what continues to happen and if the truth hurts...well, so did losing my children.

I also have to address the most recent self-delusion of the adopter...the "Paper Pregnancy." And they have the nerve to make trite remarks about the terms WE use...! It seems that once the home study is complete and their names are in the pot and things start proceeding, the potential adopter will declare herself "paper pregnant." OK..how delusional is THAT? Perhaps, then, we should call them "paper parents." We could give them a red crayon so that they could properly color their "paper labor and delivery." Or, better yet, just give them "paper babies," pictures they can put on the wall or paper doll babies whose outfits they can change by bending the little paper tabs. It would save a lot on education, diapers, you name it. Then we could start giving attention to helping a mother keep and raise her own child rather than having to fight against those that encourage her to surrender that intergral part of her own being.

Maybe there is a new truism in this. "Those that can, do. Those that cannot, try to do it on paper."

Please Take a Moment....

....And sign this petition to help Stephanie Bennett, her supportive parents, and her baby girl, Evelyn, taken for adoption by unethical means. The adoption industry and its supporters and those who benefit from their practices are starting to hear our roars. Let's keep the pressure going. It only takes a minute to sign and you will also speak for yourself and all the rest of us.

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/828030483

Thanks!