Natural Moms You Have a Voice-USE IT!
I have no idea what I am doing here or how to do it... All I know is I have a Voice now and intend to use it... I am a Natural Mother from the Baby Scoop Era... I, all of us have been silent for far too long. No more Shame, No more Guilt, it is time to live again, let's put some life into our Collective Voices!
winter4ever
posted by winter4ever | 9:19 AM
13 Comments:
This must be the place for those of us incarcerated in those "maternity homes" that Dubya is salivating over restoring as a part of the "American way" to deal with unwed pregnancy. Can you say "Eugenics?"
The early 60's were Hell and the shame heaped on us was painful and unnecessary. Parents, sex is going to happen! Why separate your daughter from you, her most needed source of love and support during such a scary time and then lose your own, flesh and blood grandchild to boot?
Don't let the insanity, that emotionally scarred us and traumatized our surrendered children, become a fact of American life again! In the rush back to the "good(questionable) old days," we are throwing out the baby with the bath water.
Don't be "foxed" by the promise of "open adoptions" either. Those arrangements are,largely, unenforcable and just as painful. A baby needs its REAL Mother and family.
Adoption is a $1.6-billion-dollar-per-year business and human beings for sale is still a sad reality.
As the original poster said, "No more shame!" I am the proud Mother of four adult children and I am not ashamed of anything except the fact that I allowed the system (under constant coercion and harrassment) to take my two eldest almost directly from my
womb.
The current administration, the self-righteous "Christian Right" and others who condone the slaughter of our soldiers in the middle east but gasp in horror at a young woman's fertility can take that scarlet letter and chew on it. We're not wearing it or bearing it any more.
Robin Westbrook
A man was talking about breeding dogs in the backyard in order to sell the puppies. He compared it with the breeding and sale of human infants. Then he said, "But that would be seen by people as unethical, wouldn't it?"
I stated, "There may be something you haven't considered. Many believe it IS ethical to sell human infants. Babies are sold for large amounts of money to adopters by doctors, lawyers, and adoption agencies. The females are not called bitches, as female dogs are; they are called 'birthmothers,' who are convinced (or coerced) by adoption agencies, society, church/religion, and family that they should 'give up' their babies for couples or individuals to adopt and raise. Although the women are not kept in a room with men and forced to have sex, there are plenty of (usually unmarried) pregnant women available. I read one post by a woman who said that a particular adoption agency in Texas had 'more birthmothers that they have families waiting to adopt'! That happened to be the same agency who took my son by coercion in 1970 and sold him to a couple, who later bought another infant boy to go with him.
"The 'birthmothers' may not realize for a while, although some do only too soon, that the bond they have with their child is physiological, emotional and spiritual. The mothers especially will grieve for years. Then, when their adult child is found or finds them, there will be damage from adoption apparent in the now adult offspring. As an infant is torn from the mother he/she has known from conception through birth--the familiar sound of her heartbeat and rhythms of life--the baby will also grieve. He/she will live with a family who is different in any genetic way possible. He/she may feel different, although appearing to be happy. Due to being adopted, the child and then adult may have problems with such areas as self-identitiy, low self esteem, powerlessnesss, depression, lack of trust, and feelings of abandonment.
"This is a subject I feel more people need to be aware of.
"People do not realize how many unethical practices there are in the adoption industry. It is called the adoption industry because there are products, money paid for the products, and demand for the products. The products--babies, usually healthy white infants. Money--and lots of it--is paid by the adopters to the doctor, lawyer, or adoption agency to be able to adopt a baby. There is demand--couples or individuals who cannot have children or those who for other reasons decide they want children someone else has given birth to.
"I know from working for a state human services agency and being around when the events have taken place that adoptions can 'disrupt.' The adoptive parents can give the child "back" to a state agency, if they decide to. But if the mom wants the baby back, realizing she has made a huge mistake, she'll be told to get on with her life and that she will forget. If she is able to get an attorney to help her, she will probably have an unwinnable legal battle on her hands.
"Somewhat different from pets, I'll admit. But there are people who believe it is ethical to take about $20,000 to $40.000 for each infant from people who want to adopt babies."
I thought this exchange bore repeating.
winter4ever, thank you for providing a place for natural mothers to have a voice!
Pat Gadberry
November is National Adoption Awareness Month. Early this month much was made of the mass adoption done in San Antonio. There have been articles in the paper and on the talk shows regularly about adoption. All one has to do is turn on the television, radio or go to a movie to have the theme about adoption as a loving option presented as if the only choice is adoption or a dumpster. Little or nothing is spoken about the darker side of adoption. You seldom hear about the anguish of the natural mother and father, the unalterable damage that is done to the infant when it is removed from the only mother it knows, the loss of heritage, and the genetic continuity of the families. To listen to the media, the only thing bad about adoption is the fact that there is not enough of it!
I am the mother of a son lost to adoption in 1967. We have been reunited for 14 years, and I have seen, first hand, the damage done to the adoptee. More and more research is being done on infants and research is finding that infants are not the blank slates that they were popularly supposed to be years ago. Instead they are finding that, almost from the moment of birth, an infant recognizes its mother and responds to her smell, sound, and taste. An infant will pick his mother’s face from a crowd within minutes of being born. How can we assume that an infant, a much more complex individual than we realized, will NOT grieve for the loss of the mother, the only familiar thing in their surrounding? The infant still believes that he and the mother are the same, so such a loss would seem to the infant to be an amputation of that familiar part of himself.
Further, in counseling a young woman to lose her child to adoption, is the young woman informed that up to 40% of young women who lose a child to adoption never have another child? Is she informed of the life-long consequences to herself and to her infant child of that loss? Is she made aware of the support that is available to her, and the other options, including kincare, fostering, guardianship and public assistance, not to mention the support of the family and the father’s family?
Adoption is a permanent solution to a temporary problem. The young, unmarried, high school or college age woman, will not always remain so. If school is the problem, high schools have programs in place (by federal mandate) to accommodate young mothers. It is possible for college to be postponed for a couple of years, as evidenced by the huge numbers of non-traditional students at most college campuses today. A few years of inconvenience is much better than a lifetime of mourning in silence the loss of your child and the necessity of explaining to a returning adult adoptee your reasons for surrendering them to adoption …explaining to them why they were not “good enough to keep”.
The new wave in adoption is the so-called Open Adoption, where the mother “picks” the adoptive family, there is an agreement to exchange pictures, updates and etc. The Industry professionals do not inform the Natural Mothers that it is legally unenforceable and that fully 80% of open adoptions close within a year of the final papers being signed.
When I lost my son to adoption in 1967, I had been incarcerated in an Unwed Mother’s Home. We were not allowed to use our names, our phone calls and visitors were screened, our mail was censored, and we were not allowed to leave except in groups and during certain proscribed hours, when there was little traffic. We were assigned jobs and we had to pay to be there. We were drugged and exploited and treated as damaged goods, used merchandise, and lesser human beings. Most had no wish to lose their child to adoption, but were forced to go to the coercive Homes or into a form of indentured servitude in private homes called Wage Homes, while a place for them was secured in a home or in a hospital.
This same practice was used in most English Speaking countries, such as Canada, Great Britain, New Zealand, and Australia. Most of these countries are either cutting back or eliminating the practice entirely. In fact, in Australia, there was a recent Government Inquiry into illegalities in past adoption practices. There is a case currently in their Supreme Court, determining damages for illegal practices that occurred during the Baby Scoop Era, that will have an impact on adoption practices all over the world. For the first time, the courts are listening to the voice of the exiled mother, the women who lost their first born children to adoption, through lies, coercion and illegal drugging of the mothers.
I watched the recent presidential debates in horror as President Bush casually mentioned reopening the Maternity Homes, not once but twice, to give young women a place to make an informed decision. Informed by whom, the adoption professionals who are currently the representatives for a $1.6 billion adoption industry? How much better for the mother, for the infant and for the society as a whole if we support our young mothers, nurture them while they are vulnerable and assist them to nurture their own infants rather than to give them to someone who is deemed more worthy to have that child, simply because the make more money? Since when is wealth an indicator of someone’s parenting ability? The information that a young woman will receive in a Maternity Home is all about adoption and little about raising her child on her own. One has to question if she would be so strongly encouraged to surrender her infant if the adoption cost less than $20-60,000.00 per infant. The mothers are not getting that money; that would be illegal baby-selling. Who is? It is, again, the $1.6 billion Adoption Industry.
And, since there were an estimated 6 million young women who lost children to adoption during the period known as the Baby Scoop Era, the period from the end of World War II to the passage of Roe V. Wade in 1973, good taste and compassion would suggest that it is unkind to, year after year, rub salt into an unhealed wound. Are the Jews expected to celebrate the opening of Auschwitz; are the Blacks supposed to celebrate the start of slavery? Equally, Mothers who have suffered in silent grief for 20 to 50 years find the National Adoption Month an almost intolerable reminder of their loss and their pain.
During November this year, I will be wearing a Green Ribbon for the opening of Sealed Adoption Records for Adoptees. At the current time, Adoptees are only allowed access to their records in 4 states, with New Hampshire joining in January of this year. The story being told my the National Council for Adoption and the other members of the powerful adoption industry to continue this sham practice is that they made some promise to the Natural Mothers that their shame would remain secret forever. As a Natural Mother, I can say that no promise of confidentiality was ever made to any Natural Mother that I know, and I know thousands from both in person and online, all over the world. We were told and expected to go home, forget it happened and go on with our lives “as if” it never occurred, but it DID happen, and we DID go home and go on with our lives, but we NEVER FORGOT. As a group, slowly, we are finding our voices, we are coming out strong and we are reclaiming our right to be treated with dignity, honor and the respect that we deserve. I will wear my Green Ribbon for the Right of the Adoptee to their Open Records, but I will also have a black band on my ribbon to represent the sorrow of the mothers who never forgot.
Sandy Young
Natural Mother
Enjoyed your blog! I have bookmarked it.
babies
Welcome to the world of Bloggers. I will post this on my blog. I hope that you add more articles.
We are all in the same struggle.
Adoption reformists say that the issue today is so much different than the issue of the past, most notably the Baby Scoop Era, in that today they are taking babies from the poor and giving them to the rich, not due to a morals breach, but because our society thinks that it is perfectly okay to be a single parent if you have the means. And that the public is more concerned that welfare is sucking them dry due to the young unmarried "Welfare Queens" than about keeping a young infant with his own mother. There is a push to ignore the things of the past, except amongst ourselves, and go forth from now to make necessary changes to the system, removing the money (makes it look too much like baby-selling to go down with the public) which makes it so costly to adopt and makes the industry richer.
The reform people think that the other victims of adoption are the adopters, who have to shell out big bucks to win a healthy, white, infant, blue-eyed baby girl (the number one choice, by the way). The reformers believe that the only way to make any changes to the adoption laws is to get the Paps (potential adoptive parents, for clarity sake) and adopters on board, making them friends, and trying to get their support for needed changes in the laws.
To my way of thinking, this position is flawed. There is a misconception about people who are adopting today…that they are all wealthy, and that placing a child in their homes is superior, economically, to the home the infant is coming from. That is a false assumption, and very like the one that cost us our babies, I believe, in it’s insidious acceptance. The average relinquishing new mother today is not poverty stricken, and it is not the poor mother who is on welfare that is the poster child for adoption loss (the poor mother is losing older children, typically not newborns) The new mother who considers an adoption plan is usually in school, from a middle-class family. It is the Paps who are the welfare recipients. There are tax breaks, leave time, incentives, and other outright adoption welfare programs available to offset the costs of adoption. Many of the entitlements for adoption come from monies earmarked for social security. If we are educating people to the truth about adoption, then perhaps it would be best to know some of the aspects that the others are using to take children. It would seem to me that the cost of adoption welfare, the cost of foster care, the cost of tax incentives and the rest would be issues that should be addressed by the reformers, as I think those entitlement programs are more likely to suck the system dry than a young mother caring for her infant.
Frankly,I don’t care if it is expensive for Paps to adopt. I would like to see FAR less adoption of any kind, and an increase in kinship care, legal guardianship and a total reformation of the Foster Care system,which could keep more babies within their family of origin, and not placed with strangers, no matter how monied. The cost in emotional damage to the mothers of loss, and the children of adoption is not inconsiderable either.
We have not heard much from the children of open adoption yet. They are not old enough to begin to be heard, but I suspect that, while somewhat different, there will be issues for them that are equally compelling as the issues of the children of the Baby Scoop era.
I feel that it is absolutely of the utmost importance to gain more and more recognition of the crimes of the past in order to progress. It is only in the recognition of the past, the acknowledgement that crimes were committed, and that nefarious people were involved in the adoption industry then as well as the goody-two-shoes will we be able to convince people that the same thing is still happening. If we revisit the past, and keep it alive in people’s minds, it will make them more receptive to the injustices that are still being perpetrated today. Just because a child is adopted from China/Bolivia/Korea/Russia/Africa or wherever does not make the crimes any less important, or any less of consequence to the victims of the crime. Crimes are crimes, no matter when , no matter where. Each one needs to be addressed, then and now. I recall a quote from Santaya, that "those who refuse to learn the lessons of history are doomed to repeat it." However, I prefer the one by Louise Otto: "The history of all times, and of today especially, teaches that ... women will be forgotten if they forget to think about themselves."
Sandy Young
http://www.geocities.com/slyoung50/FirstMothersConnect.html
Oh...another fine addition to blog land!!!
If you need any help navigating this...feel free to bug me!!
Person-first Language, as espoused by the mental health community, is the practice of identifying the person before their disability so that a person is no longer "defined" by their condition. Now, instead of calling someone an amputee, that person would be referred to as a man who suffered an amputation, always recognizing their personhood, their humanity, in their description. It is no longer "politically correct" to define someone by an event or a circumstance in their lives. The belief is that this will impact a person's image of themselves and allow them to no longer be defined or constrained by the limitations of their condition.
Could not the exact same argument be made for the woman who loses a child to adoption? Isn't calling that woman a "Birthmother" defining her by the event of the birth of her child and the subsequent loss to adoption, and eliminating her personhood, her motherhood, her humanity, utterly.
When one person insists that it is their right to define someone else by a single event, they are using language to dismiss and diminish the rights of the other. It is no coincidence, I don’t believe, that the people who are most insistent on the use of the term “Birthmother” (even before a woman has given birth) are the ones who have the most to gain by that woman’s loss. The agencies, the prospective adopters love that term because it limits the motherhood of the other woman to the single event of birth.
Anyone who thinks that language is not important, or doesn’t evolve over time should take a minute and watch the reaction of a teenage boy when they are acting silly and someone tells them that they are acting “So Gay” today. It is intended to be an attack aimed at a teenage boy’s weakness and is absolutely not recognition of their high spirits.
I don’t believe that the use of the term “Birthmother” is any more benignly used by professionals or potential adopters. I believe that it is clearly meant to limit the function of the natural mother to the birthing process, where her motherhood is to end. An insidious twist of language, to be sure, but then, the separation of mother and child is the intended outcome of this choice of language.
"Don't be "foxed" by the promise of "open adoptions" either."
Robin, I'm beginning to think that open adoption doubly rewards the adoptors. They get another person'schild to raise AND they get somoene else ( the mom) to jerk around for at least 18 years.
Open adoption is a real two-fer.
This is an excellent blog. Keep it going.You are providing
a great resource on the Internet here!
If you have a moment, please take a look at my adopt dogs New Hampshire site.
Have a great week!
Hi, I'd like to share with ya'll a new and very important book about adoption:
The STORK MARKET:
America’s Multi-Billion Dollar Unregulated Adoption Industry
by Mirah Riben
Foreword by Evelyn Robinson
Projected Release Date: Feb 15, 2007
ORDER YOURS NOW!
www.AdvocatePublications.com
Stork mar·ket. (stôrk märkt) n. 1. exposé of the corruption in the adoption industry; the fine line between black and gray market adoption; scams, coercion and exploitation. 2. an in-depth report on the international market where children are the commodity being bought and sold to the highest bidders including pedophiles with prices based on quality (i.e. age, skin color) of the merchandise and set as high as ‘desperate’ consumers continue to be willing to pay. 3. an examination of the myths of adoption that put the needs of adults, and those who profit from their desperation, before the needs of children who need homes. 4. an extensively researched and documented book that asks if adoption can be fixed -— the money aspect removed and government controls and regulations put in place -— or abolished in favor of permanent guardianship, or informal adoption sans the issuance of falsified birth certificates. 5. goes further than Riben’s groundbreaking, award-winning “shedding light on…The Dark Side of Adoption” (1988) which was excerpted in Social Issues Review Series, Utne Reader and Microcosm USA. 7. reveals, for the first time in print, Riben’s role in the notorious Joel Steinberg murder case.
__________________________________________________
“Riben has done it again. Once again, as in Dark Side, she has pulled back the covers and exposed the unpleasant truths and problems that need to be addressed in American adoption practices. While difficult, when we remove the rose-colored glasses many view adoption through, the conclusions that Riben comes to are inarguable. Most impressive on every count….well researched and thought out.” Annette Baran, M.S.W., L.C.S.W., co-author The Adoption Triangle
Mirah Riben writes that she refuses to give up. This book -— a wonderful and well-integrated mix of approaches—part analysis, part case studies from the front lines, part handbook, part up-to-date law and policy review -— is a testament to Riben's powerful and enduring commitment to the rights and needs of vulnerable women and their children. Riben's book is a clear, bright blueprint for change. Rickie Solinger, historian and author of Pregnancy and Power: A Short History of Reproductive Politics in America
“Combines the historical and legal perspective with really hard hitting journalism.” Maureen Flatley, political consultant and media advisor specializing in child welfare and adoption
quack quack quack
Mirah Riben's self-promotion on this blog is really presumptuous. She is neither an expert nor a friend of the Senior Mother. Read Ann Fessler's book. You'll get more out of it and she didn't have to publish it, herself.
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