I have several more comments relating to the Family Scholars thread I linked to on Monday. In the comments, “L.L.,” wanting to distinguish between D.C. (donor conception) and adoption, wrote:
…the natural parents of adopted children don’t impose adoption on them on purpose…
Surely this isn’t universally true. Some natural parents get pregnant, consider the options (raising the child themselves, abortion, or adoption), and choose adoption as the choice that makes the most sense for them (or for her, if the father isn’t part of the decision). That’s “imposing” adoption on children on purpose.
My guess is that this reason for adoption is, if anything, more common than those parents who leave their children to be adopted because they die in a car accident, or some other truly involuntary event.
Isn’t being raised by your biological parents also a decision that is imposed on children? Geez, I guess the only way not to selfishly impose your will on a child you might conceive is to get sterilized to ensure you never procreate – but then, you’re imposing your will on a child by not letting it get conceived. Hmmmmmmmmm
Voluntary adoption is quite a loaded phrase. It is used by anti-adoptee oranizations such as the National Council for Adoption, various “pro-lilfe” organizations (NRTL, ALL) various “pro-choice” organizations, (NARAL, Planned Parenthood) , ACLU, Baby Safe Haven Yes, etc. Adoptees are, as you see, equally feared and hated across the political spectrum in order to keep adoption records and identities sealed from adopted adults–and to maintain a web of family secrets, lies, and abuses.
These organizations like to claim that women “voluntarily” relinquished their children–I guess it makes them feel good about themselves– but the vast majority of birth mothers also say that they “volunteered” under extreme pressure, ie. there was no real choice involved. Pressued by parents, schools, social workers, churches they were often threatened with being kicked out of the house, out of school, loss of wages–and, of course, loss of reputation. The single most important factor traditionally has certainly been lack of parental support aka don’t you dare bring that little bastard home with you. Many birth mothers report that they were lied to by social workers who claimed that when their child turned 18 (or 21) that records would be open or that they would be reunited. That lie was the only thing that made the “voluntary” relinquishment acceptable.
Adoption is generally a white middle class intra-class practice rooted in shame: shame of non-marital pregnancy, shame of bastardy, and shame of infertility–all of which props up a decaying Culture of Lies that creates an unholly alliance between dysfunctional famly pratices and the state which reassigns identity via adoption to “normalize” bourgeois family values.
Where there is no real choice there is no real “voluntary” decisions.
Maybe adoption wasn’t such a good idea, after all. Maybe orphanages were better. At least they were truthful. Adoption is just lie heaped on lie. Truth is better.
There seem to be many circumstances that lead to adoption, and of course there is something wonderful about some adoptive familes. But I can definitely see where Bastardette is coming from. I know quite a few familes made up from adoption, some in my own extended family. Based on their experiences, my perspective of adoption is very positive. But I know only one birth mother, and her story gave me the creeps. My sister’s college roommate, from a white upper middle class family, forced her, there is no other word, to give away her baby. They probably told themselves that it was best to be in a two parent home, but I have a daughter and I would never, under any circumstances, be ok with her giving away her child, my grandchild. Would I be wrong? Maybe, but right now the very idea upsets me, and that girl’s parents seem…heartless. I hope noone takes offense, I just wanted to comment on this very complicated topic.
When you are under age, and fighting to keep your very wanted much loved child to have them stolen away, it’s no choice.
Boggles the mind to think that the stories of ladies from an older generation are still being relived today. Laws have changed but doesn’t mean practices have.
I’m not saying that there aren’t those few that really didn’t want their child, but most do.
I am a 32 year old mother of 5. My first child was born when I was 13.
I was not found unfit by the hospital’s social workers, or by any state agency. I was kicked out of the house before I had even left the hospital. This was after being forced to stay 3 extra days in the hospital. The concept was to allow the social workers time to talk me out of my child.
I bounced from a cousin’s house back to my mother’s. Any time I showed the pride and love I felt for my child, I was shamed by my mother. So many really stupid and selfish things reasons were given for why I should have been ashamed of her.
To this day I am proud that I had her. For those who called her a bastard, I pitty them. It was because of her birth that I changed the person I was. It was for her that I broke 9 years of abuse. It was in her as I layed in bed watching her hick-up in my stomach that I finally found unconditional love.
I fought for her and managed to keep her with me for 7 months. In the end I ran away when the adoption papers came in the mail. It was the only way I could think of to continue protesting her adoption.
There was no choice. Now I have to look forward to possible rejection. Ialso know she may be fearing rejection too.
The one thing I am sorry for, was not knowing my rights and local laws.
South Australia recently apologized for “forced adoptions” of the past generations where women were pressured by the same societal norms of most industrialized countries to relinquish children conceived “out of wedlock” prior to the mid 1970s when single parenthood became acceptable and birth control more readily available. Tasmania and other areas of Australia are following suit in issuing formal apologies for these practices.
During those decades, women were sent to Maternity Homes otherwise known as Homes for Unwed Mothers. Many (most?) were very prison-like. Some were run by nuns who took pleasure in telling the girls in their care what bad people they were. “Next time keep your legs closed” said to women screaming in labor. Inmates were not allowed to use their real names.
In other instances, parents kept their pregnant daughters under lock and key, riding in the car to doctor visits on the floor of the car so neighbors didn’t see her “sinful,” shameful state. Some were sent out-of-state to board with relatives or hired out as household help. It was frightening, isolating, humiliating and destroyed many women’s sense of self that they ‘allowed’ it to happen, often despite being minors with no way of disobeying their parents. The whole experience scars women for life…
If you are interested in the subject, two books have been written about the era:
Wake up Little Susie by Rickie Solinger and the girls who Went Away by Ann Fessler.
The saddest part of all is that still today women are encouraged to “voluntarily” relinquish. they are told it is the loving thing to do. And then they will have to live hearing: “I could never do that.” “How could anyone give away their own child” or the opposite: how “brave” you are.
Young, poor, expectant mothers are often pawns in a culture that sees two options for her: abortion or adoption. It is a religious and political football with two lives getting lost in the middle of this devil-or-the-deep-sea dichotomy. We still lack sufficient support and encouragement ot help keep families in crisis together. Now, we make a tv reality show of their plight and clal it: “I’m Having their Baby” to exploit misery. EWe are one step away from the Hunger Games, and treat far too many young and poor women as Handmaids who bare the children of other more mature, wealthier women.
To learn more of what is occurring currently in this regard, read: Reverse Robinhoodism: Pitting Poor Against Affluent Women in the Adoption Industry.
Mirah Riben, author, THE STRK MARKET: America’s Multi-Billion Dollar Unregulated Adoption Industry