Social Workers

Back in Georgia Tann’s reign in Tennessee, the role of a Social Worker was somewhat new but crucial to the completion of adoption efforts. Today, I came across this article – What Social Workers Need to Know When Working with Adoptive Families at a WordPress site titled Detached – Attachment – Adoption – Social Critique. The author writes – Though these workers were generally decent people with their hearts in the right place, I’ve been struck by how much even caring and well-meaning social workers can be unintentionally damaging.

This person goes on to say – It is a humbling experience to admit that you don’t have the capacity, whether financial, physical or emotional to handle a child without this support. And virtually no one appreciates having people outside their families making decisions for them, judging their parenting, and having control over their lives. Then adds, proceeding from the notion that social workers and others (probation officers, behavioral aids, etc.) are here to help us, why do we so often feel hurt, humiliated and misunderstood after interacting with them?

This particular essay was written by an adoptive parent. It involved traumatized adoptees. It should be a cautionary tale for any hopeful adoptive parent considering that pathway to parenting.

In searching for the image I share at the top of my own blog here (you can read the rest of the adoptive parent’s perspective at the link above), I found another article. “Is my position as a social worker compromised if I don’t agree with adoption?” with the subtitle – “A social worker reflects on their biases around adoption and the need for group decision-making in matters of separating children from families.” This appeared at a website called “Community Care.”

Any one who has read my blog for any length of time knows that I do not overall support adoption. Just saying. I know from things I have read written by foster parents and it appears true of some social workers that there are people who believe that being inside of a system is the way to reform it. I really cannot judge but from what I’ve read of some who have tried, it doesn’t actually prove out. Also just saying as a disclaimer.

The author of this point of view shares their qualifications – I have been responsible for recommending the interim removal of children from their birth families as well as placing children in the care of relatives under the auspices of special guardianship orders (SGOs). I consider myself to have a sound understanding of care proceedings but one area which leaves me feeling uncomfortable, anxious and unsure of myself as a social worker is adoption. Forced adoption can be seen as punitive. There is clear evidence that austerity (lack of financial supports for families) has added to the adversities faced by any family who’s children have been removed but who seek to have their own children returned to their care. From all that I have read the process can be daunting and the time frame too limited and therefore disallows the parents an ability to be successful.

You can read more in the link for that article above. I apologize for not providing more complete summarizations of the above information but I am short on time today. Read if you care to consider the perspectives.

It’s Not What Comes After . . .

The better life, the money, “stability” etc…it is the “before” that causes the trauma. This can’t be loved or bought or guilt forced away. Taking children in the first place is what causes the trauma, not how you treat them after. Nothing un-dos that first wound.

When I was unable to financially support my daughter and her father refused to pay child support, like my maternal grandmother before me, I sought temporary care for her with her paternal grandmother who she had been cared for by since infancy as I had to go to work in the outside world. So that is who I turned to, when I tried to make some significant funds to cushion my intended reunion with my daughter. I was driving an 18-wheel truck with a partner. I didn’t even know whether I could do that work (turned out I was relatively good at everything but backing that big rig up) or how long I would be doing it. I didn’t have a long view and I didn’t know what I know now about mother/child separations.

It didn’t turn out to be temporary. She ended up with her dad and he remarried a woman with a daughter and together had another daughter. A yours-mine and ours family life I was not able to give her during the period of her childhood. She is now nearing 50 years old and I only recently found out that her life in that family situation was not as good as I imagined it to be – though she loved her step-mother (now deceased) and loves her dad still regardless. We once shared that her circumstances make her in many ways subject to the same deep emotional wounds of separation that adoptees experience. It does make me very sad that I inflicted that on her in my ignorance and belief that as long as one of the two parents were in the child’s life it was equally good for that child.

Here is someone else’s story taken from the Daily KOS and the source of my image for today – My Family Separation Trauma: A Wound that Never Heals. Excerpts, you can read the entire story at the title link.

I was separated from my primary caregivers, my grandparents, when I was five; thirty years later I was separated from my four-year-old daughter. Now she is 19 and we are estranged. None of this is of my choosing. I fought it with all I had. I ended up with no family at all.

Lots of people have a family-separation story, and they’re all heartbreaking.

For my own self, the effects have been similar to how this woman describes it below for her own self. I will add, for me, it was always difficult to pick out a “daughter” birthday card because the words never fit the relationship I had with her (thankfully, as adults we are loving and close, though at times the wounds shine through as they should so I never deny what was done).

I seldom got to see my daughter as she was growing up. I was prevented from being a part of her life. I’m having a hard time grappling with the enormity of all that I lost—from her first day of kindergarten, to picking out her prom dress, to what’s going on with her right now—the depth and breadth of experiences that I missed. The richness of bonding with one’s growing child and seeing their personhood evolve. I missed it all and I can never, ever get it back.

She goes on to write – “I always thought, “At least my daughter is fine.” By all reports she has been happy and thriving. But this happened to her, too. I understand that now; she has trauma of her own. She was only four.” Mine was 3 and I thought the same. At least, she is a generally upbeat and happy person today.

I carry my own wound. There were no role models for an absentee mother in the mid 1970s. I always felt that others must be judging me as some kind of monster of a mother not to be raising my own daughter. The writer says for her own self, “In the meantime I carry this wound. I must move forward with it, accounting for it, dealing with it. Most of the people who see me every day have no idea of how badly I’m damaged. It’s taken a long time for me to figure it out myself.”

My daughter seems to forgive me and understands I was doing the best I knew how to at the time but I seem unable to fully forgive my own self for inflicting an abandonment on her (even if I never thought of it as “that” until very recently, since learning about the practice of adoption more deeply, as I uncovered my adopted parents (both) origin stories. First, I came to accept this about my parents and their original parents, only later realizing the effects on my own life and my daughter’s life.

Whatever Happened To The Village ?

Modern life can be very isolating. In adoption circles, it is recognized that the reason many parents, and especially single mothers, lose custody of their child is a lack of support – financial, familial and mental health.

It is more difficult for some parents to tap into support than others. Parents who may be new to a particular community; parents who are raising a child with some sort of mental health or behavioral challenge or health concern; parents who are barely scrapping by from pay check to pay check and who may not have the financial resources to sign their kids up for extra-curricular activities that might otherwise bring them into the orbit of other families; parents who are working unpredictable schedules that make it hard to make plans. All those factors can make it extra challenging to find – let alone connect with – your “village.”

If you’re a parent who is finding it hard to find support in your community, start out by looking for that support online. Online social networking has been a godsend for me because we live a rural wilderness isolated existence. Therefore, my mom’s group (formed 17 years ago) keeps me in contact with other mothers sharing some unique and similar impacts of daily living. Our children are all turning 16 this year and our group started as email exchange threads and eventually migrated to Facebook. Another useful group for me as I discover the effects that rampant adoption has had on my family is a group that is made up of mothers who lost custody, adoptees, former foster care youth and adoptive parents. This group is especially helpful for unwed mothers considering the surrender of their baby to adoption after birth.

Once you’ve tapped into online support, you may also find groups focused in your own town, city, county or state that bring with them opportunities to create in person relationships in your community. Maybe you can find an online group for parents and kids in your local vicinity – this offers the best of both worlds. There you may find instantly accessible online support when you’re looking for that. And advice in the midst of a really bad day (or even longer night!) which every parent faces at times. You may find in person events, get-togethers that provide opportunities to meet online acquaintances face-to-face.

For many people, that village of yesteryear simply no longer exists. Happily for many of us, we have discovered that modern technology is allowing us to find a new way. Even in dire financial emergencies, there are now online methods of fund raising. In smaller communities, such as the one I live in there are often jars set up near the cash registers of sympathetic businesses to help some local cause. In community Facebook pages, one can even inquire about jobs or temporary needs for furniture, appliances, clothing etc after an unfortunate event in a family’s life.

All this to say – it is still out there – support for families in need. It just looks different now.

Class Differences

I learned about the differences in social classes as a child growing up. My grandparents were the people who adopted each of my parents. Yes, both were adoptees.

On my mom’s side, her adoptive father was a banker and her adoptive mother a socialite. There was opulence and wealth in their household. My grandfather died relatively young. My grandmother then did whatever she wanted to – traveling the global and doling out charitable largess.

On my dad’s side, they were entrepreneurial and poor. They lived modestly. The contrast was always obvious.

In the family I grew up in, my dad was a union worker and my mom held jobs outside the home before I even entered public school. Eventually, she was able to talk my dad into letting her get a degree in music, supplement the family income by teaching music lessons and working on her own compositions. Though she never sold the sheet music she offered for sale, she died doing what she loved and was passionate about.

In learning about my original grandparents, there wasn’t really any wealth there. One of the first stories I heard was that my mom’s father’s family existed in such poverty that the chickens under the house could be seen under the floorboards and sometimes her half-sister went to bed hungry.

My dad’s mom had a hard life. Both grandmothers lost their own moms to death early in their childhoods.

Many of the children who end up adopted are surrendered due to poverty and a lack of financial resources. While some extended families actually do assist a vulnerable mother, that was not the case in any of my family’s experiences. As a society we could do much better and even fewer children would end up relinquished for adoption.

Absentee Motherhood

I understand how it feels for a mother to live each day without their child. Though I never legally relinquished custody of my daughter, financial pressures forced me to look for another way to support us. I understand how my maternal grandmother felt when she was desperately seeking a way to support herself and my mom and how her best efforts failed in the end.

It is interesting how familial patterns can pass down through the generations. In my case, I took a leap of faith that I could drive an 18-wheel truck. I didn’t know whether or not I would succeed and so, took my daughter to her paternal grandmother for care. Though the court granted me custody in the uncontested divorce from her father, he also refused to pay me any child support. I was not about to spend my life in court fighting him for it and so, I looked for another way.

What I thought was temporary, just as my grandmother had thought she was only leaving my mom temporarily, turned out to be permanent for both of us. My grandmother lost my mom due to pressures from Georgia Tann to surrender her. Miss Tann had a repeat, paying customer who was growing impatient to have her specifications for a baby sister fulfilled.

In my case, I was able to drive that 18-wheel truck. My ex-husband remarried a woman with a child and together they had another child, a yours-mine-and-ours family. So that when my time on the road ended, it made no sense to take my daughter from a family life as I would have still been a struggling single mom. Fortunately, my daughter and I remain close at heart, though not long ago she admitted to me there were times that being separated were not happy ones for her.

In the mid-1970s, there were no role models for absentee mothers. I have resolved some of my difficult feelings of having failed my daughter but not all of them. At least, I was able to have sporadic contact with her growing up and continue to have a relationship with her in adulthood. Mothers who have lost their children to adoption do not always have as good of an outcome. Even so, I have empathy for the difficult decisions each of them had to make.

When A Network Has Been Broken

What can we make of our parents, our grandparents, the network of kin who constitute our tribal past ?

If one is an adoptee, they can’t make anything out of it.

If one is the child of two adoptees, the past is shrouded in mystery.

So learning about my original grandparents was the beginning of a process of interrogating the past. Trying to understand why what happened to my parents had happened.

My dad’s situation is fairly easy to understand. It was the 1930s. My grandmother had an affair with a married man. Giving her the benefit of my doubts, I doubt she knew he was married when the affair started. However, given the outcome – that she went to a Salvation Army Home for Unwed Mothers to have him, I’m fairly certain she knew he couldn’t be there for her when she found out she was pregnant. I suspect by then she knew he was married.

My mom’s will forever mystify me with questions that can’t be answered and so I find myself forced to live the questions. Some of the aspects, I have rather solid theories for.

Where it becomes muddied for me is why my grandmother’s husband was unwilling to be there for her. Why did he leave her 4 months pregnant ? Why didn’t he respond when she returned to Memphis, after having the baby in Virginia, and the Juvenile Court sought to inform him of his responsibilities ?

Poverty is certainly part of his equation. A superflood on the Mississippi River that was particularly severe in his home state of Arkansas is likely part of the equation too. Georgia Tann sensing a vulnerable young woman ripe for exploitation certainly put the screws to my grandmother.

At least, I know what my parents died not knowing. At least I know now who my grandparents were. My own process now has been to re-establish my own tribal kin network.