Supporting Mothers and Children

It is not surprising that more women are delaying motherhood in our current time. It can be difficult to find the kind of support that gives a woman confidence in becoming a mom. In my mom’s group, we also have women who chose to have children without a spouse, having given up on finding the quality of person they felt would be a supportive parent.

After I met my husband, I told my doctor that he was the kind of person I would be willing to become a mother again with and after ten years of marriage, we made the decision to add parenthood to our life as a couple. Previously, I had a child who I still adore and found there was no support for myself as a single mother after I felt compelled to divorce her father. So, I was understandably reluctant to go into motherhood again but this time it worked out. There are always bumps along the way in any relationship but we have made it through them so far and our two sons are almost grown.

70% of all moms are working mothers. 25% are the primary breadwinner in their family. Almost half of all two parent families find both parents employed outside the home. The realities of modern life are – it is difficult to support any family on one employment option. And our society only cares about the unborn and not children once they are born when a woman has to support her family without any financial assistance from a partner. That I think is a real tragedy.

In a Pew Research Center analysis – there were 9 million mothers living with a child younger than 18 without a spouse or partner. Solo motherhood is particularly common among black mothers (56% are in this category). By comparison, 26% of Hispanic moms, 17% of white moms and 9% of Asian moms are solo parents. (Solo parenthood is far less common among fathers: 7% of dads are raising a child without a spouse or partner in the home.)

For my own self, Pro-Life would be full support for parents raising children if the available resources fall below what is adequate to provide the basic necessities. Until then, I believe we fail the morality test as a society.

Transparency And Truth

Transparency and truth in adoption is the best way to ensure
honest and ethical practices and uphold the civil, human and
children’s rights for all involved.

It isn’t about giving people information they do not want to know,
it is about empowering them to make the choice
to receive the information if they feel it is important to them.

~ The Declassified Adoptee

I was raised with the saying “Honesty is the best policy”. I can’t say that we didn’t know the “truth” that both of our parents were adopted. I can say that important information was denied us in order to protect the adoptive parents from obsessed and grieving original parents seeking to reunite with their children.

I can say that my mom’s original mother would have welcomed her back with open arms. I believe my dad’s original mother would have felt likewise.

It is true that perspectives are changing. Both my niece and my nephew were given up for adoption and yet both have been able to at least reunite with their original genetic families in order to learn and understand whatever they needed to know.

Older adoptions are still closed to even the descendants of deceased adoptees, deceased original parents and deceased adoptive parents. I know because I have repeatedly bumped up against an absolute “no” when trying to access records. I believe only bureaucratic laziness continues to obstruct us.

Other Ways To Rob A Mother

With my sister in 2014

While I have a lot of sadness for my maternal grandmother’s separation from her child, I also have a lot of sadness for my sister’s lot as a mother. Interestingly, when I first saw the photo of my grandmother I thought of my sister and coincidentally, she carries my grandmother’s name of Lou.

My sister has given birth to two children and was not able to raise either of them but had more time with her first born son. When she became afraid her husband was going to hurt her, she left him and sued for a divorce. Her child was mixed race, partly Mexican in the predominantly Mexican town of El Paso TX. His Mexican grandparents fought her for custody. The court was afraid he would lose contact with his culture – as though it only came from that part.

When I first pulled together the details of our family’s history into a long saga, I included an exchange with my nephew that highlighted the damage that had been done to him by his paternal grandmother who raised him. I won’t argue the fact that they could afford to support him much more easily than my sister. What I can’t forgive them for is how that woman poisoned him against half of his family. And he is a very wounded person – married three times and not that long ago suffered some kind of breakdown.

I knew I was risking his anger by sharing that heartfelt private exchange with him in a very limited edition of 10 copies distributed to family members only but I simply felt it was too important to an overall understanding of our family dynamics not to include it. And he has since disowned our whole side of the family over it – though my sister isn’t angry with me over it – she says it was headed that way because she knew he didn’t want her in his life. So sad. I do regret the loss of his feelings towards me.

My sister also lost her daughter. Our adoptee mom convinced her to give up the baby shortly after birth. And similarly to my nephew’s situation, the adoptive family probably could afford to support her better than my sister who waitressed her entire life, mostly at Denny’s.

My sister has had opportunities to spend time with all 3 of her grandchildren and in today’s world where we are all so scattered out over this country, I don’t really have all that much more in person time than my sister does, nor did I have much longer to raise my daughter as she ended up being raised by her father and step-mother. Her removal from my life was voluntary but not intended. He refused to pay child support and I was financially desperate.

Mother’s Day

Mother’s Day 2010

Ever since my oldest son was born, we go out every year to take photos among the Wild Azaleas we are fortunate to have an abundance of here on our Missouri farm. Only in one year, were there no flowers and we had to settle for a waterfall backdrop. This year, I can no longer endure a long hike due to knee issues and so my husband has suggested I drive our John Deere tractor while he and the boys walk alongside to area where he knows there are a lot of blossoms. He also wants to collect a couple of large rocks in the bucket that are on his mind while we are there. The last time I drove the tractor I got it stuck in a wetland. He reassures me that will be impossible in the area he has in mind.

Mothers are very much on my mind at this time. No surprise. Yesterday, I struggled with a lot of sadness about my maternal grandmother. I have this awful paradox. I was never able to know my original grandparents because both of my parents were given up for adoption. Yet, if that had not happened, I would not exist at all. Therefore, it wasn’t ever possible to have both – a relationship with them and life itself. Of course, if it weren’t for the disconnect adoption causes, maybe my parents could have enjoyed reunions with their original parents in adulthood and maybe I could have known these people. But it was not to be.

I also miss my mom a lot at Mother’s Day. I would have had a wonderful long conversation with her had she been alive. She died two months before I expected to see her again (we were separated by 1,200 miles). Her death changed my life. Discovering my original grandparents did as well.

Happy Mother’s Day !!

Reform

Late last night I waded into a lengthy thread in a private group here at Facebook related to adoption. More specifically, they are on a mission to mostly, if not completely, end adoption. The most compelling and highlighted “voices” are those of adoptees with the mothers who lost a child to adoption given the next highest priority. Adoptive Parents (or those who hope to) can find themselves under heavy fire and not all of them can cope with that.

I do believe the voices in this group speak honestly a perspective that really needs to be seriously considered.

Other than financial inheritance questions which primarily affect wealthy adoptive parents and the children they adopt (I am familiar with that from my own family’s dynamics), there really is NO good argument for ever adopting a child.

There are alternatives – taking in a foster care child who really needs a home and providing for it (not adopting it and accordingly to my understanding, foster care is generally considered temporary and reunification with the natural family is the goal). Another alternative is guardianship and NOT changing the child’s identity at all (no name change, falsified identity, birth certificate tampering). When the child (who generally has no say in the adoption process) becomes an adult, then they can decide what kind of formal or informal relationships they want going forward.

One other suggestion would be for a couple who believes they want to adopt to basically become a kind of loving aunt and uncle to a mother and her child. Provide the support that the mother’s own family and society may not be willing to give to her.

Though not all adoptees admit to being harmed by having been adopted, the majority have wounds, may be in therapy or commit suicide at a higher rate than the general population.

ALL adoptions require the separation of a child from its natural mother and all children would chose the natural mother if financial support and mental health requirements could be met to allow them to stay together.

Teen Mom

Many natural mothers who give up their babies had very inadequate counseling, they are pressured and coerced. They never feel any worth related to motherhood. They have difficulty experiencing that their child is “real”. She has no opportunity or encouragement to mourn her loss.

Most of these mothers are in some stage of unresolved grief their entire life. A mother who has surrendered her child cannot undo what has happened.

If a reunion occurs, it brings with it the realization that the mother can never recover those lost years.

Breaking the silence of a secret pregnancy or surrender, means that the wounds have to be opened for everyone. This is healthy in the long run – secrets are one of the most debilitating aspects of any person’s life.

It is a DOUBLE LOSS when the pregnancy also brings an end to the relationship between the original couple – mother and father.

The source for these perspectives come from the book – The Primal Wound by Nancy Newton Verrier and resonated with me from personal observation in my own family.

Fathers and Daughters

My great-grandfather, Raphael,
holds his infant daughter, my grandmother Dolores,
with her sister, Eleanor, seated nearby

My grandmother’s mother died when she was only 3 months old. It is said that when the mother dies, a good indicator of where the father-daughter relationship will ultimately end up is what kind of relationship they had developed, when the death occurs.

The mother’s absence can change the way a father relates to his daughter. This period can affect a daughter’s feelings of security and self-worth as well as her ability to form satisfying relationships as an adult.

There is a lot I cannot know about such things. These circumstances happened so many years ago and we were cut-off by adoption from our original families. I know that he remarried and the step-mother was not kind. I know that they moved to Asheville, North Carolina, when she was a young girl and they put her to work in the rayon mills.

I know they went out to California to visit Raphael’s elderly father Austin who lived nearby his daughter, Laura. My great-grandfather would have been, at least in part, influenced by his own identifications with his parents. Certainly, Austin seemed important to Raphael in adulthood. I’ve no indication what his relationship with his mother was like. Did he have any memories about how his father treated his mother ?

Austin seems to have been closer to his daughter, Laura, than to Raphael. If my great-grandfather didn’t have any comfortable memories to draw on, then he may have lacked a firm bedrock for relating to his daughter. I have discovered through Ancestry that he was of an advance age when he still living with his parents.

What I do know at this point is that my grandmother Dolores’ home life was so unhappy, that she refused to go back to North Carolina with her family and they dis-owned her over it. It seems that her Aunt Laura and her girl cousins were important to her going forward in California.

They Were Real People

Growing up, I didn’t know these people existed. I accepted my adoptive grandparents as though they had come into my life naturally. I thought my parents were orphans and that their original parents had died because I did know they had both been adopted.

It may be that I know about as much about them now, as many people know about their extended family, as many families do not live in easy proximity of each other and even sometimes issues and resentments keep them separated.

Learning about the people who were my parents original parents has made them real to me now. In fact, even though I had no lifelong history with them, they are who I think of first. I still love that the people who grandparented me loved me as well. Cousins from those relationships are still cousins to me but happily I now have some new cousins who I know share the blood that runs in my veins. I like to say I am whole + now.

The natural mother should be given some say
about who parents her baby.
For the baby’s sake, she should be encouraged
to maintain some post-adoption contact,
even if painful for her.
If her physical presence isn’t possible,
letters, cards, photographs and up-dated history
would be some continuing connection.
It is important for the child’s development
that it’s birth parents are real,
that the genetic history is available
and the relationship is as free of confusion as possible.
~ The Primal Wound by Nancy Newton Verrier

A Sacred Quest

Art by Stephen Delamare

If every life is actually a sacred quest to know who and what we really are, mine has certainly been easily viewed as just that.

I feel as though the “real” me has finally emerged out of the broken family tree that once concealed my true origins.

Now I know that we never were what we were forced to pretend we were due to adoptions.

We now have family, always had family, but that family was intentionally hidden from us until I was able to discover it in only the last year and a half.

Certainly, there are shadows and unanswered questions and it may be impossible to shed light on them now that so many years have passed.

But I am grateful for what I know and the “new” family I can build relationships with now. They are no more “perfect” than the members of the adoptive family that I still consider my “relations” as well.

It’s just that I know the same blood that runs in the “new” family’s veins, runs also in mine and for that I am eternally grateful.

I feel that I have fulfilled some part of my life’s purpose now.

Entitlement

It has been a long process for me of wrapping my mind around the issues of what is bad about adoption and needs reform. Forgive me a little rant and hopefully a bit of educating for those who care but really don’t know what the issues are. Thanks to an outspoken group of women who are adoptees, or have been in the institutional trenches, I am beginning to understand there are problems in adoptionland.

I’ll share a few as starters.

Going all the way back to the 1930s, and my own grandmothers – up through my own sisters, I believe they would have ALL kept their children – IF they had had the support they needed.

In adoption propaganda, it is often said that the original parents made the “most selfless decision” by giving up the raising of their own child. It is not selfish to want to keep your child, even when you are struggling to do so. It is not a selfless decision to give your child to someone else, it is an act of desperation.

The determining factor should always be what matters most for the well-being of the child. The dominant narrative in the adoption community has been stories of “selfless birth parents” who simply wanted a “better life” for their child. Of course, they wanted a “better life” and they would have preferred to have been the ones providing it.

There are alternatives to adoption for infertile couples – kinship care, legal guardianship without lying on birth certificates or choosing the charity of giving whatever kind of assistance the original Mom or Dad need to help them parent successfully.

I seriously question the agenda of Christians who push adoption. I suspect they are wanting to create more Christians by taking children who would not have been raised according to their own belief system, knowing that their way is the superior one of course, and indoctrinating these children into “the way” of their own religion.

And I am seriously concerned by crowd funding for adoption costs without any qualms on the parts of those donating money – while not once considering crowd funding to help a Mom or Dad keep their baby. Our values are misplaced people.

So are adoptive parents fears that the child will NOT be theirs PERMANENTLY supposed to outweigh what is now known to be better for the children?

What is known ?

Separation should be the last resort. We KNOW there is trauma from the separation, even if it happens at birth. We KNOW children need genetic mirrors. We KNOW people have a right to know the truth about themselves. We know so much that points to a practice where, based on the best interest of the CHILD, we should avoid the permanent legal and physical severing of a child from their genetic parentage and family through adoption.

Guardianship provides all the emotional support any child needs and as much safe permanency.

And another thought – if people are really so dead set on parenting, and they can’t reproduce (are infertile), they can still act as guardians and caregivers to older kids who really do need someone. In today’s society – unfortunately – there are a lot of kids that could use that kind of help.

Those who wish to provide a home for a child should be OK with not getting an infant and fake papers saying they gave birth to that child. This is denial and self-delusion on the part of infertile, adoptive parents – and it IS harmful to the child.

Every baby brought into this world and then given to someone else to raise is aware and does care about what happened to separate them from their original parents.

Please realize that there’s always a situation that makes the original parents feel they have no other choice but to give up their precious child. Whether it be finances, homelessness, the mother’s relationship with the baby’s father, or a lack of support during and after the pregnancy.

None of those “reasons” should be the determining factor leading to separation from their baby. They are all temporary circumstances which time may heal given resources when they are most needed.