In my perusing of the adoption sites and reading the sales pitches, I get more and more upset by what I see in the language. When I first started reading about this subject certain terms didn't bother me. Words like "birthmother" didn't even bother me. I've been in reunion with my daughter for 8 years now and I began a painting series about this topic. Because of that series I began researching the industry. Now, I can't stand the "b" word. What happened that changed my mind? Well, I started seeing the correlation between the language and lures they use to get expectant mothers to surrender their children.
make an adoption plan
forever family
birthmother
selfless gift
place a child for adoption
a loving option
failed adoption
adoption opportunities
Thirty years ago when I was going through the process it was called giving a child up for adoption. Back then the industry just bluntly and openly shamed us into giving up our children and it wasn't just the industry, it was also society in general. Everyone saw us as unfit simply because we weren't wearing a wedding ring. It still boggles my mind that women in the 60's in maternity homes were even made to wear fake wedding rings to go outside - who did the wardens in these places think they were fooling?
Now that being single is not as stigmatizing as it once was the industry had to come up with slicker ways to coerce young, vulnerable women. Oh, they'd like you to think that they're just being kinder and more sensitive to the mother - bull twinkies! What they're really doing is sanitizing everything to make it look more appealing. (twinkies sounds better than shit doesn't it?) It's the marketing biz at it's finest.
What are adoption opportunities? They are babies. These are human beings being traded for money. This is what it comes down to. No one wants to hear that in this country we sell babies but when you break it down to it's truth, that's exactly what it is. Party A hands baby to Party B who then hands baby to Party C who in turn hands over a lot of money to Party B. What else would you call it? Well, the agency wants to call it a selfless act on the mother's part. They call it making an adoption plan. When a young woman hears these words she feels like there's someone out there who can help her figure out what to do. There's a plan - good. That means there's a direction to go in; this is productive. Then she hears it's a loving option. Well, she loves her baby and only wants what's best for her baby so she listens some more. They tell her "it's in the best interest of the child, your child will love you for it". What mother doesn't want that? "Choosing adoption is the purest form of motherly love" No.... loving your baby is the purest form of motherly love. Placing your baby for adoption sounds nice doesn't it? In reality she's placing her child in the arms of strangers. Now come the dear bmother letters. This is how they make her think that she has a relationship with the couple. How much does she really know about people from a slick, full color, 2-sided brochure? Do you believe all the ones that come in the mail selling aluminum siding? It really is a sales pitch, there are a lot of couples competing for that baby.
So, she's picked her favorite brochure and the agency is telling her what a selfless gift she's giving this couple. If she has a relationship with the couple that goes on for a few months, they fly or drive to where she is when she's in labor, sometimes they even go into the delivery room. She's exhausted and emotional. They are standing there waiting so of course she doesn't want to disappoint them. Even if she's screaming inside - give me my baby - she has all these forces outside pressuring her to hand the baby over.
Now that she has given an adoption opportunity to a couple and given this selfless gift in an act of the purest motherly love that was in the best interest of her child, she can apply for a scholarship from the agency that is only offered to women who make an adoption plan. Some of these agencies actually raise funds to offer money for college to mothers who have given their children up for adoption. Don't get me wrong, education is a wonderful thing. But.... why not raise money for scholarships for mothers who are raising their children as single mothers. Why not help them to KEEP their children and go to school. What a concept! Of course they wouldn't do that. That would hurt the bottom line.
What happens if the mother changes her mind and decides to keep her baby? It's called a failed adoption. Instead celebrating a mother and child staying together it becomes a failure. Something to be upset about. Well yes, it's upseting for the adoptive parents but a mother and child staying together is a beautiful thing. Aren't we supposed to be concerned for the child and his/her best interests? A baby continuing to hear her mother's heartbeat and feeling her mother's love is in the baby's best interest. But the new mother gets to feel guilty because she let everyone down. In my opinion the only person she needs to worry about is that new baby.
I'll keep on saying it. To the prospective adoptive parents out there.... if you want to be a parent and help a child, please look to the foster care system first. So many children need homes and someone to love them. Another option is to help a baby by helping her mother, help them stay together.
It's a dirty business using scholarships and a mother's love for her baby as a lure to bring her in and get her to give up her child. The language isn't going to clean it up.
i was one of those mothers imprisoned in a maternity home, forced to surrender my dughter, wear a wedding ring while outside (if we went out at all) and partake in all the secrecy and pretense. i am in reuion for ten yrs and have come to resent and hate the "B" word too. adoptive mothers bristle at being called what they are...adoptive mothers. it makes them feels diminished, less than, small. i have the audacity to say "what about me?" why should i accept being described as something akin to a baby maker, a processing agent, a breeder? show me some respect i say and honor what i amand what i have done. don't diminish me and make me small so you caa feel big and important and relagate me to the backburner.
ReplyDeleteWithout babies adoption agencies run short of cash...employees don't get paid .... Where is the money going to come from????
ReplyDeleteThe social worker who "helped" me in 1969 told me 33 years later "it was barbaric" how the agency secured babies for married couples [with money in hand!].
I was so stinkin' brainwashed by Childrens Home Society of MN - I remember feeling so guilty telling my sw I wanted some counseling (never got that!) and that I wanted to keep my baby. She documented it in her dictation ..... And did NOTHING to help me.
She likely would have lost her job ... No baby, no money.
alright...down right psychologically abusive!!!
Thats unfortunate for all you ladies who chose adoption for your child so long ago but that isn't at all the experience I had. I am a birth mom, and no, I have no issue being called that. I LOVE the couple who adopted my daughter and we are really close. I get to see her and them regularly and I don't feel like I was tricked or duped, or lured into choosing them. I knew them really well and spent a lot of time with them before she was born.
ReplyDeleteI understand you've been through something really difficult but please don't pretend to speak for all of us, especially those of us who chose adoption more recently. The whole process isn't what it used to be (like when my dad was adopted in the 60's).
Anon - Just as their experience was not yours, yours is not the experience of all today. You have no place speaking for all modern day adoptions than they do for all older. A handful of good open adoption and happy mothers surrendering babies does not erase the very real fact that adoption DOES damage as well as good regardless of time period. The mothers here wish to improve adoption practices - you dont do that by stating all that is good about it.
ReplyDeleteAnon - How about us that placed in the 1990's are we allowed to speak up of modern adoptions? How about those of us that loss a grandchild to open adoption in the last 2 years are we allowed a voice? I saw the exact same games, pretense, coercions happen to my daughter in 2010 that happened to me in 1992.
ReplyDeleteIf anything ever happened to me and I died I would not give guardianship of my raised children over to anyone I have known for a year or less. Doesn't that sound ridiculous to hand over guardianship to anyone you haven't known for years and years? Isn't that what we do in adoption?
If you talked to me 15 years ago I would have defended adoption up and down. I was trained well by my counselors. It took me years to come out and acknowledge my pain. I am glad you are happy and accept your decision but that does not mean that every modern adoption is great, that the practices are moral and just.
Jeannette
I just want to point out that it is my belief that some of the terms listed here that are unfavorable to some people were created as a way to talk about adoption with the children and not cause pain. I am an adoptive mother, yes. I would not ever tell my children that their birthmother gave them up, I believe that would cause them to believe that they were unworthy and someone who is easily "given up on."
ReplyDeleteI understand what you are saying and that the intentions are good, but this is one of the reasons that we are in the situation we are to begin with. Mothers who relinquish ARE GIVING UP their children. WE ARE GIVING UP on our motherhood before we get a chance to be mothers. And don't think that some adoptees don't feel that no matter how nice we sugarcoat it. They can be raised by the most wonderful adoptive parents int eh universe an could have been placed for all the acceptable reasons and still, they feel that rejection form their original parents.
DeleteThe same thing has been said many times about the common adoption expression "She loved you so much that she wanted you to have a better life" and the common adoption interpretation of that is "Love Equals Loss" and then we wonder why they have trust issues or push people away without letting them close.
Bottom line, adoption is built upon a foundation of loss and pain. Someone MUST loss something for the adoption to happen. Want to not cause that pain, then we have to prevent those losses to begin with. And that means that we need to find ways to support mothers and children who come together under less than favorably planned circumstances.
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