“This Support Group is SO Negative!”
Lately, it seems that someone who feels “Ok’ about their choice, will express displeasure at what they see as lack of support. Which pretty much ends up being another long drawn out discussion where the Polly Positives complain about the Negative Nancys and the Negative Nancys defend their right to be negative. Rinse, wash, repeat.
Yes, if I am trying to be completely honest and self aware, then I have to admit that some aspect of my motivation to do this work, my obsession with all things adoption, is a form of redemption. I can see that I am making up for the mistake of relinquishment, but I am not 100% sure who I am redeeming myself to.
Met Ana; she was told that she had the 30 day revocation timeframe under PA law because she is from PA, she lives in PA, she was told the family lived in PA, and the baby was born in PA, only to now be told that it’s a New Jersey adoption. Of course, New Jersey does not have a revocation of adoption consent period recognized by law. How convenient.
At or around age 12, childhood is over.
And for birth mothers, it is obvious that we missed the whole thing. It’s over. Our child is in the final stages of growing up without us. Their whole childhood is gone. They grew up without us. It’s done.
Stanley Milgram’s controversial yet ground breaking experiments in the 1960′s on authority figures study findings can be applied to coercion within the process of a single expectant mother making an adoption plan. And the results are chilling.
Despite how wonderful a choice those in the adoption industry would like the world to believe, mothers do not want to give up their babies for adoption and that can be easily seen as the rich do not relinquish.
I know many birthmothers who have “chosen” to relinquish a child to adoption have great difficulty explaining the very subtle coercion and thought process that goes into it. It’s not so obvious to be called brainwashing. It is often not forceful enough to be openly accepted as coercion. We don’t even know or want to call ourselves “victims”. Is it the sophisticated manipulation tactic known as “Gaslighting”?
If there are other options that CAN BE sought BEFORE adoption, then the adoption itself, not matter how happy anyone claims to be, is a tragedy. “What about the mothers who truly aren’t able to parent?” If we want adoption to really be a good thing, ethical, and used as it should then we have to then ask, ‘What is the obstacle in her way that is making it less than idea for this mother to parent this baby?
If children are a gift from God then the Birthmother is a regifter!!! Now I don’t know about you, but when you consider adoption to be regifting what God gives you, then I dare say it’s a bit tacky and, again based on my limited churchgoing self, might annoy him when he finds out ( as is unavoidable) that you went and regifted your baby.
I’ve learned to be gentle with my younger self. I really didn’t stand a chance up against that agency. They are very good at their business. They know exactly what to say and withhold. I was a prime, easy target for them and they did not hold back. They pounced and turned the knife to the very end.
In South Carolina after the relinquishment of parental rights is signed you cannot go back and change your mind or any sort. Twenty-eight (28) states have laws providing a waiting period before relinquishment of parental rights is irrevocable.
Increasing adoption awareness does not decrease abortions. The alternative to abortion is giving birth. The alternative to adoption is actually parenting your own child. Separate events at separate times even if in the same pregnancy. It’s NOT the “Price is Right” Pregnancy Door Game. The decisions made when facing an unplanned pregnancy do not happen at once and suddenly face three doors to go through parenting, adoption or abortion.
This article analyzes the provisions in a collection of birth mother surrender documents assembled by the author—seventy-five mid-twentieth century documents executed in twenty-six different states. In order to establish the significance of the surrender document provisions with respect to these claims, the article first relates depictions by birth mothers of a journey from silence to legislative advocacy. The article then examines the conflicting claims about birth mothers that pervade legislative contests over adult adoptee access to original birth certificates. Finally, the article analyzes the provisions of the surrender documents. The analysis of the provisions definitively supports birth mother advocates’ reports that women were neither offered a choice of nor guaranteed lifelong anonymity. Their opponents’ contentions to the contrary, whether motivated by concern for birth mothers or other interests, reinscribe an earlier culture of shame and secrecy, subordinating women’s own wishes and silencing their newly raised voices.
I am already well trained to ignore the lovely smiling photos of hopeful couples waiting to adopt. There are many of them, so lots of glancing about for me, trying to find a safe place to rest my eyes. I scan for copy, rather than cheesy grins, and pass over the glorified bios that shout “Pick me, Pick me!”. It’s all bright and shiny. Everyone is happy with their best face forward. Why? Because America Adopts is NOT an adoption agency, it’s an “adoption meeting place”. Whaaaat…? Yup, think dating site, but for knocked up chicks thinking about adoption!
There is a good chance that motherhood will never be the same for a birthmother. Even under completely different circumstance than the adoption, years later, the mother we could have been has been altered. She is gone. What is left is a new mother, a new persons, one forever altered by the relinquishment experience.