"I deal with anger that I feel towards a system
that only looked for healthy white babies to procure for waiting childless
families..."
Alice McKinnon - Atikokan, Ontario
On July 7, 2002 I saw my first-born son for the first time. He was 37
years old. I had lived with the deep abiding pain of the loss of my first
baby for all those years believing that I did not have any right whatsoever
to look for him or ever see him. I had been told that by a social worker
while I was still pregnant with him in 1965. I was 7 1/2 months pregnant
by that time. My mother had know I was pregnant from my first missed period
but never told my Dad. Just after Christmas of 1964 my Dad confronted
me about what I thought I was hiding behind my housecoat which I wore
until it was time to get dressed to go to work on the afternoon shift
at one of the local restaurants. I had turned 18 in October of '64 and
my baby was due in February. When I told the father that I was pregnant,
he said he had known all along but that he was not marrying me and the
next day he left town never to be heard from again.
My Dad asked me what my plans were. I told him that I had been preparing
for my babies birth all along by buying him clothes on my paydays and
that I was keeping him. My Dad quipped that my Mom would have to start
knitting again and I assumed that everything was going better than I had
anticipated with my parents especially my father whom I feared. A couple
of days later the axe was to fall when my Dad called me to the table again
and my mother disappeared out of the room. It was then that he told me
that my mother had raised all the children that she was going to.....her
6 siblings (her mother died when she was 10 and she was taken out of school
to raise the other children) and us 4 children. He told me that I was
to go to the Children's Aid office and arrange for my baby to be adopted.
He told me that a child needed two parents and that I could not afford
to raise a baby and besides who would look after the baby while I worked.
I felt like a hamster in a cage. I felt so alone and trapped. I finally
conceded and went alone to the C.A.S office where I met with a male social
worker. When he was finished with me I was pummeled into the ground. "My
baby would be called a bastard without a father!", "I could
not afford to raise a baby on restaurant wages!", "My life would
be ruined by keeping my baby!", "No man would want a woman with
a child!", "A child needed two parents!" and "You
are selfish in even considering keeping your baby!".
I left there with feelings of shame and guilt and my heart felt sliced
in two. I have never felt so alone in this world. I was never offered
any assistance in keeping my baby nor any information about what alternatives
there were to adoption. Never was I told until 37 years later what alternatives
there were available. My son was born on Feb. 18, 1965 in Atikokan, Ontario.
I was taken to the hospital by my mother and while she signed papers at
admittance I was whisked to a room where I was examined by the doctor,
prepped for delivery by a nurse and left alone until the time to deliver
my baby. At his birth I heard his first cry; and because I was prewarned
not to look at him because it would cause me to have nightmares for the
rest of my life, he was whisked away. He was kept in the nursery far in
a corner with his bassinet turned towards the wall. I would walk to the
window of the nursery often to try and catch a glimpse of him, but the
only memory I ever had to go on was seeing the top of his head with tight,
wet little curls as he was taken away. I lay on the delivery table crying
my eyes out.
Today I know that I was capable of mothering my own baby. All I needed
was some help in the beginning and we would have been fine. Within two
years of his birth I had educated myself without any help from anyone.
All I needed was help in caring for him until I could get myself established.
I deal with anger that I feel towards a system that only looked for healthy
white babies to procure for waiting childless families. Their concern
was not really for the baby or the babies' mother, both of whom are scarred
by the experience of their separation. I was not an unfit mother in any
way. The social system failed both of us and the shame lies with them
not me. I have finally been able to let go of the shame and guilt I felt
for 37 years. I am so grateful that I have been reunited with my son and
that he too had looked for me. We are left to deal with all the pain and
loss of those years which will be with us to some extent always. I do
not believe that adoption is a lovely thing at all and no one can convince
me of that either.
- More Adoption 'Counseling' and
Coercion Stories -
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