For
some time,
I have wondered how in the world I got to this place.
I have always tried to do the right thing in life, yet the
results from making wrong choices were constantly staring
me in the face. An example, and granted it is a huge one,
was getting pregnant at the age of seventeen, which caused
the loss of my child to adoption.
Sitting at my desk one day, pondering this question, I
was struck with an idea. Since I knew virtually nothing
about what had happened to me and why, I decided to search
for answers. After logging onto the Internet, I searched
for out-of-print books. My thinking was that reading books
written by social workers, historians, and sociologists
at that time might shed some light on the subject of the
surrender of babies to adoption. So, not only have I spent
the past five years doing some serious soul searching, I've
also done some very important reading.
Let me share with you a small part of what I've learned
since then.
When an adoption takes place, there are four parties involved:
the people who adopt, the facilitator, the child and the
child's natural parents. Society as a whole prefers to overlook
the real needs of the child and of the natural mother. Tragically,
even today, those real needs are disregarded.
Thirty or forty years ago, before readily available contraception,
many unmarried, pregnant girls were forced into hiding.
We spent months in "wage homes" as unpaid servants, unwed
maternity institutions or both. In 1966, I spent three months
in two different wage homes prior to being admitted as a
resident of the Florence Crittenton maternity facility in
Washington, D.C.
Unlike the fathers of our babies, most of whom quietly
walked away, we couldn't hide the visible evidence of our
participation in socially unsanctioned sexuality.
For decades mothers of the closed adoption era have been
shrouded in secrecy and misunderstanding. Negative fantasies
have marginalized us from the rest of society. The general
perception is that we are deviant women who callously discarded
our babies. This is one of many myths that surrounds and
intensifies the pain of my personal experience and that
of hundreds of thousands of other mothers who surrendered.
Coercion, Thought Reform, and Maternity Homes
We hear about mothers who "made the decision to give up"
their babies to adoption. Is it true that we made informed
decisions without pressure from social workers (often referred
to as "caseworkers") who worked in maternity homes and adoption
agencies?
Felix Biestek, in The Casework Relationship (1957), Loyola
University School of Social Work, states that:
Caseworkers have differed in their evaluation of the
capacity of unmarried mothers... to make sound decisions.
Some feel that unmarried mothers are so damaged emotionally
that they are incapable of arriving at a good decision
themselves. These caseworkers have expressed the conviction
that they must guide, "steer," and "take sides in" the
final decision. (Emphasis added)
Like me, many other young mothers didn't know what a "home
for unwed mothers" was until we suddenly found ourselves
deposited at its front door with our suitcase in hand. These
institutions were thought to offer safety and shelter from
society's scorn. In reality, they were punishing in nature
and have been referred to as "baby factories."
What effect did the environment of a maternity "home" have
on us? Could brainwashing, more commonly known today as
thought reform, have played a part in the surrender of our
babies to adoption?
According to Margaret Thayler Singer and Richard Ofshe,
respected psychologists and leading experts on thought reform:
...the effectiveness of thought reform programs did not
depend on prison settings, physical abuse or death threats.
Programs used... the application of intense guilt/shame/anxiety
manipulation... with the production of strong emotional
arousal in settings where people did not leave because
of social and psychological pressures or because of enforced
confinement.
Drs. Singer and Ofshe provide six conditions that are required
to put a system of thought reform into place. Below follows
a comparison of thought reform conditions to the maternity
"home" experience.
Thought Reform vs. the Maternity "Home"
Experience
Keep person unaware.
Girls were not instructed about pregnancy, labor, delivery;
were left totally alone during labor and delivery; were
not allowed contact with new mothers; not provided information
about welfare and Aid to Families with Dependent Children
(AFDC), child support and other government programs.
Control their environment and time.
Girls forced to live in maternity "homes"; made to use
fictitious names or first names and last initials only;
allowed no contact with friends and boy-friends by letter,
phone or in person; kept away from everything familiar;
made to follow strict daily routines.
Create a sense of powerlessness.
Took away our money (pay phones only); no personal (familiar)
clothing; not allowed freedom to come and go; removed
everything that would remind us of who we were.
Rewards and punishments to inhibit behavior reflecting
former identity.
Called "neurotic" if we said no to "relinquishing"; told
we were "out of touch with reality" and "selfish" if we
kept our babies; told our pregnancy was "proof of unfitness."
Rewards and punishments promoting group's beliefs or behaviors.
Allowed no television, phone, visitation or radio privileges
if not following rules; scolding and de-meaning lectures
for disagreeing; harangued when speaking up against "counseling"
(reasons why we should "choose" adoption); praised for
agreeing to surrender.
Use logic and authority which permits no feedback.
Director, caseworkers and housemothers enforced strict
rules and rigid schedule: wakeup, bedtime, meals, chores
and approved visitation; censored mail (both incoming
and outgoing); no legal counsel; no support system.
It seems clear that all of the thought reform conditions
were present during the many months we were forced to hide
away in maternity homes.
Rickie Solinger, in Wake Up Little Susie: Single Pregnancy
and Race Before Roe v. Wade (1992), gives us a sense
of the maternity home environment:
The world of maternity homes in postwar America was a
gothic attic obscured from the community by the closed
curtains of gentility and high spiked fences. The girls
and women sent inside were dreamwalkers serving time,
pregnant dreamwalkers taking the cure. Part criminal,
part patient, the unwed mother arrived on the doorstep
with her valise and, moving inside, found herself enclosed
within an idea...
Maternity homes... served to further stigmatize pregnant
young women by removing them from their families, friends
and neighbors... these "homes" could create an austere
and frightening atmosphere for the birth mother, whose
freedom of movement was strictly curtailed by these instant
chaperones and guardians. Typically, birth mothers were
expected to help out in these homes with chores such as
cleaning, dishwashing, and so on... while the birth mother's
physical needs were met, seldom were her emotional needs
addressed...
Parental Pressures
What occurred between the time we revealed our pregnancy
to our parents and the surrender of our child? What role
did our parents play in our confinement?
In many cases, our parents sought advice from local churches
that directed them to church-affiliated or county adoption
agencies. Those agencies usually referred our parents to
maternity homes. Wake Up Little Susie spells out
the enormous social pressure parents felt:
Parents embraced the idea of maternity homes partly because
in the postwar decades, parents themselves needed protection
as much as their erring daughters... If the girl disappeared,
the problem disappeared with her.
And what was the role of adoption agencies? How much influence
did they exert in decision-making? Did they allow us free
choice or did they have a bias toward adoption?
Social worker Barbara Hansen Costigan, in her dissertation,
"The Unmarried Mother--Her Decision Regarding Adoption"
(1964), claims:
The fact that social work professional attitudes tend
to favor the relinquishment of the baby, as the literature
shows, should be faced more clearly. Perhaps if it were
recognized, workers would be in less conflict and would
therefore feel less guilty about their "failures" (the
kept cases).
Marcel Heiman, M.D. in "Out-Of-Wedlock Pregnancy In Adolescence,"
Casework Papers 1960, provides evidence of social workers'
bias towards adoption:
The caseworker must then be decisive, firm and unswerving
in her pursuit of a healthy solution for the girl's problem.
The "I'm going to help you by standing by while you work
it through" approach will not do. What is expected from
the worker is precisely what the child expected but
did not get from her parents--a decisive "No!" It
is essential that the parent most involved, psychologically,
in the daughter's pregnancy also be dealt with in a manner
identical with the one suggested in dealing with the girl.
Time is of the essence; the maturation of the fetus proceeds
at an inexorable pace. An ambivalent mother, interfering
with her daughter's ability to arrive at the decision
to surrender her child, must be dealt with as though she
(the girl's mother) were a child herself. (Emphasis
added)
Economic Coercion
Those of us who wanted to keep our babies were warned severely
by social workers that, if we did so, we would be responsible
for paying the entire hospital bill, doctor fees, lawyer
fees and the costs of foster care.
Yvonne, who lost her child to adoption in 1968, shares
her experience with an adoption agency social worker:
My son was taken from me at birth, against my will.
I was allowed no contact with him in spite of my pleas
because the people in charge were sure that I was going
to eventually be forced to give him up for adoption even
though I had not given them any definite promise to do
so.
I finally was taken back to my parent's house when
my son was 12 days old. I went to work almost immediately
with the plan to make some money and raise my son. My
mother eventually agreed to baby sit while I worked. I
called the social worker to tell her the great news and
find out where and when we could pick up my baby. She
icily informed me that she would call me the next day
to give me the details. I remember being thrilled that
this was finally going to be over, that life was going
to go on at last, that there would be no more badgering
by this woman about my decision.
The following day the social worker called and informed
me that if I thought I was going to pick up my son I would
have to show up with money to pay my hospital bill, his
hospital bill, [our] doctor bills, the maternity home
bill, the charges for the "counseling" she had given me
and all costs for my son to be in foster care. The meter
would continue to run until everything was paid in full,
at which time I could finally bail out my poor little
baby. She said this knowing full well that on her advice
my father had taken me to the county welfare office to
apply for welfare to pay these expenses and the application
was approved.
I cannot remember the exact amount she demanded but
remember it being more money than I could ever imagine
making.
The Aftermath
In the aftermath of surrender, when we returned home, we
strongly felt the absence of our baby. Alone, our arms empty,
we grieved deeply for our lost child. No one ever spoke
of our baby again, no one acknowledged our painful and lonely
experience and no one offered comfort. We knew we were never
to speak of what occurred. We were so shamed and blamed
that we obeyed this dictate for many decades.
In an American Adoption Congress newsletter article,
"Disenfranchised Grief and the Birth Mother," Nathalie Troland
describes our experience; she says, "The birth mother was
not recognized as a legitimate mourner; the loss of her
child was not considered real." Troland continues:
She lives in a world in which mothers are rewarded and
others punished for their fertility; that most people
failed her, that she failed herself; that she did the
right thing; that she did the wrong thing; that she grieves,
that grief is not appropriate; that she is un-natural
in her ability to take such a course; that she is natural
in thinking of her baby before herself or conversely of
thinking of herself before the baby; that she was, and
still is, isolated in her experience; that her grief cannot
be resolved and must somehow be lived with alone.
In the years following surrender, how did the we fare without
our babies? Was our grief a short-term problem or did the
adoption have lasting ramifications? According to Birthmothers,
Women Who Have Relinquished Babies for Adoption Tell Their
Stories by Merry Bloch Jones:
... most birthmothers lost their innocence, self-esteem,
and prospects... many relinquished their trust in others
and their sense of identity within society... many felt
that their most important relationships... were damaged
beyond repair. More than one in five became involved in
abusive relationships... Under the influence of anger
and depression, some set out on paths of self-punishment
and self-destruction... Many became emotionally estranged
from everyone who had been involved... About one fifth
developed eating disorders... More than one in five developed
secondary infertility. Most... remained permanently incapable
of trust and intimacy.
The Injustice Continues
I am incredulous as I reflect on what happened. How could
we have allowed the horrific act that separated us from
our children? It is difficult for us to convey to people,
who now live in a society that values and enforces an individual's
civil and human rights, how it was when our babies were
born and taken from us simply because we were young, vulnerable
and without resources.
I believe we have a right to copies of everything relating
to the loss of our babies. This includes original birth
certificates and other agency records that confirm the births
of our babies. Adoption agencies across the country are
withholding these documents, even though we were still the
legal guardians of our children at the time those documents
were drafted. This withholding of documentation occurs even
though it appears to be at odds with the official policy
of some agencies. For example, Patricia Martinez Dorner,
in "Adoption Search: An Ethical Guide For Practitioners,"
a 1997 Catholic Charities USA searching manual, states:
Birthparents also seek information about their children
and their adoptive families through the years. Being able
to obtain file information pertaining to the time of the
pregnancy, is reality basing and healing...
Among the documents found in agency files is the original
birth certificate, which in most states is sealed at the
vital statistics level when adoptions are finalized. It
is appropriate to provide a copy of this document to a
birthparent, (as long as it is a named birthparent), at
any time. The information pertains to her and her child
and in no way violates confidentiality. (Emphasis
added)
In light of this statement, we wonder why we are repeatedly
refused copies of the original birth certificate and other
agency records, especially after reunions with our grown
children.
Mothers, Not Birthmothers
Many of us reject inappropriate terms, such as "birthmother,"
that have been forced upon us by the adoption industry.
We view "birth" prefixes as offensive and demeaning. We
feel they diminish and devalue our relationship to our children.
We are not breeders nor live incubators whose only function
was to give birth.
Many of us are taking back our rightful title--we are the
mother of all of the children we have given birth to, whether
lost to adoption or not. Although we were not allowed to
parent our lost children, we have always loved them and
have the same concerns for them that any other mother would.
We surrendered our children to adoption--we did not surrender
our motherhood.
Society should eliminate stigmatizing labels and misleading
terminology. Mothers who have lost children to adoption
are deeply wounded and have walked long and lonely roads.
We are searching for answers and seek understanding. We
are asking society to acknowledge the truth of our experience
and honor our motherhood.
Copyright © 2002 Karen Wilson Buterbaugh
