[Dickons]

"She loved you so much she chose adoption" or any other variation of that oft said statement.

As a child put in context with society at the time, it was a logical statement to make...now as an adult the phrase seems like an oxymoron, love and giving away...

So I guess one of my questions is how will kids (with the kid level of maturity) from this generation feel when that is told to them, when society has changed to be more open to single family parenting? Will they accept that like we did because it made sense when it might not make sense to them now?

The next question is how many from my generation equated love with leaving?

Kind regards,
Dickons

[Withay]

I don't know the answers to your questions Dickons as I am not adopted.

I do, however think a lot about how my son will feel, both as a child and an adult being adopted. His bmom is in no way able to parent him due to her developmental capacity, but she is a part of his life.

He will grow up knowing her through visits, letters and pictures. Hopefully this will help to alleviate some of the issues for him.

[Dickons]

Withay,

I think you guys will be just fine as you have context to the decision, do you know what I mean? The society I grew up in stigmatized women and their children and even as a young child recognised the behind the mouth comments from older adults to each other, pssst she isn't married, the child is illegitimate....Could be just how mom and dad raised me and how they always taught us to not just look at something in a singular point of focus, but rather to look at something, then look a little wider at the forces at play, and then to actually look at the big picture with all sides interacting before accepting something.

The sentence made/makes logical sense to me, a closed era baby in the Leave it to Beaver world that was, but looking at that sentence in relation to how the world is now makes me question how kids will take it from this generation.

Kind regards,
Dickons

[hpfreak080]

I totally accepted it when I was little (and it still makes logical sense to me now). I can't say I ever (consciously anyway) equated love with leaving (not to say I haven't...but nothing comes to mind where I consciously noticed it, ya know?).

Obviously, I can't say how children today will take it. If you think about though, there is only so much adoptive parents can say in order to cast bparents in a positive light. The children, I'm sure, don't want to feel like their bparents don't/didn't love them. Maybe we, as a society, need to figure out something else to say that doesn't make bparents look bad, doesn't make the child feel unloved, and doesn't make the adoptive parents look like the bad guy or insecure.

Oh what a tangled web adoption is...
Great, huh? lol

[MamaS]

Originally Posted by Dickons

"She loved you so much she chose adoption" or any other variation of that oft said statement.
So I guess one of my questions is how will kids (with the kid level of maturity) from this generation feel when that is told to them, when society has changed to be more open to single family parenting?

Kind regards,
Dickons

Don't you think it will make a difference whether the adoption was domestic or international? In the U.S. there is more acceptance of single parent families and programs to support them -- but in many developing countries there is still widespread disdain for unmarried mothers (sometimes to the point of endangering their lives). So maybe that sentence is true -- She loved you enough to place you for adoption so you could have food, shelter, medical care, education and a safe place where there are no militia, rebels, insurgents, or other troops.
Sassy came to me at the age of three with a bullet wound in her thigh. I think she would agree that her family showed their love by making an adoption plan for her.

[Amandak249]

Dickons,

I don't know how old you are, but I was born in the late 1980's, and I too grew up with this ridiculous statement. I do not accept it. It does not make sense. No one will EVER be able to convince me, not even my own birthparents, that I was exiled from my own family because they loved me.

I have no doubt my birthparents love me- they've both told me that on many many occasions. But I was an inconvenience. I was born when my birthparents were in their mid to late 20's, they were just starting their business.Their parents did not approve. I was a problem that needed to go away. And that's just what I did.


I believed the phrase" she loved you so much she gave you away..." until I met my birthfamily, when my birthsister said to me:

" I'm glad my dad decided to KEEP ME. I'm special."

And then it hit me- I was not special. I was not loved, at least not enough. That is the predominate theme in both my adoption and my reunion

"We love you...but not enough for us to do any work."

It was the case when I was placed and it was the same way when most of my birthfamily pulled out of our relationship because it upset my bsister (who is jealous). "We love you, but not enough to keep you. We love you, but not enough to make your sister uncomfortable."


Thousands of children are born everyday, many in less than ideal circumstances. Many babies are unplanned- the result of a broken condom or one too many drinks. But how many of these children are cast away?

My birthparents, my entire birthfamily, had me for one month. They are wealthy people, educated people. They had the means to raise a child- they've told me this themselves(and they did so only a few years later!) I was a baby, I was loved. But they didn't love me enough to keep me. They did not love me enough to accept me into their lives as a member of the family.


Speaking from my own situatio- this quote you posted disgusts me. I was placed for adoption, I have weaved my entire life around this hole, around this fact of my past. I accept what my birthparents have decided for me. But I do not accept that I was given away because they loved me. I was loved, but I was not wanted. At least not enough to make me like the majority of other children born into this world.

I guess the question for me is, "what would it take for you to give up your child?"

For my birthparents...the answer is "very little."

People with less than my birthfamily have found a way to keep their children, to love their children. They say that love is unconditional- but I know from experience that it is only because we cannot always anticipate the conditions.

[Dickons]

MamaS,

Domestic infant adoption is what my questions relate to. But I think that I totally got it because I saw/heard people be malicious in their gossip towards mothers with illegitimate children. I heard it on more than one occasion and it was in church, guess they were too busy thinking about the gossip instead of listening to preacher...and they never even noticed the adopted child standing next to them in the hallway...or did they? That is why I got it, being told about how it would be in a different culture that I did not know? Maybe, maybe not - that is what sparked the question.

Kind regards,
Dickons

[Amandak249]

I think MamaS has a very valid point. I'm sure there are some situations where this quote applies quite well. Just not my own ( which is all that I can speak from)

[Dickons]

Amanda,

I feel so bad that there are people in this world that would do that to a baby...and you actually answered the question for me...some will not accept it because times have changed since I was adopted and the statement lacks any credibility...

Still I sit here shaking my head...you are an amazing woman and to think they did not want you.

Hpfreak,

You are right - adoption is a tangled web...and there never is going to be one right answer when humans are involved...but there needs to be something that would not be bad about either party.

Kind regards,
Dickons

[Dickons]

Amanda,

This link is to "How to be a Good Wife" which was in high school text books when my mother would have attended school. This was also published in Ladies Home Journal (?).

How to be a Good Wife - 1954 Home Economics

Kind regards,
Dickons

[Amandak249]

Dickons,


What an interesting article....a little unsettling, but interesting nonetheless. I am actually a little embarrassed about my last post. I really AM happy to be with the family who I'm with... I wouldn't have it any other way. But after 10 years of a tumultous reunion- after seeing all that I've seen- I just can no longer swallow the "adoption means love" bit, at least not in how it pertains to my personal situation. You do not love a person, an infant especially, and purposefully push them out of your lives because they came at a bad time. I am too jaded now to accept it. I wonder if I can ever go back.

[Dickons]

Amanda,

Don't feel bad about your post...it had absolutely nothing to do with your mom and dad. I so hate that we all feel the need to walk the party line because we love our mom and dad and do not want to take anything away from who they are to us. I would think though that you have the discussions about adoption with your parents (based on how you have discribed them) and that they agree there are strange things in this adoption world and don't take it personally.

Our famly has always discussed the good and bad in adoption and that's were I run into problems on this site, because it is hard for some to take the people and situations out of the equation and just discuss adoption as a topic.

Don't let yourself become a cynic, it will only hurt you. Karma does work, just give it time.


Kind regards,
Dickons

[soccercmh]

Originally Posted by Amandak249

You do not love a person, an infant especially, and purposefully push them out of your lives because they came at a bad time. I am too jaded now to accept it. I wonder if I can ever go back.

I completely agree, Amanda. It's a tough thing to swallow. I was born in the 80's and somewhere along the way got the "they loved you so much they gave you up" line engraved in my head. I'm not sure where I heard it - but that's what I always believed up through my reunion. I have to say that it made the knowledge of my adoption easier growing up. I felt grateful. But after believing that for so long and learning that I was merely an inconvenience - I feel like it set me up for a much harder fall.
Everyone is different and there are an array of circumstances that can surround why a child is put up for adoption. Is it ideal to apply one feel-good standard explanation ("loved you so much they chose adoption...")? I think there are better alternatives, personally.

[RavenSong]

Dickons, great thread as usual - thanks for creating it.

I regularly read a blog written by three women who surrendered during the Baby Scoop Era, one of whom is Lorraine Dusky, the author of Birthmark, the first published memoir of a birth/first mother. Several weeks ago, Lorraine wrote what I consider to be an excellent essay on why we need to change the language of "she loved you so much, she gave you away." Lorraine explains in her blog how those of us who have surrendered children to adoption did so because we couldn't find a way to keep them, not because we loved them.

I was pretty upset when I first read her post...but I instinctively knew that I was being triggered...because I knew she was right. So I've spent the past several weeks contemplating her words and trying to figure out my own truths.

I think I bought into the whole myth when I was growing up in white, middle-class America during the BSE. I know that I heard my teachers and pastor (and later, the social workers) tell us all that if a teenage unwed mother truly loved her baby, she would give him up for adoption so he'd have a "better life".

I think a lot of us teen moms who relinquished during the 1960's and 1970's believed this stuff. Socialization is pretty darn hard to overcome, IMO, especially for the young.

I didn't decide to relinquish until I was seven months along in my pregnancy. I loved my baby from the moment I found out I was carrying him. And I wanted to raise him more than I can say. I just couldn't figure out a way to do it. So I think Lorraine is right...I gave him up because I couldn't find a way to keep him.

Through the years, it soothed my damaged soul and ego by telling myself that I gave my son up out of love. But it's simply not true...the truth is I gave him up because I couldn't figure out a way to financially support the both of us. If anything, I gave him up out of fear and desperation...I was scared and I was weak. Sure, I believed in the "if you love him, let him go" philosophy when I was a teenager. But I believed in a lot of things when I was a teenager that I now know were lies or myths.

Anyway, if you're interested in reading Lorraine's blog about this subject, the link is Birth Mother, First Mother Forum: I did not give up my child because I loved her.

[greenbottles]

How about I loved my bdaughter but was not ready to parent? Yes, Amanda, I was not ready to do the hard work so I pushed her out. And it is hard work - emotionally and physically.
I relinquished due to the many negative and emotional things happening in my life - infact I never planned on having children. I used contraception. I would have resented my bdaughter for stopping me from moving on with my life as I had planned - little did i know that I would spend more than 18 years missing her dreadfully, wanting her back, suffering depression. The loss of my child to adoption changed me irreparably.
I thought - foolishly with hindsight - that I was doing the right thing for both of us. And perhaps I was because I was very messed up emotionally and mentally with regards to the Bf and I don't think I could have got over that mothering her because I wouldn't have been able to move away from him. Aggg.
Amanda...yes, I loved/still do love my baby (now a young adult) but it wasn't the right time. Would things have changed five years later??? I don't know because it took me 10 years to work through the loss of my relationship with the bf.
Was she an inconvenience - you could probably say that. I wasn't coping at the time with so many things that were happening in my life and then I got pregnant...
It's also tricky because I had adoptee friends in my life at that time telling me that I was doing the right thing by relinquishing...they were okay with it...
sigh
but I do cringe when I read people saying that the bmother lived her child so much that she give him/her away...