[Jackiejdajda]

Rickie Solinger wrote about femininity and dependency.. being one and the same.

After ‘Wake Up Little Susie’ Solinger wrote ‘Beggars and Choosers’.. she said..(I saw her speak once) that when she wrote ‘Susie’ she got caught up in the issues of the birth mother..

In ‘Beggars and Choosers’ Solinger writes about CUB being formed.. (Concerned United birth parents) She writes about how Carole Anderson approached the women’s rights people in the seventies..

Page 116 ‘Beggars and Choosers’..

Women who had been coerced, however, learned a lesson early about the relationship between feminism and the claim to motherhood. When Carole Anderson went to NOW meetings in Illinois in the early 1970’s, she was clear that “the real issue for me was losing my son. I thought of that as a feminist issue. I couldn’t think of a worse way to oppress a woman. I did connect this with reproductive rights, but nobody at the meetings did. People in this [NOW] group would look at me like I was crazy when I wanted to talk about that.


Is this a womans right issue?

The Butterbox babies.. The Magdalen Laundries..
If anyone can add to this history please do..

Jackie

[Jackiejdajda]

Page 96 ‘Wake Up Little Susie’..Rickie Solinger

Relinquishment involved a psychiatric paradox for the unwed mother. According to one condition of the theory, by giving up the child, she was embracing, as a worthy female, the ultimate act of renunciation and self denial. She thereby earned credentials as a redeemed woman and the prospective wife. According to a second condition, by renouncing her child, she was cutting off her experience of motherhood, which had affirmed, irrefutably, that she was a woman. With the act of relinquishment, she became more and less a woman at once.. The resolution of the paradox was in the hands of a man willing to marry her. With a husband, she could call on her proven capacities of self-denial in order to reconstruct herself as a legitimately pregnant mother and wife..

How many of us redeemed ourselves in this manner?

Is it still going on today?

Jackie

[RavenSong]

Jackie, I am so glad you started this thread! I want to post on it, but unfortunately we're getting snowed in here in the Sierra foothills. And my lights keep flickering, so that means I'm going to lose my power soon.

This is an important subject, the historical perspective of adoption and the feminist implications. In the early 1980s, I tried to convince the chairperson of my university's Women's Studies Department that adoption was a feminist issue. First she laughed, and then she just about threw me out of her office. I never did understand why NOW wasn't addressing the concerns of young women who were surrendering their children for adoption mainly for financial reasons and/or the lack of the marriage "stamp of approval". The presence of a man, or lack thereof, was key....

[Jackiejdajda]

Raven.. this is what I think about as well..

Page 116 ‘Beggars and Choosers’..

Women who had been coerced, however, learned a lesson early about the relationship between feminism and the claim to motherhood. When Carole Anderson went to NOW meetings in Illinois in the early 1970’s, she was clear that “the real issue for me was losing my son. I thought of that as a feminist issue. I couldn’t think of a worse way to oppress a woman. I did connect this with reproductive rights, but nobody at the meetings did. People in this [NOW] group would look at me like I was crazy when I wanted to talk about that.


The women of NOW (National Organization for Women) saw nothing wrong (according to this paragraph in Beggars and Choosers) with a woman giving her baby up and then finishing college and having a career.. and if one looks at it from that kind of un-emotional thinking there is nothing wrong..

But how do we define a woman? And her life.. IMO we can not deny our love of our babies.. It is not human.. and I believe that in my era this was expected for/of some of us.. as Carole Anderson wrote.. “the real issue for me was losing my son.” And I add… why was there no help for me in the sixties so I could keep my son?
Is that not part of a womans right?

I was expected to get a job after having my bson.. I was expected to ‘get on with it’…
Soooooo

Are we.. were we…(some as always) denying the fact that we were women… and cutting a part of ourselves away so we could be liberated? So we could be like a man and have a career.. and wear a grey flannel suit..
Are our children that we relinquished expected to just say.. “okay its fine.. we don’t mind”?

And.. the premise is.. we were giving our babies up because we wanted to have a career.. heck the Social workers wrote that on some of our files.. we hear from adoptees coming in angry with the fact that their birthmom wanted to finish college instead of mothering them.. wanted a career..

That is not liberated in any way shape or form.. No one is liberated when the secrecy of adoption is still being kept in some places.. No one is liberated when they have to give a part of themselves away in order to 'live' in a world where competition is the rule of the day.. Because.. when a woman has a baby and is taking care of a baby on her own.. she is vulnerable.. (some as always)

Jackie

Please note I am thinking out loud here and do not have anything really sorted..

[Blessed2x.]

I find the historical context and history of adoption very interesting. It helps me to understand things from a different perspective. I think this is why I found the book The Girls Who Went Away so helpful. While I don't have any history to add myself, I look forward to any more posts made! Good topic

[SuddenlySusan]

Originally Posted by Jackiejdajda

And.. the premise is.. we were giving our babies up because we wanted to have a career.. heck the Social workers wrote that on some of our files.. we hear from adoptees coming in angry with the fact that their birthmom wanted to finish college instead of mothering them.. wanted a career..

My mother drilled it into my head that I needed to go to college, preferably becoming a teacher. I was a good student and took honors classes in high school for college credit. When I was a senior, I applied to college and was offered a full-ride. I also became engaged. Shortly after graduation from high school, I became pregnant, and my fiance (under duress from his mother) decided that marriage and family were not what he wanted after all, and ended our relationship.

My parents were supportive of me, and my mother desparately wanted me to raise my son. However, her own mother treated me like dirt, and was emotionally abusive towards my mother. My uncle was mean and verbally abusive as well. Unfortunately, my grandmother manipulated and controlled my mother, and I did not feel that my mother could protect my child and me from the abuse of her family members. I did not want my child to grow up hurting from being referred to as a bastard child and feeling "less than."

My choices, as I saw them at the age of 18, were to go ahead and go to college (my son was due close to spring break), and raise my son with the support of my parents... or, to protect him from verbal and emotional abuse by the family matriarch and my loser uncle, and relinquish my parental rights, and surrender.

I chose to surrender. By doing so, I also had to decline my full ride scholarship and financial aid package to college. Then, I went away. When I went into labor, my mother flew out and got to see my son. She begged and begged me to keep him and raise him. She fell apart when I went through with it, and she carried that burden with her to the grave.

Hindsight is 20/20. Eventually, my father moved my mother away from her toxic family. Eventually, I realized that my mother would have stood up to her own mother in order to protect her grandson. I wish I had believed in my mother enough to trust that she would take care of us. I will always regret that. Although she held him in the hospital, she never got to see him again.

After I came back home, my life started crumbling from the trauma of separation from my son. I tried to go to college, but I could not keep it together.

I finally did go back to school full-time and got my (first) college degree... when my son was 17 years old.

When my son and I reunited, just before he turned 36, he thought that I had given him up to go to college. He didn't know that I was engaged, preparing for marriage and family. He didn't know that I was trying to protect him from the harsh judgment of society. He didn't know that I didn't get my college degree until he was 17.

I gave up college for him, I didn't give him up for college. Not the story the agency told, however. They seemed to have left that part out... and the part about him being conceived in love and being wanted and loved by me, and by my parents. According to the agency, I traded my son for a college education. I am glad I lived long enough to tell him the truth.

Peace,
Susan

[Jackiejdajda]

SuddenlySusan wrote

My parents were supportive of me, and my mother desparately wanted me to raise my son. However, her own mother treated me like dirt, and was emotionally abusive towards my mother. My uncle was mean and verbally abusive as well. Unfortunately, my grandmother manipulated and controlled my mother, and I did not feel that my mother could protect my child and me from the abuse of her family members. I did not want my child to grow up hurting from being referred to as a bastard child and feeling "less than."

Its that generation.. Its that thinking that ‘inappropriate sexual activity’ is something a woman/girl must not do..

From Beggars and Choosers.. Rickie Solinger page 114

Carole Anderson wrote emphatically for the group in 1981 when she claimed, “(O)ur pain is a feminist issue.” In the late 1970’s and early 1980’s, when Anderson, Lee Campbell, Mary Ann Cohen, and Sandy Musser defined the birthmother’s experience, they connected it to all the major claims of the contemporary women’s movement. From their point of view, the coerced adoptions they’d experienced were meted out as “punishment of inappropriately sexual active women.” As girls rendered defenseless by society’s gender imperatives, they felt strongly that they had been manipulated and lied to.

We were being punished.. and our children were being punished.. And no one stood up in those early days (except for the women of CUB) to say.."This is wrong"..
And I was steeped in secret keeping at that time..

And Susan.. I was thinking along a similar line.. I did not want my son to have to suffer the condemnation of my society.. my family.. and I knew knew it would happen.. Why give that kind of job to a kid.. to have to deal with a society that had such a blind spot..
Yes I had sex.. yes I was breaking the rules and I knew it.. but darn it.. It was not fair..

My choices, as I saw them at the age of 18, were to go ahead and go to college (my son was due close to spring break), and raise my son with the support of my parents... or, to protect him from verbal and emotional abuse by the family matriarch and my loser uncle, and relinquish my parental rights, and surrender.

I chose to surrender. By doing so, I also had to decline my full ride scholarship and financial aid package to college. Then, I went away. When I went into labor, my mother flew out and got to see my son. She begged and begged me to keep him and raise him. She fell apart when I went through with it, and she carried that burden with her to the grave.

She wanted you to buck the system.. But at what cost.
You were the mother.. You protected your son..

I did not fully understand what it was like in my time.. till I read 'Wake Up Little Susie' and 'Beggars and Choosers'. Till I heard Rickie Solinger speak.. about what she had researched and learned..
I had forgotten that I was not allowed birth control pills even tho they were invented when I was sexually active..
I knew I was afraid to go the to doctors but that was the extend of my knowledge..

But when we break the rules and are punished.. we maybe at times do not see the overall reasons..

Hindsight is 20/20. Eventually, my father moved my mother away from her toxic family. Eventually, I realized that my mother would have stood up to her own mother in order to protect her grandson. I wish I had believed in my mother enough to trust that she would take care of us. I will always regret that. Although she held him in the hospital, she never got to see him again.

My mom always called the agency through the years.. I knew she was sad about what happened.. her drinking got a lot worse after I relinquished..
Your mom was a fighter and my mom was a realist.. and my mom had to worry about survival.. My sister married well and she knew that there would be trouble if I had an illegitimate baby..
My sister told me so years later..

And what is interesting.. is that my sisters kids are divorced.. having affairs and being normal like the rest of us.. in this contemporary world..

I sit and watch the movies of what it was like back then and I get sick.. Just sick in my heart..

After I came back home, my life started crumbling from the trauma of separation from my son. I tried to go to college, but I could not keep it together.

I finally did go back to school full-time and got my (first) college degree... when my son was 17 years old.

I wish I had of known about CUB.. in the seventies and I wish women (feminists?) had of helped us in those days..

From Beggars and Choosers.. page 116 (I sat and read this chapter last nite)

Unfortunately, the feminist insights and feminist experiences that birthmothers were having at this time did not apparently resonate with many mainstream feminists, often NOW members, to whom they turned for support. After all, women affiliated with NOW and other feminist organizations in the early years of second wave feminism were deeply concerned with articulating resistance to the idea – and to public policies supporting the idea – that motherhood was the life–defining activity and status for women. CUB women who approached these organizations with claims about their rights as mothers seemed out-of-date and non feminist. Few feminists at the time could yet envision a future in which “reproductive rights” included both the right to sex without pregnancy and the right to be a mother.


Bam.. the right to be a mother..

So I think a lot of us headed into secrecy and bad times.. after we relinquished.. And there was no voice out there to help..
I knew nothing of CUB and its connection to feminism.. In my time feminism was defined by a woman going out and getting a mans job and being able to have a legal abortion.. Support her self..

Heck when I tried to have an abortion before it was legal I was sexually abused by the abortionist..
All put down.. all putting me under the thumb..

When my son and I reunited, just before he turned 36, he thought that I had given him up to go to college. He didn't know that I was engaged, preparing for marriage and family. He didn't know that I was trying to protect him from the harsh judgment of society. He didn't know that I didn't get my college degree until he was 17.

Yes.. a woman competing in the world of men was the prime directive.. Women having her job and not being dependent on the husband.. or man.. its surface to me now.. its so darn surface..
But I guess it was change.. Change from what it was like before the second world war when women went into the poor house when she had a baby.. when she and her baby were expected to become less-than.. others..

I gave up college for him, I didn't give him up for college. Not the story the agency told, however. They seemed to have left that part out... and the part about him being conceived in love and being wanted and loved by me, and by my parents. According to the agency, I traded my son for a college education. I am glad I lived long enough to tell him the truth.

I think there is a lot of untold truth out there..
And that is why I want to do this thread..
The actual history of this.. how things changed between the wars.. and how it was before that when women had so many babies they died early.
And how they were put away.. and hidden and all kinds of terrible things..

I am going to find my quotes on how women were treated after the first world war and before the second..

Jackie

[hollyhunter]

I think the fiminists of the 70's had but one agenda, equal employment for equal pay. They did not really touch the true issue of women's rights to be honest. That is the right to choose.They definately had no understanding of issues of motherhood because it seemed they were antimotherhood. It is a woman's right to choose. You should be able to choose whatever career you have an interest in and you should expect to get the same pay as a man, of course, but you should be allowed to choose motherhood. Any time you speak of a woman being oppressed you HAVE to include a woman being forced to give up her child for finanical reasons. Notice how few men there are here trying to reunite with their birthchildren? I chose adoption because I had to finish college. If I didn't it would have been sinle parenthood/ minimim wage with 2 kids. A future I still shutter at dispite the pain I have endured giving up my child. I picked scumbags to father my 2 children and I take full responsibility for that choice. Men allowed to father children and take no responsibility is very oppressive to women. Society "says" they don't condone that but there is very little in place to prevent it happening. It is men getting away with it and women taking the brunt of responsibility that gived us such pitiful few choices.

[RavenSong]

Holly, I have to disagree with you about the 1970's agenda of the feminist movement. There was much more going on in the movement than just "equal employment for equal pay". There are many, many facets of our society that have changed so much since those years (eg., a woman running for President"). I think a lot of people nowadays, especially the younger generation, take many of our current rights and freedoms as women for granted. They don't see how the women's movement actually changed people's minds and society's attitudes. They take it for granted because they don't remember what it was like in previous times. We've come a long way, baby....

Unfortunately, the National Organization for Women (NOW) did not recognize that women and girls who surrendered their children for adoption often did so to avoid "bastardization" of those children. In those days, a woman had to have the "wife" title in order to merit the "mother" title.

Many, many women throughout history have conceived children outside of marriage. Most, however, "sanctified" their children by marrying the fathers before they were born. In olden days, it was not so much getting pregnant outside wedlock that was sinful ~ the actual sin was the young couple not getting married so that the child would be legitimate. At least that's what this book I read last year about the Colonial era in America said ~ I can't remember the title of the book, but I'll look it up if anybody wants.

I think NOW was wrong in not helping their sisters who were surrendering their children because they had no husbands or adequate financial resources.

[keds]

Raven, I agree whole-heartedly. It is now "acceptable" to have a child without benefit of marriage, spouse, partner (IMO it is more acceptable given the number of "hollywood" stars that are adopting but that is MY opinion only).

[Jackiejdajda]

Hollyhunter wrote

They definitely had no understanding of issues of motherhood because it seemed they were antimotherhood.

It was emotional cut off time in those years I think.. The no feeling rule was in effect..
My mom always worked.. and she instilled in my sister and I that we needed to have a way to earn a living.. This so we did not have to depend on 'some' man.. Her mom was a suffragist.. and the funny thing is that my sister and myself ended up being stay at home moms that did the books.. The power behind sort of thing..

And here are these women sitting there telling the women of CUB.. that their pain meant nothing to them..

My grandmother was an angry woman.. she came to Canada with my grandad who she married late.. and then hated it here and proceeded to try and save enough money to go back.. Grandad took the money and bought a house and she had my mom (her second) and her fate was sealed..
And she was angry..

I think my mom got broken by the rules.. and she fought my dad all her life.. but she was a realist and she knew.. and heck maybe this is what those women thought.. Thought that this is one rule not broken (that being work like a man and get his job and more pay).. If a woman is taking care of a child alone.. then she could not show up on time for work some days.. and she could not do the very best.. and we had some men to beat.. we had to win at all costs..

I hated all of this.. in my life..
I hated that I had to be a commercial success.. I hated that I had to be totally independent of a man.. not a partnership.. Just make more money than him or if he walks out be able to have money.. she was scared I guess..

But keeping my son and working to be a commercial success was not on.. and like you say Holly.. you could not do it.. realist.. honest..

And yes those women (womens rights activists) were not honest.. were they..
They had blinders on.. they did not understand what was really going to go down.. heck I did not understand..
I knew nothing of the consequences of giving my son up.. relinquishing my rights..
I went off after I gave him up and became a commercial fashion artist.. a career..
I survived..

Jackie

[Jackiejdajda]

RavenSong wrote

There was much more going on in the movement than just "equal employment for equal pay".

Equal pay and never being dependent on a man.. is what I think of when I think of those times..
But then giving my son up for ‘career’ was a very big issue that happened in my life.. and all else pales.
But if I were to sit and think about what they were also looking into I can not pull up anything.. I bet when I close this computer I will think of lots of stuff..

My mind is blanking.. and I would love to get into this..

Jackie

[hollyhunter]

Originally Posted by RavenSong

Holly, I have to disagree with you about the 1970's agenda of the feminist movement. There was much more going on in the movement than just "equal employment for equal pay". There are many, many facets of our society that have changed so much since those years (eg., a woman running for President"). I think a lot of people nowadays, especially the younger generation, take many of our current rights and freedoms as women for granted. They don't see how the women's movement actually changed people's minds and society's attitudes. They take it for granted because they don't remember what it was like in previous times. We've come a long way, baby....

Unfortunately, the National Organization for Women (NOW) did not recognize that women and girls who surrendered their children for adoption often did so to avoid "bastardization" of those children. In those days, a woman had to have the "wife" title in order to merit the "mother" title.

Many, many women throughout history have conceived children outside of marriage. Most, however, "sanctified" their children by marrying the fathers before they were born. In olden days, it was not so much getting pregnant outside wedlock that was sinful ~ the actual sin was the young couple not getting married so that the child would be legitimate. At least that's what this book I read last year about the Colonial era in America said ~ I can't remember the title of the book, but I'll look it up if anybody wants.

I think NOW was wrong in not helping their sisters who were surrendering their children because they had no husbands or adequate financial resources.

Yeah, you are right raven. I was being very simplistic about the movement. I do know a lot was accomplished. I think my emotions about the things that have been ignored made me say that. Seems we still got some work to do.