Mother’s Day Write-Off: How Hard Is Mother’s Day On A Woman Who’s Surrendered Her Child?
Apr 28 '04
The Bottom Line -------------------------------------------------
I’m in a real sour mood again about adoption in this country, and perhaps that’s what’s jaded me so against Mother’s Day this year. Most of it has to do with the ridiculous new ABC “reality show” Be My Baby.... From the 20/20 website itself:
...so with the guidance of "A Child's Waiting" adoption agency, Jessica and her mother select five families to interview and they become the judge and jury in an extraordinary competition. "You don't want to goof anything like this up — it's too important. It involves a baby's life," says Beth Anne, Jessica's mom. 20/20 cameras were there last October when the competition for Jessica's baby began as the five families arrived at the agency one by one. Each couple would try to convince Jessica that they should be the parents of her unborn son.
So, will there be an immunity challenge? Will the people who can eat the most bugs get the baby? Will there be one really evil family that we won’t want to see get the kid, whom we just “love to hate”? I mean, come one people, let’s get real here. How low can we sink? I’m about ready to cash in all of my Disney stock over this one, and most of the stock I’ve had for nearly 20 years now.
For the last ten years of my father’s mother’s life, I really didn’t talk to her. I didn’t hate her or avoid her or anything like that. I just didn’t make an effort with her. I don’t regret it either. You see, one time at a family gathering, she spoke of my father and two of his friends he hung around with when he was younger. She made the remark. “Isn’t it funny how the three of them never had any kids.” I was standing right there. There were other family members present. Not one person called her out on that remark. I’d always known she’d played favorites with my cousins over me, but that remark just showed me where I stood with her in that family. I spent years feeling like an outsider in my family, and not always understanding why. My cousins would all sit around talking about who looked like who, and there I sat. It’s awful to be in a room filled with people who look alike and you don’t. It may seem small and trivial to some, but it means something to a lot of adoptees.
My parents did the best they could with the information they had. I was adopted privately, through the Pastor of the church they attended. He and his wife knew my birthmother’s family and the family I was adopted by. Was it a good match? Yes, for the most part. I know I did better than most as I’ve seen a lot of friends who were adopted be stuck in families hat are so screwed up... Many agencies placed in the past (and many still do) by how much you can pay. Prospective adopted parents, in their frenzied quest to have a baby, don’t want to learn about the problems associated with adoption. Anyone who’s reading this who does, I’d suggest picking up any book on adoption by Betty Jean Lifton. You’ll be doing yourself and the child you may adopt (or already have adopted) a great favor.
But Mother’s Day was always a sad day for me, and I imagine it was for years for my birthmother too. She told me once about someone saying how wonderful it was for her to have “all her kids together” before we were reunited, and how she couldn’t help but to think in her mind that wasn’t true. She was suffering on the inside, and coming from a time when the only counseling she received was to “pretend the baby died” or “forget that you had her”. People who knew the family told my mother that the day my birthmother surrendered me to the people who would bring me to my new home, she was cold and handed me over without saying a thing, just turned and walked away. I guess that was supposed to make me not like her or not want to know her. It didn’t work that way at all. After all, what did anyone expect? She’d made her decision and should she now carry on, screaming as I was torn from her arms? I was also lied to later on, when I was 17 and wanted to meet her that she didn’t want to meet with me. For 10 years I felt as if my own mother had rejected me when the reality was that she didn’t even know that I wanted to meet her. Again, people in the middle (not my parents) manipulated the situation. For whatever purpose, I’ll never know. It devastated me in a way I couldn’t imagine and in a way I couldn’t pinpoint until I looked back on those years with the perspective of being a reunited adoptee reading books on the subject. It would have been so much easier had I or anyone close to me known that my lack of self-confidence and poor sense of self-worth was probably triggered by the perceived second rejection by my mother.
There’s more to adoption, than just being handed a baby. Most prospective adoptive parents are so focused on just getting a child that they don’t bother or want to know that there will be differences in their lives, nor the differences the child they are bringing into their home will feel. The bottom line to me is that you are going to have a child that was born to someone else. No matter what is done legally, nothing can change that fact. There will be personality traits which may surface and be completely alien to you. These may not necessarily be bad ones, as my main one seems to be my love of baseball which I inherited from my birthmother (although she loves the Yankees and I love the Mets). My parents never watched a baseball game before I started putting them on by myself and watching. I did notice, through the years, that anytime I acted out or did anything “bad” my mother would attribute it to what came from my birth-grandfather, who had problems after World War II in which he lost part of his leg. I don’t know how much of his problems were the result of the war or the result of genetics.
The last few months have been hard on me personally within my family as I dealt with life-altering decisions. I looked to my parents for support. They are almost 80 now, and really more focused on themselves. The only unconditional support I received was from my birthmother. I attribute it mostly to age on their part, but it still didn’t make the situation easier for me to make a decision. For the first time since I knew her, I think my birthmother got a little angry with my parents when I told her some of the things they’d said. However, she then said with great understanding that it is just the way their generation thinks (her mother - my birth-grandmother, and my mother actually used to be friends). Where would I have been without her? I don’t know. I needed her in my life at this time and she was there for me. She helped me to understand things and put things in perspective as well as giving me options. Shame on any parent who would shut such a person out of their child’s life if they do indeed truly love them and are not just concerned with “ownership.”
That’s not to say all birthmothers are angels. I’ve known a few in my years of talking about adoption who are a bit loopy. There are even a few to whom I’ve said “I thank God every day that you’re not my birthmother”, but then I’ve said that about some adoptive parents as well. I just wish we as a society would start a dialogue about this so people like me who spent years searching for who they are could find the truth without being made to feel guilty over it.
On this Mother’s Day, think of all the women who are crying for the children they gave up. You won’t see them anywhere, but they’re all around you. If you’re adopted, please consider registering with the International Soundex Reunion Registry at http://www.plumsite.com/isrr, even if it’s just to say thanks and let the woman who surrendered you know you’re all right. There are many mothers who don’t wish to be found, but there are also many who just want to know what happened to the child they gave up.
For more information on searching, please see: http://www.plumsite.com/shea/series.html
© 2004 Patti Aliventi
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