Origins-USA Mother's Stories Project has stories from more than two dozen mothers whose loss es occurred between 1956 and 2005. To the right of this page are videos, some of which express quite graphically how mothers experience their loss over the course of their lives. The most common phrase is a version of "it effects every part of my life."
Now, to be honest, we of course have to admit that these are what sociologists would call a self-selecting group. These stories and videos are all of mother who not only lost a child, but who sought the support of others in that situation - perhaps to locate the child or to deal with having been found, or just to deal with the myriad emotions. In addition to that, these are mothers within that subset who had the courage to tell their stories. Given all that, I believe they are valuable testimonies and are representational of many, many mothers less able or willing - or who simply don't know these venues exist.
Today, I came across the United by Love website which boasts a very specific, and openly stated goal:
Families Supporting Adoption [FSA], an organization sponsored by LDS Family Services, seeks to promote a positive view of adoption.In their efforts to "promote a positive view of" family separation and losing one's child, they have solicited statements from some of their "happy birthmothers." Odd things is that they also say it is still a part of their lives, albeit a good part.
One woman works in an OBGYN office and says: " if not daily then weekly I have an opportunity to talk about adoption."
Another says: "Though adoption will always be a component of who I am, it certainly does not define me."
Becca shares: "Adoption is still a huge part of my life and I love it! I enjoy attending Group each week and speaking on birthparent panels--it's fun..."
And the final mother to chime in says: "Life as a birthmother has so many ups and downs."
These were each of their opening lines! Their brief vignettes reveal that all of these puppet volunteers for FSA struggle to keep their pain in supression: "I don't tend to dwell on the fact that I placed a daughter in an adoptive home over sixteen years ago....I'm too busy carpooling and helping with homework for that ;-)"
It also shows how it will continue to be with them: ". My dream job is to be a caseworker at LDSFS and to work with adoptions! I plan on being an advocate of adoption for the rest of my life"
In others posts here and on Facebook the Jaycee kidnapping brought up discussions of Stockholm Syndrome and in what ways, and to what degree, it does or does not ring true for adoptees. Suggest that agencies such as this that keep these mothers around as marketing tools for new recruits snack loudly of cult tactics, and these women's voices sound programmed and brainwashed. They are for me reminiscent of mothers Bill Pierce of NCFA used to drag with him on public appearances. Back in those days his puppets were trained to say things like: "I did the right thing. This is for the best." "I know my child will have a better life." They sounded robotic.
I myself went through a subconscious need to justify that what I did Right (with a capital R!) by exploring adopting a child shortly after I married in the 70s. Fate also gave me a neighbor who had adopted three older siblings, changed the names of these obviously Mexican children to more Americanized names and terminated the adoption of the youngest. While I tried hard to see that the two remaining kids had a "better life" trough adoption, I knew they had to have scars about losing their brother like that. This was the first crack in my "better lif" brainwashing...there were too many more since the to count, though I started collecting news reports and they later became part of The Dark Side.
Adoption is so much about pretense, lies, and big time manipulation...and HAS to be, because there are far too babies one can rely on to be just handed over without all this encouragement! And that's not good for business. So we exploit mothers' weaknesses and then exploit them yet again and continuously to help recruit and exploit still more...
Bottom line seems to be that is is a life-altering experience one way or the other. I work just as hard to stop the coercion and exploitation, the marketing, the supply-and-demand and profiteering as these women do to support it.They have their life's work - for now - and I have mine. They may continue on their path or change with time. I am here to stay at this point in my life!
I think it shows how much harder we need to work as "they" continue to produce more of these volunteers for family destruction.
Your thoughts...?
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