Stories of Adoption

Just finished reading Shadow Mothers (Stories of Adoption and Reunion). As compilation of writings by non-writers go, it was well done. Each chapter was the story of a mother who gave her child up for adoption in the 50s and 60s and then reunited later in life. It gave a very good picture of why adoption was chosen, the type of support these women got and the way they were treated by family and community.

The interesting things I noted were:

• The lack of self esteem among the women. Sometimes I think this was a result of the pregnancies and sometimes I think it was the cause of the unplanned pregnancies. All of the women seemed to be looking at this as a reason for the unplanned pregnancy.
• The lack of perceived choices for future. All of these women seemed to think they would marry and have children and that this was about the only choice for them.
• None of them were counseled as to what their choices were. Many of them who considered the possibility of keeping their child were counseled against it.
• They all were broken hearted and obsessed with the baby they had given up.

This is not a representative group of birth mothers. They all reunited with their offspring at some point. I have no idea statistically how many birth mothers do, or at least want to, reunite. I also thought it was striking that only 2 of the mothers included in the book had girls. Do mothers of boys have a harder time giving them up? Does society do more to hide adopted girls? Is the name change with marriage too much of a search obstacle? Again, this is not a representative grouping. But interesting questions anyway.