Today just a link to a New York Times columnist, Ross Douthat, about the perils of creating children-for-hire. It's a good read:
The Birds and the Bees (via the Fertility Clinic) and do leave a comment.
And if you have been away from the blog over the weekend (and why not?) yesterday's post is about the end of a friendship with a friend whose opinion is that birth/first mothers who search are wrong, wrong, wrong. I think she would like to stone us because we are "disturbing" the happy, non-troubled adoption that she is sure is in place.
This morning with family my husband and I went downtown for the annual Memorial Day parade in Sag Harbor and ran into one of Yvonne's friends, with whom we are also friendly. My husband (when I was not around) told her that Yvonne and I had a huge falling out and it was not going to be breached. I'm no longer even sad that the friendship ended; I am disturbed that so many people feel that it is all right to trample the feelings and sensibilities of birth/first mothers because after all, we did it! We got pregnant! We surrendered a child! We signed a paper that insisted on anonymity because we had no choice! Therefore, we ought to go quietly to our emotional graves.
Screw 'em.
--lorraine
That's my niece (by marriage) and her two kids, Charlie with the flag and Anna peering from behind it.
Lorraine, YAY! So very true - I haven't read the article yet, but I get the rest in a very real, very visceral way. I have had that issue for years. I won't anymore. I don't actually care what others think or feel or say...at least not in a way that makes a huge difference to me as a person...with regard to my child and the adoption of my child by others. The majority of women don't have a clue and I am, at least at this point, not going to be their stomping ground.
ReplyDeleteBRAVO!
Onya!!Go girls!
ReplyDeleteI'm glad you finally got rid of her Lorraine. I have known many people like this in my life and they are as toxic as cancer. It is impossible to be friends with someone who cuts you down, plays the devil's advocate and rubs salt into your wounds. Anyone who says that you are their worst nightmare, or anyone who says someone makes their life hell due to pain that they caused should be seen as a red flag and a person who wants to destroy you. I think there are things Yvonne never told you and instead of being mature and disscussing them, she chooses to put a bad light on you. Sad at 80 she is still immature. Maybe she is senile too. But whatever her problem is, she is wrong in her opionion and you have an Adoptee's word on that. ;)
ReplyDeleteThe comment about being a "reproductive agent" was insulting, as was the "worst nightmare" comment, The recent comment about hoping someone else gets to adopt really had nothing to do with you or me or any other mother who had surrendered.
ReplyDeleteEnding the friendship is your own choice, but this seems a harsh way to treat an elderly lady who has otherwise been a friend.
Other people adopting, wanting to adopt, being happy when their friends adopt is not an insult to me, even people who know I have given up a child and that it was a terrible thing for me and him.
Everyone has their own life, their own outlook shaped by experiences we do not share, and it can't always coincide with ours. How many friends would any of us have left if they had to agree on everything and never hit a sensitive subject for us? Get mad. yes, I have done it too, but cut the person out of your life? What is gained by that?
What is gained by walking away from a friend who thinks I did a terrible thing by finding my daughter?
ReplyDeleteA sense of my own self worth and self esteem.
By ending the friendship, I do not have to be in the presence of someone who condemns me and, by the way, you ipso facto. I do not need to get upset every time I see her. I do not want to think about adoption every time I pass a second house on the block. I do not need to wonder all the time I pass the house, or see the child, who the child's natural mother is, and how she is doing. I do not need to carefully monitor my conversation. I do not want such a toxic presence in my life.
maryanne, did you read the Quote of the Day?
ReplyDeleteWhen someone dislikes you it may be adaptive to dislike them back.
Do you keep people in your life who think you did something incredibly bad by finding your son? If so, you are a sucker for punishment.
Concerning adoption, I reject the idea that we all have various opinions and should agree to disagree. Adoption has affected my life profoundly and it is an erormous part of who I am. Accepting outright insults about birth mothers is not a matter of being open to differing opinions. For me, those insults would be an outight rejection of my worth as an individual. It's not like debating chocolate vs. vanilla or liberal vs. conservative.
ReplyDeleteThe person who most thinks I did something bad by finding my son when I did, and contacting him when I did, is me, and maybe him. This is not meant as a general principle for all mothers, but as my response to the specifics of my own situation and the consequences of finding and contacting a young adoptee.
ReplyDeleteI did not help my son in any way by contacting his parents when he was 13, spying on them including looking at a used car they had for sale, or walking up to him after school at age 16. These actions all caused harm, including the adoptive parents picking up and moving my son from a community where he was happy and comfortable to one where he was not.
I am terribly sorry for what I did, and I feel my actions not only harmed my son but lost me at least 18 years of relationship with him. For me and for him the whole thing did not turn out well. So if anyone thinks I should have left my son alone until he was older, I have to agree with them.
Contacting a 16 year old was the second most stupid and disastrous thing I ever did, the first being surrendering him in the first place.
Other mothers, including Lorraine, had better results with the same scenario, but I am not talking about them but about me and what I did. Saying it again, there is no one size fits all, and anyone who searches takes a huge chance of unforseen consequences. No, I do not think everyone should search. No, I do not think it was right to contact my son when I did, even though for others it may have been the best thing.
Does this make me "a sucker for punishment"? No, it makes me a woman who made a couple of very bad mistakes that also had a bad impact on others. What is done cannot be undone, but I do feel I learned something from my impulsive and selfish actions when my son was young, and I am going on from here trying to build a relationship both of us can live with.
I truly do not mind seeing adoptive families any more, as I said before, it has nothing to do with me, and my thinking about my son is not dependent on outside stimuli like seeing an adoptive family, or someone making a comment about adoption. It is there in my head anyhow, not someone else's responsibility to avoid reminding me.
Yes maryanne BUT the point is that Lorraine does not feel bad about searching for Jane and nor should she. Yet Yvonne wants her too so you are creating quite an uncomfortable paradox here as you defend a woman who is wrongly catagorzing when you say people should not catagorize. And as far as Yvonne's age, I don't think her being 80 should have anything to do her being verbally abusive to Lorraine. What is Lorraine supposed to do, keep getting bashed until the woman passes and then give a sweet eulogy at her funeral? How does that help Lorraine? Isn't Adoption deceitful enough? And what would that teach Yvonne? That it is okay to be a selfish uncompromisng wench until the day you die? No. Lorraine has to be honest and truthful to herself. Being a relenquishing Mother is her path, not Yvonne's and therefore Yvonne had no right to anything about it just like a man has no right to state how much labour pains hurt. Stacy-LoL at your comment. You rock. I am sorry if you are in pain maryanne, but deal with it constructivly will you please. And then read what maybe said-which I myself thought-having a child is an event that effects one's soul. It isn't a debate about the preffered toppings on a pizza. Some arguments are SO much righteous than others......
ReplyDelete(Blush)
ReplyDeletesome arguments are SO much *more righteous than others....
swat that *typo fairy, swat her like a fly..:)
Some "arguments" make no sense at all. Nobody was discussing the toppings of pizza, or anything trivial. You are the one trivializing my feelings because they do not agree with your dogma. If Lorraine is happy with getting rid of an ex-friend, which she seems to be, that is fine. If it works for her, good.
ReplyDeleteI was replying to Stacy's query and to Lorraine's allegation that Yvonne had somehow insulted me and all mothers, not just her.
I do not feel that way. So I replied. I am a mother who surrendered too. We do not all have the same feelings or opinions, nor should we.
IA:
ReplyDeleteAmused I am about the reference to giving a sweet eulogy at my friend's funeral because ever since she yelled at me that I was "no more than a reproductive agent" (words I think from the mouths of her other good friends, adoptive grandparents), I have been haunted with the thought of being asked to give such an eulogy someday at the nearby church. And practicing in my head why I would say No.
I don't know if it's this post or one of the other ones about my disintegrating relationship with a friend, but of course "Yvonne" is not her real name, and yes I debated whether I should write about this, deciding to do so because this is a common occurrence among first/birth/real mothers who are "out."
And we all need all the support from each other we can get.
One last note: Yvonne is a longtime friend of adoptive grandparents whose son, the adoptive father of two children from far away and across the sea, is someone who freely has written about his views regarding women people sometimes "mistakenly" call "real mothers." Makes him apoplectic. I would guess, with some feeling of certainty, that that's where she picked up the "reproductive agent" phrase. Nice.
Lorraine,
ReplyDeleteI am with you. I have an old friend who has a brother who adopted. The friend has always felt my pain, or at least I thought so until the adopted "nephew" came of age. I said he should search and of course, she feels her brother should be protected from having the "son" search. Wrong on all points, no longer communicate with her.
My friend knows my pain but her brother comes first and I know it just as mine would but what about the raised adult doesn't he have a say NOT according to those involved in adoption.
40 some year old relationship gone because someone selfishness.
Damn, I wish this were over but it continues. Yvonne called an hour ago, I did not answer, but I feel it is more honorable to try to explain, once more, why we can not be real friends as long as she condemns me and everyone like me, birth/first mothers who searched.
ReplyDeleteInteresting commentary about donor conceived adults:
ReplyDeletehttp://news.yahoo.com/s/ucmg/20100602/cm_ucmg/whendaddysnameisdonor
Good for you for standing up for yourself and other birthmothers. Without us, there would be no 'happy ending' for adoptive families. But how quickly they forget and we are all but an enemy. At least that is how my adoption situation turned out. My DBD turns 18 this November.
ReplyDeleteI am proud of you for standing up for yourself, Lorraine.
ReplyDeleteMy dogma? What the hell is my dogmas maryanne? That this post was about LORRAINE who wanted to find her daughter being cut down for doing so by a biased woman who thinks "birthmothers" should never, ever think of their children again? This situation has to do with Lorraine and Yvonne. So Lorraine acted correctly by ending her "freindship" with someone who antagonized her at every turn. This post was about how to deal with someone who was stone cold and beyond insensative about a situation that broke Lorraine's heart. And futhermore if I had a "friend" who was always saying oh Improper I think it was wrong for you to want to know who gave birth to you, oh you have no right to even wonder, even try to find out, I would of not only dumped them like a bag of trash, they would of gotten the big FU from me too. And let me ask you this-could you honestly be friends with someone who constantly said to you, if you lost one of your cats that failed to come home because you let it out, oh you have no right to look for her. You made a mistake. She may be living with people who want to keep her. So move on with your life. Forget all about Fluffy and let her live in peace. You should not even WANT to see her again! Come on maryanne. You have to understand the point of this anology.....as we both like cats which we discussed before. And you have to understand too that Lorraine was talking about Mothers that want to search for their offspring not ones like you that had a bad experiance. (Which was no offense, rare I might add, most Adoptees would not react the way your son did, most Adoptees can be happy they know their Real Parents, love them and still love their Adoptive Parents). Again I am sorry your relationship with your son didn't go how you wanted it too, but please stop taking it out on everyone else.
ReplyDeleteThat was really cruel, bringing up my cats getting lost and that my son was not like "most adoptees". Luckily I know other mothers who were either rejected or took a long time to establish a relationship, so I know that adoptees come in all sorts. like all people. I am not taking anything out on anyone, no more than you are.
ReplyDeleteLorraine is not the only person who can be hurt by words. I will not respond to anything you write again, anywhere, out of self-protection.
I wouldn't stick around with anyone who spoke to me like Yvonne did and meant it seriously, but then I probably wouldn't have gotten friendly with them in the first place.
ReplyDeleteGotta say I am disturbed to read the comment posted June 3, 2010 6:47 PM, especially as the comment policy states that attacks and nasty remarks will not be published.
That was a nasty attack.
maryanne, are you kidding? You have said nasty things here and at other blogs about birth mothers and suddenly when someone turns the same kind of rhetoric on you, you get all offended. I don't know if you have cats or not, but that was a good analogy--it wasn't about YOUR cats. As for your son, I don't know enough about him to comment but you do so often go on the attack and so don't be surprised if someone reacts.
ReplyDeletestacy wrote:Do you keep people in your life who think you did something incredibly bad by finding your son? If so, you are a sucker for punishment."
ReplyDeleteMy reply to that about regretting contacting my son at 16 was in answer to that question, not a rebuke to Lorraine nor saying that Lorraine should not have found her daughter, or that she should put up with Yvonne saying so. My original words to Lorraine on this subject was just asking if she really wanted Yvonne permanently out of her life, or was just temporarily upset. It is clear that she does want her out, case closed. Lorraine and I are different people with very different stories.
I believe that every mother should do what she feels is right about search and contact, and what she can live with, after careful considerations of possible outcomes. I do not think every mother should search or not search, but that it is an individual personal choice.
If Lorraine feels better with Yvonne out of her life, she did the right thing for her. I am not arguing with that. Conversely me feeling I did not do the right thing has nothing to do with anyone but me. You asked, I answered. In this situation, I did not "go on the attack" towards anyone, but responded to what I was asked, and since you and others did not like the answer, evidently walked into a trap where my intentions were distorted.
I did find my son, I would and have searched everywhere for lost cats, crying the whole time. That I regret the timing of my search and mode of contact is my issue, not yours or anyone else's.