What kind of woman keeps one child, gives away another?

Someone  (Anonymous) left a somewhat nasty comment on an earlier post about Vernita Lee, Oprah's mother, asking "what kind of woman keeps one child, gives away another?" Well, I'll tell you, a desperate woman. A woman who feels she has no choice. A woman boxed in the corner. A woman who is at her wit's end about how she is going to manage another baby.

Vernita said that if she had another baby she would not be able to get "off welfare," and anyone poor can understand that reasoning. Oprah did say that her mother had a stroke, and so that was supposed to have affected her speech, but her speech came across quite clearly. And she did say her baby was beautiful, and she felt bad about leaving her in the hospital.

Lorraine

Though I am frustrated with your the much older Vernita handled the reunion, as a previous post discussed,* (as was the angry Anonymous**) with her relinquished-and-eventually-adopted daughter, Patricia, showing little affect, never once looking at her daughter, feeling embarrassed--god it was painful for me to watch--I do understand her. Somewhat. It's hard to explain to anyone but another first/birth mother just how low we feel for giving up a child. I mean, I wonder if shooting a person can make you feel worse? I don't know. The deed is over, you can ask forgiveness from the deceased family and from God, if you believe. And then you get on with your life.

But us? We assume the child is still living and so for us there is no way to seek redemption. I never had the kind of blind faith that this was God's plan and I was some kind of pawn in it to have the kind of glassy-eyed acceptance of our state that I've seen in a few religious-inspired videos that I've seen. To me they look like first birth mothers on their way to a nervous breakdown somewhere down the road.

On the other hand...Raven left a comment that when she was 17 and awaiting for the birth of her child, no one ever asked her how she felt about what the forthcoming relinquishment of her aby. They didn't ask because they knew how horrible what was happening was happening. Patrick, my daughter's father, was with me throughout the pregnancy, and he didn't ask either; there was nothing I could say; he instinctively understood what a horrendous, awful act it is to give up a child for adoption.  "If you have to ask" you'll never understand.

It's sad that no one consoled Raven, that she was alone in every possible sense of the word, during her pregnancy and relinquishment--some tea and sympathy surely would have helped her feel less like a pariah--but that kind of shunning reflects the ethos of the era. One can only hope that it is a thing of the past. We can be glad that today fewer families and teens and women rely on the "adoption option."--lorraine
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*Oprah's mother didn't die when her secret daughter was revealed


**Oprah reveals she has half-sister; her mother was afraid to admit the secret

Correction re welfare made.