"Birthmothers Day" - An Adoptee's Perspective
by Anne Patterson
Of all the most condescending insulting visions of adopters and baby brokers(agencies and attorneys), the day called "Birthmother's Day" would win the prize for ignorance and disregard.
While the traditional adoptee has had to live with a blind invisibility about our issues of loss and grief this celebration takes the whole thing to the largest level of illusion.
Adopted adults have lost their mothers, their fathers, their families, their names, their heritage, their history, the rights to who they were when they were born, their birth certificates, and their identities. It is quite a long list of losses, and one's that should never be ignored.
Few adoptees are allowed to express their true feelings of loss and grief at being separated from their mothers and natural families. Birthmothers Day Celebrations is not only a total disregard for our feelings of sorrow but an overt exploitation of our pain.
I would never expect any mother who surrendered a child to adoption to celebrate that loss. I would further never expect any adopted adult or adopted child to "celebrate" their loss either.
The presumption that we adoptees need a separate day to think of our mothers is shocking.
Most adopted adults have spent years both mourning, dreaming, fantasizing, grieving, hoping and trying to come to terms with our separations and loss in adoption.
This celebration is an "in your face" slap to natural mothers who are seen as not being worthy enough to be thought of, loved or cherished on what a normal society calls "Mothers Day".
To think of my mother (or any mother) "celebrating" separation from their child is very cruel. It would be up there with divorce day "celebrations" and or "celebrating" diseases and other tragedies.
I personally and professionally decry and boycott all days called "Birthmother's Day Celebrations". Neither my mother who surrendered me to adoption, nor I, would wish to celebrate.
If we created "Infertility Celebration Day" I bet those who benefit financially from adoption, and potential adoptive parents might be offended.
Maybe that is what I will do: bake a cake and celebrate another person's pain?? Where is humanity going when such cruel orchestrations exist?
Copyright 2002 © Anne Patterson
1 comment:
My Taiwanese mother can only be my mother.
I sent her a Mother's Day card, too. True, she can't read the poetic English, but I thought she would feel a bit more "real" if I acknowledged her position as my first mother.
- Mei-Ling
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