The
popular press likes to tell North Americans that when 'God'
makes these mistakes it is up to single expectant mothers
to right them by giving their baby to 'deserving' people
who want them. Now, why didn't I think of that? It's a hell
of a marketing idea although you wouldn't expect it to work
on anyone over the age of five. But what a great way to
make money, brokering such deals! Fixing God's mistakes
and getting rich in the process. This really is capitalist
utopia, helping God out and making money at the same time.
It's a hell of a thing.
This
bizarre fantasy of the pro-adoption world that is apparently
widespread in the United States and even portrayed on American
television as an appropriate 'origins' story to feed to
adopted children, led me to ponder very seriously on the
mental state of adopters and pre-adopters who actually recite
this trash. That they repeat it to 'their' adopted children
is scary news indeed. It is a great shift of responsibility
to put adoption onto God as if adoption is merely a part
of God's great plan for humanity. Yeah, right. Sure it is.
That
the media so often perpetuates this unethical garbage is
extremely disturbing.
While
it may be tempting to think about all the money I could
make brokering the sale of other women's babies, I would
expect the average American would have the basic understanding
that a pregnant woman is not on a level with God in the
first place and therefore is not expected to tidy up after
God has been so inattentive to her job description, that
a baby has actually been carelessly placed in the wrong
uterus. It does not take a great intellectual leap to work
out that there is a serious credibility issue inherent in
this theory even though it may reflect very sloppy work
on God’s part.
The
mother could be expected to know and understand that she
could not compete with God by making a solar galaxy in say,
6 or 7 days or
thereabouts. So what makes her think she has the authority
to fix one of Gods greatest mistakes by rearranging babies
and mothers and thereby obscuring their genealogy? Where
does this belief originate?
Well,
according to aspects of the American press, God has taken
to whispering in the ears of young and not so young, very
gullible and stressed women with a baby on the way, that
she should take pity on some nice people who need a baby
due to their own botched encounters with sexually transmitted
infection, or are otherwise infertile due to unfortunate
lifestyle choices such as smoking and being overweight,
two situations that frequently lead to infertility. And
on hearing this message from God of course the mother knows
she must give her baby to these other very deserving people.
Um…..forgive
me if I don't understand that this is the mother who is
not experiencing infertility and therefore has not ruined
her child bearing equipment, who must sacrifice herself
and her infant for the people who…..what was that rationale
again? I never get this right!
The
social workers and other adoption brokers who actually hand
over children to adopters could consider using this belief
system or world view
as a yardstick to weed out mentally/emotionally challenged
pre-adopters and any descendants they may have, to ensure
they get a mark against their name that would make them
ineligible to adopt anything other than a flea or a tadpole
for the next 150 years.
This
would ensure that this particular American psycho-babble
would die out along with any genuine genetic deficiencies
that may have contributed to the nation's infertility in
the first place. It would ensure that there would be no
further need for the adoption of human beings at all because
the people who want them/get them would no longer be with
us. Perhaps infertility itself is actually God's way to
eradicate intellectually challenged belief systems. Well,
it's just a theory. But I digress.
When
the baby is gone we are left with the mother who has displayed
an awesome martyrism, a tremendous self-sacrifice, by offering
up her new born infant on the euphoria of indecision, acute
fear and a lack of social services. Often she agrees to
adoption in the later stages of pregnancy before the baby
is real to her. She may do it by signing a 'pre-birth' agreement
to surrender her child at birth. But to all intents and
purposes it appears to the outside world (that is, the real
world outside of adoption) that she is willingly taking
part in the transaction of selling the child so others can
gain.
That
the brokers get the considerable amounts of cash extracted
from the adopters probably contributes to the American public
perception that the mother must be a gullible woman who
probably deserves to lose her child to someone who clearly
has a bit more upstairs, in the location where United States
citizens calculate profit and loss. It's the North American
admiration for the dollar, the capacity to make it and the
scorn reserved for those who don't as well as those who
appear to be giving it away for free, as these mothers do.
I suspect most surrendering mothers have an environmentally
induced need for the approval of adults and that they do
not see themselves as adults at the time of the pregnancy
or adoption. It is only later, after she has awakened from
the long sleep of denial that the surrendering mother looks
back and begins to understand her state of mind that contributed
to the theft of her infant. Consenting to adoption for no
valid reason – and displaying “unselfishness”
to please other people is not a valid reason - is caused
by a type of learned helplessness that has been identified
as present in battered wives who keep insisting they ‘love’
their batterers. They lose all ability to judge the danger
they are in and continue to flirt with their own death.
They are confused and anxious to please. They believe the
battering to be their own fault. They suffer from low self-esteem.
They crave the approval of their batterer.
The same thing happens to vulnerable expectant mothers when
their family, the state, the community and the press, gang
up on them to insist on forced adoption. It’s a hostage
situation. Victims of hostage aggression are often identified
as suffering from Stockholm syndrome, a dependency phenomena
that originates from a position of powerlessness or slavery,
and that plays havoc with the minds of its victims. Thus
the need for approval, learned helplessness and Stockholm
Syndrome all come together and play a role in the suppression
of birth memories that can and do lie dormant in the mother
for many, many years following her apparent collusion in
‘consenting’ to adoption. She may have signed
her name but she has no recall of doing so. That’s
not consent – that’s coercion.
The modern process of breaking the spirit of an expectant
mother for the purpose of stealing her infant, reminds me
of that old film taken by Hitler’s doctors of their
own medical experiments, whereby they left a parent locked
alone in a room with their baby, but without food or drink.
They watched and filmed through a one-way mirror as the
adult victim unraveled. It only took a couple of days for
the adults to crack completely. In the same way a vulnerable
expectant woman is easy pickings for the public and its
press. The North American press behaves just like Hitler’s
doctors, carrying out goulash experiments on defenseless
victim mothers, who are unable to fight back or protect
themselves. The North American press appears to be in love
with adoption. Or maybe in love with the wash of money always
associated with slavery?
The
surrendering mother gets a great big tick for agreeing to
adoption. It's the oppressors’ tick of approval. The
internalized oppression that leaves her convinced she has
no right to parent her own baby, is driven by a national
press that is at the forefront of the pro-adoption movement.
Writing sappy stories to convince the mother she must sacrifice
her baby to prove she is ‘unselfish’ would be
amusing if it were not so sinister.
Bernstein and Woodward, please come back, your country needs
you to carry out investigative journalism into the sinister
adoption industry of the USA and Canada.
Some
mothers who surrendered subsequently front web sites –
or claim to - where they forcibly promote and peddle the
idea of adoption to other vulnerable women. In my most charitable
moments I think this is because of their current victim
status as suffering from learned helplessness, Stockholm
syndrome, a bottomless need for adult approval, or a combination
of all three. Women who lack self esteem do seem to have
a bottomless need for the approval of others.
But what these first mothers are finding is that their adoring
public is not as adoring as they expected, and even suspect
their motives for trying to convince other women to surrender
their unborn children. And I must confess that in my most
cynical moments - and I have many - I toy with the idea
that the adoption industry, known to be worth billions of
dollars, is actually the wallet behind this aggressive and
very organized marketing campaign for more adoptive stock.
For
many surrendering mothers, the craving for approval originates
in a deep well of insecurity that cannot be assuaged no
matter how much approval she gets, even though taking part
in the formal abandonment of her new born infant is a pretty
spectacular, not to mention reckless way to gain the approval
of others. If the adoption brokers slip her some cash cunningly
renamed 'education fees' then at least they have shared
some of the profit they made from selling her infant to
the emotionally desperate, unstable people who constitute
their client group. The American public may even perceive
her more kindly if she makes a little money on the side.
When
a pregnant woman has no funds, no support and nowhere to
live, how attractive it must be to become a martyr instead
of an abandoning mother. To be a kind, caring self-sacrificing
brave soul, so UNSELFISH that she would deny herself her
baby by generously giving it up, is almost saintly behavior.
In the process she escapes a grinding poverty, and social
ostracism. The college 'scholarship' she may be offered
by the brokers may be thankfully accepted as a marker for
her sacrifice. I view these financial inducements as a type
of headstone, a marker to her pain.
The
mother who surrenders may sleepwalk for a long time before
waking to the horror of her loss. During the early stages
of her long sleep she will believe the hype of her oppressors,
that she will grieve and recover and go on to enjoy the
happy life that she deserves. It will be some time before
she wakes to the unpleasant truth that the grief goes on
and on and on.
Sooner
or later the mother understands that the 'open' adoption
she was lured into was merely a ghastly, insincere game
and that the painful hook upon which she finds herself dangling,
has become a permanent state of being. The grief the brokers
told her would be temporary becomes a life sentence. She
may kid herself for a bit longer, that the grief will pass
but inevitably she will know that adoption is the wound
that does not heal. It is the gift that keeps on giving
- depression, shock and pain. It's the scam of scams of
the 20th century, and now the 21st.
It makes a mockery of human rights. The American press might
like to write about that. Bernstein and Woodward, are you
there?
