Just Kids
This is an archived blog from 2011. Return to the blog home to read other posts from In the Family Way.
I did a lot of research before embarking on this journey. There's a lot to learn. But any online research quickly reveals stories of people who feel that adoption is not a noble choice, whose experiences point to a darker time when adoption was cloaked in mystery, disinformation, and lies. These stories are from birthmothers who were not given a choice and adopted children who blame their hardships on that first choice in their lives.
I have been entranced with the Patti Smith memoir Just Kids for the past few days. I have always been a fan of Patti's music, but I didn't know much about her life. This book chronicles her early life and her relationship with Robert Mapplethorpe, the brilliant and controversial artist/photographer. They met as 19-year-olds who dreamed of becoming artists and were deeply devoted to one another throughout their twenties until their lives took them in different directions. They remained close for the rest of his life.
I was surprised as the story of Patti's early life unfolded, discovering that she gave birth to a son at 19 and placed the child for adoption, never to meet him. She didn't linger on the details, but the passage about the birth took my breath away:
My labor coincided with the full moon. They [her parents] drove me to the hospital in Camden. Due to my unwed status, the nurses were very cruel and uncaring, and left me on a table for several hours before informing the doctor that I had gone into labor. They ridiculed me for my beatnik appearance and immoral behavior, calling me "Dracula's daughter" and threatening to cut my long black hair. When my doctor arrived, he was very angry. I could hear him yelling at the nurses that I was having a breech birth and I should not have been left alone...
Excerpted from Just Kids by Patti Smith
I was touched and moved by her experience and feelings, fresh even more than 40 years later. Birthmothers were often the neglected part of the adoption "triad". They were "girls in trouble" and adoption was a way to clean up a messy situation and protect her reputation. It was a dirty secret that she was expected to never speak of, feeling shame and regret in never knowing if her choice was right for the child, and thus often felt it was the wrong choice for her. I imagine many closed adoptions left at least one person full of regret: the birthmother who was left wondering if she made the right choice, or the adopted person wondering where they came from.
I was adopted in 1968, a time when girls were not given a choice. I have read several accounts of girls who gave birth at St. Vincent's Home for Unwed Mothers (charming) in Philadelphia where I was born. It was not easy. These girls came from (mostly) Catholic families, sent there to live and be schooled while awaiting the birth of their children. If they were placing their child for adoption, they rarely even saw their babies much less hold them before surrendering them to strangers, their child's parents chosen by someone within Catholic Social Services.
From my own mother, I learned that her path to becoming an adoptive parent was not easy, either. Doctors could find no reason why she was not conceiving, but the nuns who evaluated her and my dad as part of the adoption process told her that God didn't think she deserved children. I don't know a lot of details, but I do remember thinking that my mother endured cruel torture on her path to becoming a parent. It was not an easy path for anyone.
Patti's final thought on her adoption experience speaks of hope and faith that she made the right choice. Her simple recollection speaks to both the tragedy and the beauty of adoption.
My child was born on the anniversary of Guernica. I remember thinking about the painting, a weeping mother holding her dead child. Although my arms would be empty as I wept, my child would live, was healthy, and would be well cared for. I trusted and believed that with all my heart.
Excerpted from Just Kids by Patti Smith
It took a lot of faith for birthmothers to move on with their lives knowing they would never truly know if they made the right choice. But in the vast majority of cases, they allowed their children to experience lives full of love, opportunity, and potential with families that ached to have them. My brother and I are adoption success stories, two of millions, nothing special. But it is special. My parents, the most loving, devoted man and woman I will ever know, were able to build their family thanks to the generous sacrifice of two women in the late 1960s. I will most likely never know the woman who gave birth to me. Pennsylvania and the Catholic Church are exceedingly stingy with information in closed adoptions. But if I ever did, I would simply say, "Thank you for being so unselfish."
If this journey ends with a baby in our lives, it will be with the consent of the birthparents, with them choosing us as the people who will parent their baby. I want my child to know they became a part of our family because their first parents wanted the best for them; they loved them so much, they wanted their child to have every opportunity in life, even if they couldn't provide it themselves. I want my child to know their roots, to know where to go for answers, and to be loved by as many people as possible. And I want the birthparents of my child to know their choice was the right one, never to question if the child they created is happy, well cared for, and loved.
Who would choose any other way?
This is an archived blog from 2011. Return to the blog home to read other posts from In the Family Way.