To stay in the closet, don't publicize being a 'maternal source'

Lorraine

There's always something. In this case, someone, who steps forward as we press for openness in adoption and unsealing original birth records that holds the identities of the adopted. Kathleen Hoy Foley is at it again, and yesterday's New York Daily News had a story about her sad plight of being "pursued" by her daughter, Elaine Penn of New Jersey, and how this is destroying Foley.

Foley claims she wants nothing to do with Elaine, was destroyed by being "found." However she is publicizing a book, or a second book, she is writing about her life and giving up a child for adoption who later is able to find out who she, Foley, is. If someone wants to stay out of the limelight, you would think that she would not write two books about it. The cover design of the first, Woman in Hiding, a True Tale of Back Door Abuse, Dark Secrets and Other Evil Deeds, is so putridity bad it is

NJ Bill Voted out of committee to full Assembly. At bleeping last.

The adoption-reform bill in New Jersey was voted out of the Assembly Human Services committee last night: Six Democrats voted to send the bill to the entire Assembly; four Republicans abstained from casting a vote. (WTF is wrong with all of them? Or is it just a matter of, this is a Dem bill, we don't want to vote for it or any human rights that Dems support?) But I digress.

The testimony ran on for hours, and the hearing lasted from just after 2 p.m. until 7:30 p.m. What I heard (had to leave at 6:30) was incredibly powerful, at least from our side of the fence. Longtime reform activist Pam Hasegawa pointed out--by quoting the actual law--that the legislation from the Forties does not indicate anywhere that it was meant to guarantee secrecy and anonymity from one's own child; an African American woman spoke powerfully about her need to know, despite that she found her first mother but has respected the woman's desire for no contact; another spoke of not being able to get a passport because amended birth certificates stamped more than a year after their birth prevent you from doing so since 9/11; others talked about the serious health risks of not knowing your actual, FIRST FAMILY medical history--your real medical history, that is, as your adoptive family's medical history has nothing to do with you and is meaningless to a doctor; another spoke of treatment options for herself and her children that are frequently determined by what runs in the family. Your biological family. One woman who did not learn she was adopted at 41 said that she realized she had been giving doctors false information all her life. I thought: and her "loving" but not real mother, her adoptive mother, let her do so. What is "loving" and "caring" about that? That woman put "her" daughter's life in danger for 41 years.

Even I can forget how tragic and stupid and deeply emotional it is sometimes to not have your birth certificate, the information about your biological, birth, original, natural, real first family. But it was all there yesterday in strong, irrefutable language. As I listened on the computer, I both cheered and got glassy-eyed. Our heroine, adoptee activist Elaine Penn, did speak, in clear, forceful language even though her first mother is someone...who's somewhat deranged. First-mother activist Judy Foster was great too, her voice breaking when she got caught up by the emotions of the moment. One adoptive mother, also a NJ legislator, spoke in favor of the bill. Hooray for her!

I had to leave when another adoptive mother was speaking against the bill in a cheerful, chirpy voice. Damn her, I thought, she's never been without her birth certificate, she's never wondered whom she is, who she was when she was born, whom her real parents are.                                      

I also heard an adoptee testify against the bill; I can not for the life of me understand why the woman just can't let it be. If she doesn't want her non-fake birth records, fine. But why deny the thousands who do? What is so fearful to her that she has to actively work to punish others who want to know the truth of their identities? She's like a house slave speaking out against the end of slavery because she might lose her home if all slaves are emancipated, and the Masta can't provide any longer. 

Some of the antis were clearly rattled by the emotional, powerful testimony, but still they droned on, talking about how changing the law will increase abortions, while we have the statistics to prove them wrong. Here's the summary from American Adoption Congress:

"The data reveals that if access has had any effect on adoptions and abortions, it has been to increase adoptions and decrease abortions."(For a state by state breakdown see here: Abortion and Adoption Data from States Who Have Enacted Access)

But still the anti-choice crowd (I hate Right to Life as their appellation, I'm right to life too, I'm against the death penalty) lie and repeat this falsehood as if it were written in the Bible. It must be because they have imprinted in their minds the defeated and weary women at the point they surrender their children, days or weeks after giving birth. Hell, I was obsessed that the birth of my daughter not be posted in The Rochester Democrat & Chronicle where I had been a reporter back in 1966; but I never wanted her not to know who I was. I always hoped for and planned for a reunion, no matter how. That was the saddest truth of relinquishment: that the damn surrender papers stipulated that I never be informed, no matter what happened to her, whether she was in need or not. And she was in need, desperate need, as regular readers know. Now tell me, dear legislators opposed to this bill, how in the hell this makes the old legislation in the "best interest of the child? It does not.

Archaic adoption laws such as those in New Jersey and Michigan and New York and 38 other states are in the supposed best interests of the affluent people who are the adopters, plain and simple. They were written by the adopting class, they were for the adopting class, and today they serve only those of the adopting class who are against open records for their children, no matter their age. As for the few women who hide from their children? The state has no such vested interest in protecting them; if that were the case, they would also "protect" putative fathers who do not want to be named. You have a baby; you owe that individual the right to know his or her identity, plain and simple. Your anonymity tramples the right of others. Your anonymity takes away that person's right to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." We need another court case to make its way to the Supremes; maybe the conservatives and libertarians on the current Supreme Court will see through the fallacy of sealed birth records, and how it applies law unequally to a whole class of people.

Back to New Jersey: The NJ Senate has passed the bill four times since 2004, the last in March. Yesterday was its first hearing in the Assembly. (Change of leadership, change of legislation.) Now the bill can at last move forward to the general Assembly for a vote.

I know this bill and all such bills that contain any restrictions--or give that handful of birth-comes-first mothers who are afraid of their children, afraid of contact, afraid of facing reality the opportunity to file a veto riles those who oppose any legislation that does not provide unfettered access to original birth certificates to all adopted people.

People, get real. This bill and the others like it pave the way for a shift in attitude in the mind of the adopters, the numskulls who apparently run the NJ ACLU, the legislators who will vote on these bills, the Catholic Church who typically oppose giving adoptees their original, unamended birth records. But once it becomes clear that no great harm occurs in the land, this cruel and unusual legislation will topple. Consider the Emancipation Proclamation. From Wikipedia:

"The Emancipation Proclamation was criticized at the time for freeing only the slaves over which the Union had no power. Although most slaves were not freed immediately, the Proclamation did free thousands of slaves the day it went into effect^[2] in parts of nine of the ten states to which it applied (Texas being the exception).^[3] In every Confederate state (except Tennessee and Texas), the Proclamation went into immediate effect in Union-occupied areas and at least 20,000 slaves^[2][3] were freed at once on January 1, 1863.

"Additionally, the Proclamation provided the legal framework for the emancipation of nearly all four million slaves as the Union armies advanced, and committed the Union to ending slavery, which was a controversial decision even in the North. Hearing of the Proclamation, more slaves quickly escaped to Union lines as the Army units moved South. As the Union armies advanced through the Confederacy, thousands of slaves were freed each day until nearly all (approximately 4 million, according to the 1860 census^[4]) were freed by July 1865.

Near the end of the war, abolitionists were concerned that while the Proclamation had freed most slaves as a war measure, it had not made slavery illegal. Several former slave states had already passed legislation prohibiting slavery; however, in a few states, slavery continued to be legal, and to exist, until December 18, 1865, when the Thirteenth Amendment was enacted."

Sometimes good work that upends old wrong ways takes time and happens in steps. --lorraine 
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PS: To listen to the testimony, go to: http://www.njleg.state.nj.us/MEDIA/OLS_MEDIA_PLAYER.HTM?wma=!{A}http://rmserver.njleg.state.nj.us/internet/2010/AHU/0614-0200PM-M0-1.wma!

PPS: I've posted one anonymous comment from those opposed; that's it. If the antis want to post here, they need to leave their real name and their url or email address. Then we will consider it.

PPPS: Both books above highly recommended: one is by photographer Jill Krementz How It Feels to Be Adopted and tells first-person stories of adolescent and teenage adoptees with pictures, great for young adoptees dealing with the issue; the second is a wonderful memoir of a birth/first mother, Margaret Moorman, Waiting to Forget: A Motherhood Lost and Found

Part 3: A granddaugher adopted by strangers, the years tick by

The story so far: My daughter, who was adopted, had a daughter she relinquished to adoption when she was twenty. The girl's paternal grandmother offered to raise her, but daughter Jane was opposed to that. To catch up, earlier posts, are linked above and here and here. (They are not running concurrently.)

So...I had to accept that my granddaughter was adopted by genetic strangers, a deplorable ending to my not keeping my daughter when she was born 20 years earlier. By the time Jane told me the fable of the "white lawyer mother" and the "black doctor father" I was not only aware of Jane's prediction to lying, but had read about it as a possible outcome of simply being adopted in the first place--with feeling that the life she was living was somewhat of a "lie."

Her situation was compounded by the fact that Jane apparently had been sexually abused by her paternal adoptive grandmother's life-in companion. I say "apparently" because when Jane finally revealed this, at eighteen, to both me and her adoptive family, the man denied it, he continued to live with the grandmother afterward, and her adoptive parents did not know whether to believe Jane or not. By then the lying had infiltrated so much of her life and her relationships. I too was somewhat skeptical but quite quickly my husband, who had written about the devastating effects of child sexual abuse, and I came to believe her; this was one story of hers that never altered, she never forgot what she told us, as would happen with other stories.

God, I hate writing this because it's revealing hard truths about my daughter; not that she was abused, she was a victim, not guilty; but because the lying was such a factor in her relationships. In time I rarely bothered to contradict her when I knew something could not possibly be true; there was no point in doing that because it only led to further disagreement, and despite everything, I preferred having a relationship with her as it was to not having one at all. Florence Fisher, adoptee-rights pioneer, and I talked about this over the years.

Now before anybody gets crazy, understand that I know only a small percentage of the adopted population are going to react in this way, but there it is: "a rich fantasy life usually spun around two sets of parents....themes of loss, abandonment and rejection, and the child behavior problems often included lying, as they felt they had been lied to...." --David Kirschner, Ph.D, in Adoption: Uncharted Waters: A Psychologist's Case Studies. . . Clinical and Forensic Issues, With Practical Advice for Adoptees, Parents and Therapists
And lying is also common among people who have been sexually abused; Jane would later tell me that she was sent to a therapist--I think her name was Connie--to whom she could not/would not tell the truth about the abuse when it began, and so she began learning a pattern of lying that would later affect her life far beyond the therapist's office.

But it was no made-up story that Jane had a baby she relinquished for adoption. That year, she sent an elaborate Mother's Day card, with the most loving messages she had ever sent and she wrote on it how much I meant to her and how now she understood more about me, and us. Shortly after that, she came for an extended visit. I hugged her, we wept together, she was quite simply, fried emotionally, fried like an egg on a hot rock. She brought pictures of Lisa, she gave me one and kept two others on her night stand. We did not really even talk about the experience much; there was nothing to say. Now she knew. Now she understood more about me, though in a way I had hoped she would never know.

Six years passed.

Jane had another daughter in 1992 in a short lived marriage. Because of her epilepsy, she had a hard time managing a job--she only was able to hang unto low level jobs even though she could be book smart--and she had a hard time balancing work and taking care of her daughter. Jane did not talk about Lisa, and though my other--first--granddaughter was on my mind, I was hesitant to bring her up. Whenever I did, I could sense Jane bristling on the other end of the phone line, I would hear a protracted silence. I thought of her real, biological father, Patrick, who shut down any emotionally difficult conversations and situations. He would simply change the conversation or walk away; though he was very much present when she was born and our relationship continued, after I found her he refused to meet Jane, always having one excuse after another. So now his daughter was acting the same way. A couple of times I called Jane on Lisa's birthday, three days before her own, but it was clear she did not welcome the calls or the reminder. If she was not home when I called, she did not return the call, as she always did otherwise during the periods she was talking to me.

God, just that last sentence alone reveals how difficult our relationship could be. Up and down, in and out, on or off, I never knew what to expect from week to week. The slightest remark could set her off and away--and sometimes it was nothing I did, but what was going on with her adoptive parents--no correct that, her adoptive mother. She was agreeable after I found Jane, but then came to hate me. I do not think that is too strong a word. What's the worse thing her mother, Mary, could say to Jane, and she did: You're just like Lorraine.

At this point, Jane and her daughter were living with Jane's adoptive parents. One time I sent Jane a notice about legislation to open records in Wisconsin, adding maybe you want to do something about this--write a letter, perhaps? It's up to you, you don't have to do anything, but I thought you would like to see this. She'd read my memoir Birthmark and knew I continued to stay involved in adoption reform, one way or another.

But she was not me; she had a lot of her biological (birth seems absurd here, and plays up the absurdity of the term--he was not present at the birth) father's denial of anything emotionally difficult in her. Quite honestly, when I sent the flier I had focused on her being adopted in a sealed-records state, and her always saying she was glad that I had found her--not on her being a first/birth mother too. My mistaken conclusion? She would be interested in reforms occurring in her home state. Lisa was almost never talked about. At the time, I somehow did not recall that she was a (birth/first) mother who chose a closed adoption when she could have had an open one. Florence agreed that if I wanted to have a relationship with Jane, it only would be on her terms, and that included not talking about Lisa. To do so would jeopardize our already fragile relationship at that time.

Consequently we never spoke the changing legislation in Wisconsin, but one day a year later when I was in Wisconsin to see my other granddaughter, Jane's adoptive father said that she started swearing about me when she got one of my letters. He wasn't sure what it was about, but I knew it had to be that. I knew. So I would never talk to her about what I was doing after that, and generally that was a time that I took a vacation from most adoption-related matters and wrote other books, worked in Manhattan on a magazine. I wanted my life to be about more than losing a daughter to adoption.--lorraine 
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To be continued.

PS: Adoptee and reform activist Elaine Penn, who found her biological mother in New Jersey (read the amazing story of the explosive reaction of the strange and less than wonderful, er, woman who bore her) will testify in Trenton on Monday, June 14, sometime during the hearing on the original-birth-records bill under consideration there. You should be able to hear it on streaming audio by linking to the New Jersey legislature and poking around a bit for the live hearing:
http://www.njleg.state.nj.us/