The Concept of Shame. There has been a great deal of attention lately, all around the world, about the plight of birth mothers and how badly treated they are in most cultures and countries.  For some people it is impossible to imagine that mothers relinquish their children — but they always have, and probably always will, for many reasons.  No matter what the circumstances that surrounded the birth mothers decision to relinquish, they share one emotion, and that is shame. Actually, these birth children who become adopted also share this strong emotion of shame.  This makes no sense, since no child asks to be relinquished or adopted, but almost every adopted child thinks that they had something to do with their relinquishment, and this produces the feeling of shame.  Wise adoptive parents know this, and help their child understand that they do not need to own this toxic emotion, as they were completely innocent in their mother’s decision to relinquish. I became very interested in the concept of shame as it relates to the Korean culture.  I have asked freelance writer, Tony Marino, to research this topic and write about it.  I think you will be fascinated in what he Read more

Enough is enough. Say your peace if you must, feel free to voice that concern you have for others because those who need to hear those words will reach out to you for more information. And. Leave. It. At. That. No need to post 5 or 6 times a day. No need to ask those painful, personal questions on open forums. Just stop the hounding. Stop the picking. Stop the bullying.
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When I write about adoption, I have three different points of view. I consider each of them unique, because they are broken down into three acts of my life. There is my life before adoption. Those days, long ago when I was just a girl with no stigma attached. I had no idea that once I hit 19 years of age I would be thrown into such confusion, such weight on my shoulders. I was rolling along in life, attending college, working for said education and not much worried me beyond how I was going to get my schoolwork finished after a grueling shift at the restaurant. I was just barely out of high school and had one semester of college under my belt with more dreams in my head than I could count. Realizing business was not something I wanted to pursue as a lifelong career I was anxious to begin my new Major, Film/Theater Production … new school, new outlook, new attitude. It was innocence at its best with a hint of superior righteousness that I think every almost-adult has. But it all changed. And the change came so quickly that it seemed to take a year and Read more

During a recent panel for “So I Married A Birth Mother” there was one subject that really hit me hard and made me feel for the birth mothers in the room: it was the fear of rejection. I can only imagine how these birth mothers felt and how scared they might have been when getting ready to tell someone they’re dating or someone they cared for about their story with adoption. One of many things could happen in such a situation. They could accept the facts and see the blessings that adoption brings into the lives of many, it could be scary for the person receiving the information trying to think of how this will affect their life in the long run or they could not accept the information and take it in a completely unnecessary way. Well, I’m here to tell you, you’re worth it! If a person really has a problem with your story about adoption and re-considers your relationship because of it then that person IS NOT WORTH IT! Nobody has the right to judge you for your choices and for your past. Every person out there has made choices both good and bad, big and small. Read more

It was close to 10 years ago, if not more the first time I was called out on being a birthmother in denial. Max was only 13 and years away from being found and I was new to the adoption community online. I was still saying things like “Adoption was the hardest decision, but the best choice for my baby I could have made. I do not regret it” and expecting to get pats on the back for my selflessness and courage. Instead I was publicly edited, felt mad as a hornet and couldn’t sleep that night. I was told I was unaware of what adoption really was like and that I was in birthmother denial. How DARE they, I thought, they don’t KNOW me! Immediately, I started drawing lines in the sand of my mind. Somehow, I had to make this horrible group of angry birthmothers different than me. They were so angry. They had horrible things to say about adoption, so they had to have completely different experiences that I did. We could not be the same. In a way, I was right. The majority of moms I was speaking to them were older and had very different Read more

The subtle coercion in adoption counseling often does not seem real. “Coercion” is such a harsh word. Adoption is seen as a decision, a wise choice; made by selfless mothers, for the good of others, for the betterment of her child. We place our babies for adoption. In adoption counseling, we work on making our adoption plans. Adoption agencies do not truly violently rip children out of wailing mother’s hand, but wait until a birthmother “says her goodbyes” and tearfully hands over a child to the waiting adoptive parents. The words “Adoption Counseling” should seem to invoke a positive response, but the counseling as practiced by many adoption agencies in this country is truly a delicate dance that gently contorts one’s boundaries with subtle, and unfortunately usually un-acknowledgeable, coercion. Coercion as Defined a form of power based on forced compliance through fear and intimidation. The act of compelling by force of authority compulsion: using force to cause something; Another act defined by most states as an “unfair trade practice.” This one occurs when someone in the insurance business uses physical or mental force to persuade another to transact insurance Pertaining to unacceptable participant recruitment methods which involve duress, undue inducement Read more

A GIRL LIKE HER reveals the hidden history of over a million young women who became pregnant in the 1950s and 60s and were banished to maternity homes to give birth, surrender their children, and return home alone. They were told to keep their secret, move on and forget.  But, does a woman forget her child? The film combines footage from educational films and newsreels of the time period about dating, sex, “illegitimate” pregnancy, and adoption—that both reflected and shaped the public’s understanding of single pregnancy during that time—with the voices of these mothers as they speak today, with hindsight, about the long-term impact of surrender and silence on their lives. At one point during the film preview, one of the women said that she felt like she had no voice. So I’m pleased to be sharing this link with you so as many as possible hear these women’s voices. The film preview begins with a woman reliving a time when she was 15 years old and dating a boy in a baby-blue ’57 Chevy — where she learned the “facts of life.”  Another woman reveals that when she told her mother she was pregnant her mom viewed it has Read more

This post was supposed to be “10 Things I Wish I Knew Before I Was Touched By Adoption”, but I can’t use the feel good wording of “touched.”  I was not touched by adoption, it’s more like torched, trampled, traumatized, terrorized, tortured and torn apart by adoption.  My role in adoption is that of a birthmother and in so many ways I was so unprepared. We all are. Adoption Was More like a Destructive Force I Let into My Life Adoption was almost more like a crack that happened in my soul.  A crack that I thought, and was encouraged to believe, would be temporary or always below the surface. Over time, the rest of life worked its way in, like water in cement, and caused the very foundation of myself to crumble. So that gives me number one on my list; the rest is really, really easy and I can also quite easily go on and on, but this carnival only called for the ten things we wish we could have known. I think I just have to go over the number 10. I wish I knew that relinquishing my child to adoption was not a onetime event that Read more

Hi! My name is Jeanette Shareen (Cox) (Faro) (Kopitowsky) Yoffe and I’ve been asked to contribute posts about my experiences growing up in foster care, being adopted and now working as a mental health professional with the Adoption Constellation. I’d like to start by saying I hope these posts will help inspire, uplift, transform, and strengthen the understanding of your own journey, through the myriad of challenges “my voice” has experienced, beginning as a biological daughter, foster kid, adopted daughter, sister, wife and mother.  I am also a Psychotherapist who specializes in healing children’s grief/loss upon separation from their original families and help facilitate attachment within their adoptive families. I am one of those people who in the past would “stuff” and “abandon” my early experiences because of the “shame” I felt. I truly thought “I had done something wrong” to cause my birth family and foster family to leave me. After years of difficult soul searching, therapy and the love and support of family and friends I have come to realize that there is no running from this sense of shame, there is only understanding where it comes from, rising above it and moving past. I know now that Read more

Recently I was asked a question that got me thinking more than usual. So many posts I have read recently have been from adoptive couples questioning their potential birth mothers and their behavior, or lack of, at the hospital after their child was born. I do not stick my nose into others business when it comes to this because I truly believe that everyone has their own unique story, and that they have a right to share their thoughts and feelings regarding their own truths. Back to the point. I was asked directly a question that not only made me think, but took me back some 20 years to my own hospital experience and the emotions that I was dealing with at the time. I tried to keep my thoughts simple and to the point, and what I wrote surprised me … and that does not happen often. Again, I will say that these are my own opinions and I do not speak for birth mothers everywhere. This is what came to me when I heard this query… What Can Adoptive Couples Do to Help in the Hospital / At Placement? Ask ahead of time what the mother would like. Read more