The Bias Against Birth Mothers

Despite the fact that being an unwed mother does not have the same stigma that it did ten or twenty years ago, the women for whom pregnancy comes unaccompanied by marriage are still disparaged. In cases where there is a dispute between an adoptive couple and an unwed mother, the adoptive parents are more likely to be considered the "good guys" and the biological mother the "bad guy." It is also evident in this country's not passing the Hague Convention resolution on adoption, where the first tenet is "A child should not be considered for adoption unless it needs parents." Had this resolution been passed, women like Deanna Wilson would not be yearning for their babies right now. Deanna knew 20 hours after her baby was born that she did not want to relinquish, but because she had been coerced into signing papers when she was still under medication, she lost her right to her child. That was a baby who did not need parents.

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It incenses me that so little attention is paid to this loss and pain suffered by both mothers and children in adoption. There is still a belief that mothers can be substituted without any notice being taken by the child. There is a great deal of denial about the harm done in any practice which separates mothers and children. If we acknowledge that children notice and are affected by the substitution of mothers in adoption, then perhaps we will have to acknowledge that children are affected by the absence of their mothers in other situations, also. We can no longer pretend that just because adults have good reasons for what they do, children do not suffer.

Birth mothers from the 40s, 50s, 60s, and early 70s were not allowed to keep their children. It was a societal belief that unwed motherhood was morally wrong. From 90-95% of Caucasian mothers were relinquishing. After all, what would the neighbors think? How could so many parents of birth mothers be more interested in what the neighbors thought than in what happened to their grandchildren? I do believe that, in retrospect, many of them began to wonder about this, too.

Today, in the 21st century, deciding to relinquish is more of a decision of the mother than of society. Being an unwed mother, although still made difficult by our government, is not seen as quite so morally wrong as it was twenty or thirty years ago. There are programs in some states to preserve families if possible. There is even a program in North Carolina, instigated by former governor James Hunt, called Smart Start in which some counties pay mothers to stay home with their children for the first year. Governor Hunt believes the brain studies which are beginning to indicate that a child's mind develops in a more positive way if the baby is securely with the mother.

In a 1997 Times magazine article by James Collins, he quotes Governor Hunt's comments about the current brain research: "Now that we can measure it and prove it, and if it can be made known widely so people understand this, then they'll understand why their schools aren't going to work for them, their technical training isn't going to work, other things we do later on aren't going to work fully unless we do this part right and do this at the appropriate time." Governor Hunt is talking about getting the first few years right, which means making the baby as secure as possible. Babies feel the most secure when with their own mothers. Unfortunately, many biological mothers today, especially those who have substance abuse problems, are not doing all they could to keep their children. Social workers in county child and family service systems become frustrated when these mothers fail over and over again to show up for visitations. These mothers are given many chances to get off drugs and get their children back, yet they fail to take even the most rudimentary steps to do so. Because drug use is such a problem today, many of these mothers are unstable and unpredictable. Their children may need more stability than they are able to provide, so that the children are better off with adoptive parents. However, the time allowed for drug rehabilitation from drug use may be unrealistic and inadequate, putting the biological parents at a disadvantage.

Women have various reasons for giving up their babies, even though they might be able to keep them. I talked to some who didn't want to interrupt their college education and who had open adoptions. These women had no idea of the pain they would go through in the years to come. They are still in that state of denial, where the openness of the adoption is enough. Yet some adoptive parents may at some time want to close the adoption. Birth mothers themselves sometimes do so. My belief is that the adoption should remain open for the sake of the child, even if it seems difficult and disruptive for either set of parents. (Having dads in the picture may also be disruptive in divorce situations, but no one suggests that the dads should not be able to see their children.) No matter if the adoption is open or closed, the mothers of the 21st century are going to have a more difficult time explaining their reasons for giving up their babies.

The idea of the birth mother having more say in who parents her child is a prickly one. On the one hand, it must be reassuring to have some control over the situation and to know the adoptive parents. There is none of the secrecy which characterized the adoption of the latter half of the 20th century. Yet, although coercion may not be brought on by society, it can be brought on by the closeness of the two sets of parents. How free does a mother feel about choosing not to give up her baby to very nice prospective adoptive parents whom she has chosen and grown close to?

Whatever the case, I definitely do not believe that the adoptive parents should be in the delivery room. Just their presence there is coercive. Even if they understand that the mother could change her mind, they are there to take the baby home with them. Adoptive parents sometimes tell me with joy that they were there at the birth and that he cut the umbilical cord and she was the first to hold the baby. I can feel only two things: the terror of the baby and the sorrow of the birth mother.

The birth mother should always be the first to hold the baby. Unless the mother holds the baby right after birth, the recession of the birth stress hormones will be delayed. The mother needs to be able to say "Hello" and "Goodbye" to her baby in private. Her baby needs to become real to her. It is no longer a pregnancy, but her baby. She needs to see him or her as a tiny human being who knows her and is already bonded with her. Until she truly gets that, she will not be able to make a conscious decision about relinquishment. She needs to be completely free of any medications and out of the confusion and shock of the birthing process

I used to think that ceremonies in which the birth mother or parents hand the baby over to the adoptive parents in a kind of primitive ritual would somehow be helpful to both sets of parents; that it would give closure to the birth parents and to give a sense of entitlement to the adoptive parents. Then I asked adoptees what they thought of those ceremonies. Although a few said that perhaps this would give some kind of closure to the birth mother, every single adoptee who had actually witnessed one of these ceremonies on TV had both emotional and visceral reactions to it: They saw it as a ritual sacrifice in which the baby was being sacrificed, and they literally felt sick to their stomachs. The baby is, indeed, the sacrificial lamb, unable to have a voice in this life-changing decision. We can only surmise that those adult adoptees who have witnessed these ceremonies are expressing the feelings of the baby. My impressions of the birth mother in these cases is that she is in a state of shock.

Birth mothers today are not in the same situation as birth mothers of the middle of the 20th century. They do have a choice. However, there is currently a tendency of legislators to shorten the time these mothers have to change their minds. This is not a good trend. Too often the mother makes the decision to relinquish in the abstract, before the baby is born. It may seem like a good idea to finish college before starting a family. Her baby may not be real to her until she actually gives birth. Or, perhaps the mother is a child herself and not capable of parenting a baby. However, there may be other members of her family who could take on that responsibility. Whatever her reason for relinquishment, given the lifelong pain of loss involved for both mother and child, a woman has the right and responsibility to have time after the birth to reconsider her decision. It is important that she understand the ramifications of adoption both for herself and for her child.

One thing I would require of mothers who are considering relinquishing their infants is that they remain with her baby while they are making this decision. I do not believe that putting the child in foster care or placing the child with the prospective adoptive parents is a good idea. The child needs the mother to enhance the neurological connections in the brain. Any other scenario will have a different result. This is very important and has implications for the child's future sense of Self, emotional responses, behavior, attitudes toward the safety of the world, and even somatic responses. The longer the child can remain with the mother, the better. Giving the mother time to make a conscious and informed choice about whether or not to keep her baby must not endanger the emotional and physical health of the baby. There should be no substitution of mothers until her final decision is made.

There is still a punitive attitude toward unwed mothers in this country. A single mother is often vilified, especially if she dares to interrupt an adoption process. Despite any progress we think we might have made, the prevailing feeling in this country is that the birth mother is just an instrument through which another set of parents are to receive their baby. Unfortunately, there seems to be more an atmosphere of judgment and criticism than of love and forgiveness.

As an adoptive mother, I truly understand the innate yearning to parent a child. We don't have to get into the motives for a person's wanting to do so. According to a recent survey, less than half the children conceived in marriages are planned pregnancies. Some of it has to be instinct or the human race would have died out thousands of years ago, because this world has never been a particularly good place in which to bring a helpless infant. Also, I have no respect for those people who say, "Well, perhaps if a woman can't get pregnant, she shouldn't be a mother," because then it would follow that all women who do get pregnant are good mothers. From my experience in my psychotherapy practice, I know this is not true. Some of the most egregious cases of child abuse in my practice have been perpetrated by biological parents, including mothers. Nor is there anything magical about being an adoptive parent. Wanting a child so badly that a couple will go through the long process of adoption does not guarantee that they will be good parents. There are good and bad biological and adoptive parents.

I can also feel sympathy for adoptive parents who do have to return a baby. I know how easily and quickly we can "fall in love" with these babies. To have to give them up is heart-breaking. I would have been devastated had that happened to me. Yet, prospective adoptive parents have to realize that even if we get to know and love the woman during her pregnancy, she does not owe us her baby. Adoptive parents who really care about this woman and her baby will give the mother time in which to make her decision. The decision to relinquish is profound. The mother will never be the same again. She will have given birth; she will be a mother...a mother with no baby. Someday that will dawn on her and the true impact of her decision will hit home.

Separating babies and their mothers is unnatural. There is no place in the human psyche to accommodate this gross aberration of nature. Neither the mother nor child can make sense of it emotionally. It traumatizes both and causes lifelong issues of abandonment and loss, intimacy, trust, control, identity, guilt, and shame. It influences the neurological connections in infants and changes those of the mother. Separation should be avoided if at all possible. However, there are cases where that is not possible. Witness all the children in foster care. Our society needs to value parenthood, to honor motherhood, and to understand the needs of children. Programs are needed to help prepare people for their roles as parents. We need more programs to teach adults how to be good parents. Why do we pay foster parents to take care of children, instead of using the money to help the real mother and father learn how to parent? It seems punitive. However, while we are punishing these parents, we are also punishing the children.

If adoption is indicated, pregnant women need good, honest counseling by someone unconnected to the adoption process. Private adoption should be outlawed, because it has become nothing more than the buying and selling of children. Adoption should be facilitated by licensed agencies with staffs trained in the implications of separation and loss for both mother and child, as well as the ways that adoptive parents can better acknowledge, understand, and validate their children's losses.

Above all, a greater spirit of cooperation and love for one another is needed among all of us!

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Nancy Verrier, M.A., is a psychotherapist, adoptive mother, international speaker on adoption issues, and author of the widely-read book The Primal Wound: Understanding the Adopted Child.

For more information on Nancy Verrier and her book, visit http://www.primalwound.com/. To purchase "The Primal Wound: Understanding the Adopted Child," visit http://shop.adoption.com/cgi-bin/store2/ADP70007.html.

This article was first published in the Concerned United Birthmothers' CUB Communicator, Spring/Summer 2001.