Josee Larose

About doing the right thing...

Again and again, on various message boards, I read messages from adoptees who recount saying or writing to their recently reunited natural mother that they are thankful for her decision to surrender them as infants, thus giving them a chance at a better life, and that she "did the right thing". Often, this statement is followed by an enumeration of the various advantages that they have enjoyed with their adoptive families. Every time I read such a testimonial, I flinch inside.

I do realize that these adoptees mean well and are, in fact, trying to assuage their mother's guilt over the adoption. They want their mother to know that they realize that she was often just a child herself, quite unable to take on the responsibility of raising a family, and that she had to make a life for herself before she could think of shouldering this kind of responsibility.

Unfortunately, the effect is quite the opposite from the one intended and results in the natural mother feeling inadequate and inferior, as if her child had just told her that she would not have been a good enough mother. Young and inexperienced though we were, most of us loved our babies with all of our hearts and, in fact, did not voluntarily choose to surrender. Most of us did so under intense pressure from parents and social workers, and because we lacked the temporary support we needed to keep our babies. To hear some 30 or 40 years later that it was the right decision (when in fact it was not a decision at all but the result of a lack of options) is adding insult, however unintended, to injury.

I do not want to hear my daughter tell me that she is happy she was raised by another family. It is insulting and painful. The family I would have provided for her might have been different, but it would have been equally loving, supportive and happy. Being told that her adoptive family provided this and that advantage would send the message that material advantages are more important than love from and connection with her own mother. Thankfully, my reunited daughter never said any such things to me. In fact, she realizes that we, natural mothers of past decades, were shamed, manipulated, lied to and sacrificed in the name of "what the neighbors would think". Even today, we are seen as baby abandoners by the same people who, back then, were challenging us to prove that we loved our babies by letting them be adopted.

So please, before you tell your reunited natural mother that she did the right thing, consider how she will feel when she hears you say that you are glad you did not grow up with her as a mother. All her life, ever since your birth, she has felt that she was not good enough to parent you. Isn't it time that she is allowed to get over that?

Josee Larose
Reunited natural mother
Founding director of the Canadian Council of Natural Mothers