General Chat

Eileen I hope your reunion with your sister is everything you could wish for. Good luck.

Sue x

Thank you very much for your post, Eileen. I've been on here since 2003 and have seen your search for a long time - I did used to join in on the adoption threads a long time ago. I agree with just about everything you have added and I am so pleased your search has the promise of a happy ending:)))

I'll just add my 2d worth on here. As an adoptee, and in contact with many other adoptees, I really feel adoption should be a last resort. There is no guarantee that a child will have a good life if it is adopted, any more than there is a guarantee that a child will have a good life if it stays with its birth mother.

Adoption is by no means a perfect solution to providing care for a child that cannot, for whatever reason, be cared for by its birth parent(s). You are all correct of course, in saying that there are many reasons for adoption, and that there can be absolutely no generalisation as every case differs.

So, if adoption is not always the perfect solution..........what is. We don't seem to have managed to find answers - childrens' homes were one solution, however the opportunities for unkindness, cruelty, abuse, were always going to be a risk there too.

Of course, the only answer is not to have a child that you are not able to care for properly for the next 18 - 20+ years. When that unlikely state of affairs is reached, then there will be no mothers desperately wondering for years where and how their child is. There will be no people wondering where their hair colour, musical talent, genetic illness or disability came from. There will be no people like me, separated from my full sister and spending 40 years - ever since I found out about her when I was 25 - hoping and wondering.

That quest is now at an end................but of course, there's not really an end..........its the beginning of a different relationship, hopefully, friendship, but nothing will make up for the years we have spent apart.

My sister, thankfully, had a happy childhood, a good adoption - mine was pretty good by most peoples' standards too. Many are not anything like as lucky.

Just as a matter of interest .........for those who have not seen my other FOUND postings..........despite my posting constantly for ten or more years, ever since I became slightly computer literate.............it was not the 'net that was eventually successful in reuniting us............it was the Adoption Contact Register run by the Government. I had been on it for 15 years, on both parts, as 'searching' and as 'wanting to be found'...........my sister does not use a computer, and did not until three weeks ago, even know her birth name as she had not applied for her original cert. until then. So adoptees and birth mothers, its worth going on the Register, just in case............one day............

And a special thank you to all of you who have sent me your good wishes and many helpful suggestions over the years............

Eileen
birth name
born 1944
adopted 1946
Searching for full sister born 1945, for 40 years
N O W F O U N D thanks to the Govt.Contact Reg. Southport

Hi Uggers

You are right where some great ones on there, just debating whether to nudge one up for new cormmers, Shimms on chat has something similar going.

Carol,

Lovely to hear your input, I have been in touch with hundreds of adopted people or birth families over the last few years, and heard both heartwarming and heartbreaking stories regarding adoption, Berona is right though, you cannot judge a whole issue unless you have the whole facts, and each case may be different, nothing is normally black and white, as you get older you realize that. :O)

By the way Uggers have you heard Eileen's news ??? she has found her Sister at last, isn't that wonderful !!!!!

I have a feeling this thread has stirred up some emotional feelings.It can be an emotive subject.Berona you are right in saying each case is different.
I am glad I never got to meet my B Mother in a way.I don't mean that in a nasty way,but to me my Mum and Dad were my adoptive ones.I have never felt any anger about being (given away).
My sister had a baby at 16 (just) my parents would not let her keep him.
She has been very open with her family and they know ,so if one day she is contacted it won't be such a shock !

I don't see how anyone can make a comment on this subject when every case is different. There are so many different reasons why mothers give up their child for adoption.

Each case on its own, has to be completely investigated, studied, reasoned and understood. Then, make a comment on THAT case only. Next case will no doubt be totally different - so you start again. You can't generalise on this subject.

I for one am very glad I was put up for adoption.I have had a wonderful life with wonderful parents and an adopted sister.Sadly my adoptive mum and dad are no longer here.I never met my Birth Mother ,but have now met 2 B Brothers(half).She had 8 children altogether and I think most grew up in care which is where I would have been had I not been adopted.Why she had so many children I will never know.!!

In the late 1960’s I worked in a Children’s Society Residential Nursery.
Several of our babies came to us straight from the delivery room – Mum’s were advised that it would be easier for them if they had not seen/held their babies!
I have seen birth mum’s that have been inconsolable when saying good bye to their babies ... Grandmothers who would love to have given the baby a loving home, but would not go against their husband’s orders ... Grandfather’s who would have happily had that baby in their home but for their wives fear of ‘What the neighbours will say’.
I overheard all of the, ‘will have a better life than you can give him’, ‘you can get on with your life & forget’, ‘you will marry & have others’ ...... but few women can forget that first glimpse of their child they have carried for 9months!
I have also seen many women who quickly married the fathers of their babies & lived to regret doing so.

On a happier note I saw couples, who dearly wanted a child of their own, gaze lovingly at a tiny bundle, or toddler as they went off to start their new lives together.
Whilst I was working in residential childcare I also looked after a child whose paternal Grandparents fought for & won the right to adopt their Grandchild against the wishes of the Birth Mother & her parents. (They wanted the baby to be adopted by strangers who lived well away from them!)

Quite honestly it's none of our business!

My Mother was born out of wedlock, her Mother was able to keep her with family help and my lovely Grandpa who married Mum's Mum adopted her.

This was in the early 1900s so she could well have been farmed out, my Mother was one of the lucky ones.

Sue

I TRACED TWO COUSINS TOOK TO SCOTLAND FOR ADOPTION
WHEN 5&3
I KNOWN NOT CHILD OR SIBLING,BUTAS IMPORTANT

I WAS BORN 4MONTHS BEFORE ELDEST
I PLAYED FOR 5 YEARS WITH HER
ONE DAY SHE WENT TRACED HER AND HER SISTER
20 YEARS LATER

Thanks everyone. It is a minority and it's possible I've taken a couple of the comments I'd read the wrong way.

Sheila, I never look on tips now but we used to have some great threads there on adoption years ago didn't we.

We must never make assumptions. We don't know who's feelings we may hurt by making throw away comments. That wasn't aimed at anyone in particular and definately not Uggers who never makes comments that aren't well thought out and generally relevant.

Sue x

Hi Uggers,

I am not sure what the comments where that you have seen as I have not been on this site so much lately, but what about compassion for the BM's or anyone who has been separated from their family for whatever reason.

The main threads for adoptees from the likes of Jess Bow and more recently Shimms, welcomes not only adoptee's but Birth Mother/Fathers siblings etc.

This is because adoption can affect so many people in so many way, as you have said before you judge someone , walk a mile in their shoes, I would like to have thought we have come a long way in the last few years in regards to this subject., so please try to ignore the minority of people who have not.

TONY

I COULDNT EVEN FO THE SLIGHTEST MOMENT
THINK WHAT ITS LIKE
BAD ENOUGH A MISSCARAGE

IMAGINE 100 YEARS AGO THE MOTHER WAS PUT IN A ASYLUM
HOW WICKED

What right have we, or anyone else, to judge?

If you have never experienced those circumstances then you have no right to make a judgement which is sadly what some people appear to be doing.

For the avoidancr of doubt, I'm not saying that you don't have an entitlement to an opinion, but the manner in which that opinion is expressed is at best tactless, and at worst downright heinous.

As Kay??? so rightly said - walk their shoes!

I agree David, I think that some women are judgemental about it because they have children of their own and cant imagine ever giving up their child. I cant imagine ever giving my children up and for me was never an option but it should not stop us for having compassion and understanding for those who have had to for whatever reason go down that route.

I think that's probably true, Hayley - peoples perceptions and all that. Like Purplenpuffy said, mothers are supposed to be loving and it's often wrongly perceived that giving a child up for adoption means they aren't.

I KNEW OF A OF LAD WHO A LONGTIME AGO
HAD NO SAY IN HIS BABY BEING ADOPTED,
THERE'S 2 PARENTS.....
MISTAKES HAPPEN BUT ANOTHER SET OF WAITING PARENTS
MADE EXTATIC,
I KNEW A LOT OF ADOPTEES AT SCHOOL
ONE MET HER MUM,A FEW YEARS AGO
SHES 60 HER MUM 74

Do you think that is because mothers are suppose to have natural instincts, isn’t that why Myra Hindley was despised more so because she was a women and her instincts should have been to protect the children not assist in their murder.

From what I know, Jax, it's never an easy route. Funny but it's so often women who are more judgemental about it than men.