Mother’s Day is for honoring mothers - grandmothers, step-mothers, career mothers, stay-at-home mothers. But there are some mothers who have been forgotten. These are the mothers who have been used like livestock and who have had their babies harvested from them to be used for adoption. In the 1950s, 60s and early 70s millions of white, single mothers were punished for having a baby. Many were denied any information about childbirth. When they went into labor, they were left alone with no support and no pain relief. But the worst punishment was losing their child. Some were not even told whether they had a son or daughter.
Now some infant adoption businesses and adoption promoters are suggesting that people should honor women as "birthmothers" on "Birthmother's Day" - the day before Mother's Day - rather than acknowledging them as mothers on Mother's Day.
There was a time when motherhood was honored in America. But today pregnancy and childbirth are considered by some people to be the menial labor of the lower classes. In some segments of society, families with new mothers who are single are expected to perform the function of reproduction for "real" families - and then disappear, or at least "know their place." Women in India - and even in the United States - are being used as "surrogates" and egg "donors" to produce babies for paying customers. As Lois Lowry made so clear in her young people's science fiction book "The Giver," the word "birthmother" does not mean "mother." Instead, "birthmother" is the job title of the lowest status position in society.
Mothers and their babies are human beings. Women are not baby-production equipment. The members of OriginsUSA reject the dehumanizing label "birthmother" that is utilized by the adoption industry and insist on the respectful terms "mother" or "natural mother."
The Mother-and-Child relationship is like no other. A baby bonds with her mother in the womb. A baby looks to her mother for security and no other caregiver - not even the baby’s father - can replace her. Many hospitals now recognize the importance of keeping newborns with their mothers, rather than separating them. Experts emphasize the benefits to a baby that come from nursing and her own mother’s milk, designed for her.
Yet with all that is known about the importance of a baby’s mother to her well-being, some vulnerable and naïve mothers are still being led to believe that their infant sons and daughters will be better off with someone else. Even a dog breeder knows better than to separate puppies from their mother before they are sufficiently mature.
The members of OriginsUSA ask that people do not promote the use of women as breeders by celebrating "birthmothers" on the despicable fake holiday referred to as "Birthmother's Day." This Mother’s Day, honor the motherhood of all mothers on Mother's Day.
OriginsUSA is an organization of mothers and other family members separated by adoption - people who are opposed to discrimination against single parent families.
I just read an article by a pro-life organization about exploiting women by "milking" them of their eggs to be used to clone human beings. Stating how harmful it would be to women. Well, "milking" women of their born babies is not much better, is it? That's why I want to provide this link:
Personlly, I think there are many motives for adoption beyond just the money the agencies and attorneys and adoption recruiters get. But if the United State removed the money from adoption, things would probably be a little bit more ethical.
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Laurie Frisch (1 articles, 0 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 2 comments)
on Sunday, May 7, 2006 at 8:12:12 PM
I look forward to the day when we end this awful infant adoption experiment, and the United States returns to honoring all mothers and fathers. If you have a friend or family member who has been separated from her child by adoption, send her a mother's day card today! There are ex-spouses, but there are no ex-mothers or ex-fathers.
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bernw5333 (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 2 comments)
on Monday, May 8, 2006 at 8:26:19 AM
Thank you so much for this article. I am a natural mother and I abhor birthmother's day and the term birthmother. It is a way for the adoption industry to take away our motherhood. It's bad enough we are labeled this way, but to have the day that is for honoring mothers taken away from us just rubs salt in an already open wound.
I would urge any woman who finds herself with an unintended pregnancy to avoid the lifelong pain of adoption by visiting Pregnancy Without Crisis to find out what help is available for single mothers.
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chawkins (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 1 comments)
on Tuesday, May 9, 2006 at 10:08:20 AM
As a Mother of Adoption Loss, and one who has attended one "BirthMother's Day" observance, I can only say "Amen" to your wonderful article. In 1993, at an AAC conference, I was part of an "exploratory" observance of this so-called "holiday" and found it to be one of the most painful and uncomfortable experiences of my life. There is no "celebrating" a second-best, dismissive occasion that was engineered by those heavily influenced by those who had adopted.
I will be honored by my reunited children on Mother's Day or not at all. The crumbs of "beemom's day" are an insult and a joke. We are Mothers, not "also-rans." Thank you for this article and this validation of the way so many of us really feel.
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MamaRobina (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 1 comments)
on Thursday, May 11, 2006 at 6:44:25 AM
I never knew anyone would be so openly diminutive to Natural Mothers. Maybe I am lost, but I never knew this birthmother’s day existed as a holiday. Frankly, I will not bother to remember it either.
If we were to create a holiday for adopter’s and the adoption industry they would not sit idle. So why should we? How would it sound? Adopter’s Day ( celebrating the legalized kidnapping of children, and the age old tradition of selling humans into slavery ) Ya, I don’t think they would stand by and let something like this happen….. But yet, they have done the same to us.
You are so right, The mother child bond is created in the womb. When our children are born mother and child have a unspoken language. One that adopter’s must try to learn and at times fail to learn. You can not replace what is only natural and expect it to be equal. It just doesn’t happen.
The trauma caused to our babies has been hushed as a dirty secret. But there are effects that can linger for our children even into adulthood.
The trauma caused to us mothers is one that spans a entire life time. As many of us find out, even in reunion all the lost moments can never be found. First words, first steps, first date, The list is long and all of it lost to us. The first mothers and fathers.
Am I supposed to be comforted by this so called holiday that seems more to be a day to slap me in the face? I think not.
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AdoptionTears (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 1 comments)
on Thursday, May 11, 2006 at 1:42:31 PM
Isn't it bad enough that I lost my only child to adoption when the only crime that I committed was that I was too young and single back in 1966? Over the years I worried about him constantly, just like a Mother, I cried on his birthday, I searched babies and then young boy's faces wondering if they could be my long, lost son. I never got over the loss of that little baby. Only a Mother feels that way whether given the opportunity to raise her child or not. Why should I have be given some substandard kind of holiday?
My reunited adult son calls me and sends me a Mother's Day card on Mother's Day. I presume he does the same for his adoptive mother but that's his call and I respect it. But, I refuse to sit in the back of the holiday bus.
If we're going to have a Birthmother's Day, then we should have an Adoptive Mother's Day. Of course no one would dare do such a thing but to propose an alternative day of honoring one's mother who gave them birth is exactly the same thing.
Thanks for such a thought provoking article.
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Carol C. (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 1 comments)
on Thursday, May 11, 2006 at 3:12:09 PM
Four children came forth of my body, four children do I worry and love, four children do I reap joy and pleasure from, endless amusement, endless sacrafice freely given, four children share my blood, my history, my life.
One was lost to adoption at birth and raised by another set of parents.
He has never not been my son. He has never not been a brother to his siblings. He was lost, but never forgotten. And I have never been not his mother. I might not have not physically seen his first smile, his first steps, kissed his boo boos or rasied to him in the dark of night, but I did in my heart, I did in my mind, and I imagine it all from so far away.
I do not separate my children. I should not be separated as a mother. I don't want a day to celebrate what I did not have via adoption. I just am a mother and hope that my children shall continue to rejoice and celebrate and honor me as such..all of them.
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Claudia Corrigan D'Arcy (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 1 comments)
on Thursday, May 11, 2006 at 8:10:47 PM
