I think most people would agree that Loss applies to the following: Death of a parent, spouse, sibling, child, aunt, uncle, cousin, grandparent, friend, pet. Also recognized as a loss would be the loss of anything that you hold dear or necessary to your life, like a home, job, good health. People will recognize the feelings of loss inherent in miscarriages, still birth, infertility, and not being about to give birth to and raise your child.
Those losses are real, valid, acknowledged and grieved by society. Each persons grief is different and each loss carries a different magnitude to that specific individual, but yet all agree they have lost something precious to the person.
Society tells us the above losses are acceptable. That it is okay to feel loss. Yet society also has a dark side when it judges if a loss is valid. Society judges people for their actions based on societies view of what is acceptable. During the era I was conceived in, also known as The Baby Scoop Era, society deemed single motherhood as wrong. By deeming women who became pregnant out-of-wedlock to be less than, bad, immoral, feeble-minded, flawed, society also reinforced that adoption was the right solution to their problems. By making adoption the acceptable course of action, society deemed them redeemed (well almost) but refused to admit or acknowledge that placing a child for adoption was something that was an acceptable loss to be grieved. Mothers were told to put it out of their minds, forget, move on, get married, be glad their mistake was rectified and never speak of it again, let alone grieve.
The American and Canadian governments have never acknowledged the harm, loss, anger and pain they caused to the mothers during The Baby Scoop Era. Why not? Britain acknowledged the mistakes made to the Home Children, so did Australia. Australia has acknowledged the mistakes made during their Baby Scoop Era. Why hasn’t the US or Canada?
Instead society has moved on and recognized the ever-growing demand for babies for by parents who either are unable to have their own children or wish to save a child for whatever reason, and that adoption is a wonderful solution to those individuals and heals their specific loss. A market where the demand is always greater than the supply. A business model that already has the negatives already silenced by society, sanctioned if you will. A business sure to be successful by ensuring that society continues to silence those most impacted. That business model continues to ensure the voices of mothers are silenced by only allowing mothers who are willing to walk the walk and talk the talk be paraded in front of prospective adoptive parents as much to say – see – no harm – no foul – adoption was the best solution and everything is win-win-win…and of course they have the ‘happy well-adjusted adoptee’ who is grateful they were adopted instead of aborted…
The government and society needs to man up and own their role in the incredible injustice and harm caused to the mothers of The Baby Scoop Era…
