THE DEMONIZED MOTHER by Margaret McDonald Lawrence

Promoting Infant Adoption

THE DEMONIZED MOTHER
by Margaret McDonald Lawrence
(From a speech to The First National American Adoption Congress, Washington D.C. May 4, 1979)

No-one could have encapsulated the need of the adoption industry to manufacture the demonization of the natural mother as the most pivotal and necessary requirement in the promotion of, and social acceptance of adoption, as Lawrence when she states how:
In order to bring the issues surrounding the intermediary system into clear focus, it is necessary to examine the myths and motives that surround the adoption experience. Outsiders need to realize that social agencies not only control adoption procedures, but also control the information about the institution which is provided to the courts, the legislature and the public.
It is the child welfare establishment that has provided the picture of [natural] mothers as indifferent - as mothers who abandon their unwanted children with a wish to remain forever hidden from them. They know that this is seldom true, but it helps to facilitate their work for the public to believe this. Society does not dismiss the importance of the natural family as readily as the social planners, and so it is useful to portray [surrendering] parents as different from caring parents.
The [natural] mother must be different, an aberration; for if it were true that she had the same degree of love for her child as all other mothers, the good of adoption would be overwhelmed by the tragedy of it. Adoptive parents are somewhat relieved of guilt if they can be assured that the [natural] parents truly did not want their child; for, under those circumstances, it is possible to feel entitled to claim the child of others. Neither society nor the mother who holds the child in her arms wants to confront the agony of the mother from whose arms that same child was taken. But that agony is real, as we have come to learn through our experience with reunions.

If you REALLY want to learn some Raw Truth about Adoption, Adoption Practices and The Triad Myth , I suggest you take a look here:

HEALING FAMILIES DISMEMBERED BY ADOPTION


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Maya Angelou - I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings

A free bird leaps on the back of the wind
and floats downstream till the current ends
and dips his wing in the orange suns rays and dares to claim the sky.

But a bird that stalks down his narrow cage
can seldom see through his bars of rage
his wings are clipped and his feet are tied so he opens his throat to sing.

The caged bird sings with a fearful trill
of things unknown but longed for still
and his tune is heard on the distant hill
for the caged bird sings of freedom.

The free bird thinks of another breeze
and the trade winds soft through the sighing trees
and the fat worms waiting on a dawn-bright lawn and he names the sky his own.

But a caged bird stands on the grave of dreams
his shadow shouts on a nightmare scream
his wings are clipped and his feet are tied so he opens his throat to sing.

The caged bird sings with a fearful trill
of things unknown but longed for still
and his tune is heard on the distant hill
for the caged bird sings of freedom.

The Birth Mother Voice: Missouri and Adoption

The Birth Mother Voice: Missouri and Adoption