Chances are, you know an adoptive parent or an adopted person, but when you get to the third member of the adoption triad, a birthparent, far fewer of you have someone who immediately pops into your head, right? A birthmother (or “firstmother” as some prefer), is defined for our purposes here, as a woman who voluntarily chose to make an adoption plan for her child, rather than choosing to parent her child. Although equal in numbers, women are much less likely to be “out” about their birthparent status, making her more of a mystery.
There are many reasons for this, but here are a just a broad few.
- First is the lingering shame and stigma from previous decades, of being an “unwed mother,” especially still true in the more conservative parts of the country. In the 1950‘s and 60‘s these “bad girls” were swooped off to maternity homes in complete secrecy to have their babies, and then return home to pretend nothing had ever happened.
- Second, is embarrassment over the belief that somehow fertility correlates with intelligence–meaning that, in this day and age there is no excuse for not having a reliable method of birth control. (This one especially cracks me up, since I had three unplanned pregnancies, with three different methods of “reliable” birth control; I just happened to be married at the time of the last two!).
- Thirdly, in many cultures there are still very strong negative reactions to adoption, in general. “Giving up your baby,” is never an acceptable option and often results in the complete ostracizing of women from their families and communities. In these groups, “turning your back on blood” is incomprehensible and proof that you could not possibly have loved your child.
So then, who are birthmothers? Statistically speaking, the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute reports that age range of birthmothers is typically 19 to 34 years old but most are women in their early 20’s, who are high school graduates. To many people’s surprise, birthmothers are rarely teenagers; they make up only one-fourth. (So yes, MTV Teen Mom fans, Catelynn and Tyler are indeed rare; as it turns out, MTV’s choice to follow one birthparent for every three teen parents is also an accurate reflection of real life!).
Something else that may surprise you, is that many of the women who make an adoption plan for their baby are already parenting other children. Some sources report as many as fifty percent. When you think about that, it makes logical sense that if a woman becomes a mother as a teenager, and then in her twenty’s becomes pregnant again, she is more than aware of the struggle ahead of her and is more likely to make an adoption plan for her second child than she would have been with her first.
There are few blanket statements I can make about my fellow birthmothers out there. My friends range from a corporate attorney to a full-time mother of five, with every professional pursuit or passion you can imagine in between! Still there are a few things I can say about all of us: We love our babies as much as anyone ever could. We chose adoption, not because we didn’t want to parent our children (I have always said, my first choice would have been to have the same baby, ten years later, when I was ready!), but rather, so our children could have all they deserve in life, especially those things we could not provide at that time. Lastly, despite what you might have heard, we never just “move on with our lives” and simply forget.
The On Your Feet Foundation is an organization that provides support to birthparents. I think this statement from their website sums it up very well: “Our vision for the future is to create a culture where birthparents are honored for their decision to place a child for adoption.” When we arrive there, the surprise that we all already know birthparents won’t be surprising at all.
~ Got a question? Email me at jpedley@comcast.net
~ Check out my blog, The Blog of Least Bad Choices at www.jenniferpedley.com
~ Watch for my new book, Secrets To Your Successful Domestic Adoption, Insider Advice To Create Your Forever Family Faster. Coming June 2010 from HCI Books.
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