I didn't intend to follow-up on the previous post any time soon, but there is one thing I feel needs to be clarified sooner rather than later . . . it wasn't her choice.
It's hard to imagine, but if you read the comments on the post where I discussed my mother giving a child up for adoption and never once mentioning it, you'll see proof -- it was common practice in the days before Roe vs. Wade. I don't know anything about statistics or causation, I just know that for as much as society has always preached "adoption is an option," we certainly don't manage to create an atmosphere that makes that an easy thing. It's better now to some extent, but in 1970, it was far from OK for a 19-year old to get pregnant out of wedlock. Giving that child up made the woman a pariah.
It wasn't OK to get pregnant.
It most certainly wasn't OK to have a baby out of wedlock.
And yet it wasn't OK to give the child up for adoption.
While the father was redeployed to another Air Force Base and continued his life without any knowledge of the situation (He wasn't listed on the birth certificate nor was he notified at all--which, the hell? That ridiculousness still happens.), her parents forced her to carry on with the pregnancy until it became too hard to conceal. Then they sent her to live at the YWCA. She waited there for the baby that she would never know. She gave birth and then returned home the very next day, with shame and societal demands and the orders of her parents weighing heavy on her soul. She had to act as if nothing had happened.
Just a little vacation out of town. No big deal. Not even her little brother knew where she had really been those few months.
And it happened all of the time.
So I have no anger towards her for giving up her first-born, nor for keeping it a secret. I have pity for her because it's what was demanded of her. At some point she should have broken free of those chains, but by the time she reached that point, she was already broken.
Society broke her.
The ways we judge women for how they handle the consequences of their decisions is appalling. Still. While things have improved, there's a long way left to go.
I can only hope the improvements continue. Our sons and daughters deserve better.
