(Mis)Perceptions

When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.
                                               I Corinthians 13:11


A friend related an incident to me yesterday and as we discussed it, I realized that it was a perfect example of something I have been trying to convey for some time. She said that she was driving on the interstate. A car pulled up next to her and the people in it were waving frantically, pointing and mouthing things to her. She thought that she may have inadvertantly committed some traffic faux pas, maybe cut them off or some other thing of which she was unaware. She was totally clueless as to what she had done that had made them so very angry, but as it continued and they disregarded her shrugged shoulders, confused looks and mouthed apologies she began to get angry herself. She fought the desire to simply flip them off and go on her way, but their agitation increased along with her dis-ease. Fortunately, the next exit was hers, and she gratefully made her exit and pulled into the parking lot of her destination. Shaken, she left her car, and as she walked past it, she noticed that there was a problem with the driver's side tire. They hadn't been angry or rude...they were trying to get her the message that SHE WAS ABOUT TO HAVE A BLOWOUT which at highway speeds could have been fatal, not only to her, but to others as well. Her anger and distress passed, immediately replaced by a feeling of relief and thanks that they had attempted to warn her. It was all in her perception.


When our EMS era adult adoptees speak of their feeling of being abandoned by their natural mothers, it frequently strikes a sour note with Natural Mothers. EMS Mothers know abandonment, having been abandoned, willfully, intentionally, and directly by every single person to whom we turned. We were abandoned by our parents, by our friends, by our churches, schools and neigbors, by our physicians, our pastors, our teachers, our sisters and brothers, and by all of society. We KNOW what it is to be abandoned, and we know it on a conscious level, having been accutely aware of each person who turned their backs on our pleas for help.


Mothers of the EMS know what betrayal feels like, too, like the betrayal that Jesus must have felt when Judas kissed him. We know what it feels like to be betrayed and abandoned by EVERY SINGLE PERSON in our lives. We also know that that is NOT what we did to our infants, no matter what it feels like to them on a subconscious level.


Taking a woman's child from her is not as simple as picking up a toy on the playground. In order to do that, you have to break her first. You must convince her that she is not worthwhile as a woman, a mother or even a human being. You must convince her that her humanness is so subpar that her child will be better off without her, and that she is so abhorrent that even to have regular people SEE her would be an affront to decency itself. That was accomplished by abandoning the mothers to the homes for unwed mothers, the wage homes, where women were trotted out as specimens, or simply being hidden at home away from prying eyes. This was NOT a matter of skewed perception but of actual, factual happenings in our lives, happenings of which were were acutely aware as events unfolded.


If an adult adoptee reads Ann Fessler's, The Girl Who Went Away, and understands that, by and large, despite different characters, different details, our stories are largely all the same. Having been abandoned, we struggled to convince ourselves that we were giving a wonderful gift to our children. We were not abandoning them…we were giving them a wonderful new life, a new family and new homes where they would have all the things that we were unable to provide for them, free from the judgment and punishment that we experienced. They wouldn't be called Bastard on the playground, they would have lovely homes with married mothers and fathers to whom they were being hurriedly sent. Not only would they not miss us, they would be better off without us.


We thought that hearing our stories, reading Ann Fessler, and knowing the truth about adandonment, their perceptions would change and they would accept us, if not as mothers, at least as caring human beings connected to them by DNA, experience and the life we gave them. While adult adoptees tell how they feel as if they were abandoned, mothers actually WERE. It is not a free-floating anxiety or a non-verbal feeling. It was real, it was actual and it is remembered.


While mothers understand the feelings of the adult adoptee when they reunite, it is confusing later when the now adult adoptee continues to insist on their feelings being right. It is hurtful to mothers, who themselves were abandoned, to know that is how their now adult children continue to feel despite their protestations, the literature, and the truth of their own eyes. They seem to have a need to continue to perceive their experience from the viewpoint of the infant, wailing in the cot for their mothers who are physically restrained from coming to them

The woman I spoke to yesterday went from anger and rage, directed at the people in the car next to her, to gratitude and relief when she realized what they were trying to tell her. None of the details changed. None of the events changed. The only thing that changed in that scenario was her perception when she had full knowledge and understanding of their intent. Why is that so simple when it is strangers in an automobile on the interstate, but so difficult when it is the mother who gave birth? What must we mothers do to make it clear that despite their perception, we did not abandon or betray our infants? How DO you change another’s perception if the truth isn’t enough?