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“Quit whining, crying, feeling sorry for yourself and just get over it!” Some birth mothers hear that comment or variations often. It is generally couched more delicately that that; sometimes not. However, even when it is put more eloquently, the message is still crystal clear.
Honestly, most of us would love to wake up one day and feel all healed and happy. That was what many of us were told and expected. However, the people who told us that we would “get over” the loss of our child did not know or care – and they were wrong to lead us to expect that we would “get over” such a loss.
Others are uncomfortable with our pain, sadness, regret and lingering issues that stem from the loss of a child to adoption. If you hate seeing that in birth/first mothers, imagine what it feels like to live with it. Then, just “get over it,” right? It would make your head swim to hear of the extraordinary efforts that many birth/first mothers undertake in order to heal and recover.
Certainly some wallow in their pain, and do not try. There are some people with no connections to adoption who do the same. However, the vast majority of the birth mothers that I know want to be happy and have some peace and resolution in their lives. It is so easy for others to instruct birth mothers to stop obsessing over the loss of their child and move on.
However, to actually achieve healing and recovery is a mammoth task. Many birth moms spend years in therapy, read voraciously and try every possible method to heal that they possibly can. They write, do public speaking, march for open records; the list is endless. Forgetting, and ignoring the issues is not an option for most birth moms. It becomes a mission to make some changes in a system that has injured so many people so grievously.
There is a cost for birth parents to becoming immersed in trying to change the system and spare others in the future from fates similar to theirs. Would it be better for birth mothers to simply concentrate their energies elsewhere? Some can and do put adoption on the back burner. They must in order to survive. Reliving and revisiting the whole topic of adoption is too excruciating.
There is no end in sight for birth parents’ voices continuing to speak out. As long as there is much that needs improving in adoption practices, birth parents will continue to speak out. Sometimes it might sound like whining and crying, but there is no loss on earth that matches losing a child.
I think the perception of a birthmother “whining and crying” is a symptom of a deeper societal issue — that Western society does not acknowlege the importance of the grieving process. My father died when I was 16. He had not been gone a month when someone told me that it was time for me to “get over it.” After only a few weeks (and in the middle of the holiday season), I had not even BEGUN to “get over it.” When so little support is shown for something as common as the death of an immediate family member, then losses that are less common, such as placing a child for adoption, are going to be overlooked by society as a whole.
Our society does this to our detriment. No matter what loss you experience in life, you need to grieve it. If you don’t, you will carry the pain around with you for the rest of your life, and that pain will influence every aspect of your life.
I am glad that you are writing about this topic. It sounds like many birthmothers do not receive counseling about how to grief this loss.
Take care,
- Faith