Customer Reviews

Adoption and Loss - The Hidden Grief

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Evelyn's book provides a rare insight into the mind of a mother who has given her child to adoption. It details the tremendous pain suffered because of this action and the life long grief it leaves. The book records the life of the author from the time of her birth till the present, and it is an honest and candid exposé of her thoughts and feelings about the conception, gestation, birth, and finally the reunion with her son Adam (later renamed Steven by the adoptive parents). Evelyn's story is one that has, in many ways, mirrored the experiences of many other women who have lost their children to adoption. It is a story that needs to be told and one that needs to be heard.

Evelyn raise the question of `acquiescence' for the natural mother and then dispels it by revealing the truth about the coercion involved in gaining consent for adoption. Evelyn also acknowledges the pain and hidden grief suffered by adopted people and lifts the veil of secrecy that surrounds adoption. She examines adoption's dark underbelly and the [idea] of silence that often works to maintain the spiritual, intellectual and physical separation between natural mother's and their children.

This book is highly recommended and a `must read' both for professionals working in the area of adoption and all of those many millions of people, worldwide, who have been touched by adoption. This book will be especially valuable to adoptive parents because it provides an account of the (often unacknowledged) experiences of birthmothers and their children. Many of these individuals have in the past, and will continue in the future, to be consumed by adoptions unresolved grief.

As a mother who relinquished her son to adoption in 1973, I found this book extremely helpful and interesting. All of the emotions and questions I have lived with for the past 32 years were addressed in a manner which gave my feelings validity and reassurance. It is remarkable how similar my experience is to that of Ms. Robinson. From pregnancy to reunion I feel like I have lived a parallel life on the other side of "the pond", or the world as it turns out. I particularly enjoyed her "Part Three, What does it all mean?". I can certainly ruminate about my life quite well on my own, without the book, but this third part offered me empowerment to say, "Hey, I'm not the bad guy here, what was society thinking?" It's not a transfer of blame, but it is a challange to take another look at established adoption and ask some pretty important questions. I certainly would recommend this book to any natural mother separated from her child at birth, no matter where they are in their grieving process, as well as adoptees, as a means of trying to understand why they came to be adoptees. Adoptive parents should also read this in an effort to offer "our" children support for their whole person, and to become aware that the adoption story is not as simple as they might believe.

Thank you Evelyn Burns Robinson, your book is great!!

Excellent book. I am an adoptee, and this helped me understand as best as I can the experience from a birthmother's perspective. Highly recommended reading.

This book provides three ways of looking at losing a child to adoption: the personal story of a mother, the psychological disenfranchised grief that grows over time for all mothers who lose their children to adoption, and the political dimensions of these losses in society. It is an excellent resource for those who want to understand the effects of taking children from mothers for the benefit of others.

I have read quite a bit on the topic of adoption. I found this book to be a very good one,
especially of interest to biological mothers who relinquished babies for adoption.

There are few books written about adoption from the natural mother's perspective. For that reason alone this book is worth reading. However, it has much more going for it. It is the most honest account I have ever read of a mother relinquishing her baby to be adopted. Evelyn Robinson confronts squarely all issues that took her to that place where she felt compelled to adopt her baby - her position in her family and relationships with other family members, her relationships with men before conceiving her son and the conception of her son. She goes on to analyse the affect relinquishing her son had on her life subsequently, especially, and most painfully, her abusive marriage.

The question most often asked of women who relinquish their babies to be adopted is "how could you." Few in society have any understanding of why women relinquish their own babies to the care of others. Hence, I believe, the myth has arisen that these mothers never loved their babies and voluntarily abandoned them. In her book Evelyn Robinson carefully analyses why pefectly normal, sane women allowed their babies to be adopted. This is essential reading for all natural mothers of adopted children, adopters, adopted persons and policy makers.

Evelyn Robinson states "It is obvious that a serious loss is experienced by the women...who gave birth to children who are subsequently adopted by someone else...." She explains why the grief of these women does not diminish with time, but increases in intensity with the passage of time. Her analysis of this phenomenon releases natural mothers from their rusty shackles of shame and guilt. It is clear that not only did natural mothers have little in the way of financial resources to enable them to care for their children, their families, society, social workers and health professionals conspired to disempower and silence them.

The author encourages natural mothers to search for the adult children they relinquished to be adopted. She describes her search and subsequent reunion with her son, the difficulties encountered along the way, including telling her other four children that they had an older brother and the ongoing relationship they now have.

Evelyn Robinson relinquished her son in the early 1970's. Much of what she describes in her book - the pain adoption causes to natural mothers and adopted persons - is now well known by professionals involved with adoption. One must question why this practice continues - who benefits?

The last part of Evelyn Robinson's book is a call for an end to the practice of adoption, and an exploration of alternative forms of care for children whose families are unable to care for them.

First review lost. Hate that! Reading this book gives the reader a chance to begin to understand the truth about the loss and devastation on the REAL family about adoption. There is no way to describe the devastation, it's a burden that makes one wish for death. People need to learn the truth and actually start to care about how their actions hurt others...stealing the babies of the poor and hurting...just to satisfy their own selfish desires. I hope, that reading this book will enable me to be able to begin to deal with my loss and devastion so that I can write my own book...not that I need to read this one or any one book to write. I can do that on my own. Everyone should read this book and every book that will give them the TRUTH ABOUT ADOPTION and the damage to the REAL FAMILY! I hate adoption. It's a murder beyond all description. We must begin to stand as people who are Christians...to KEEP REAL FAMILIES TOGETHER!...and to keep children in their own lands...not be bringing them here to live lies.

I commend the author for her willingness to share her difficult story and express her opinions on adoption.

I cannot condone her hyperbole of comparing adoption to slavery and I do not agree with her desire to abolish adoption.

Furthermore, I am in utter amazement that this book has been accepted by adoption advocacy groups. So much to the point that I wondered if I was reading the same book.

However, it is important to note that the book is opinion. More accurately, it is opinion based on an agenda - an agenda that stems from her understandable grief of placing a child for adoption, her broad generalizations of adoption as a whole, and what appears to be a lack of ownership of her decision.

On page 217 the author states that adoption is not about blame and that she does not blame anyone for her decision. The previous 216 pages point to the contrary. The author cites her relationship with her father, society, religion, patriarchal culture, government, social workers, western civilization, her abusive husband, psychological professionals, the wealthy, the infertile, etc. all as negatives that "forced" her into he decision and continue to "force" other women into the same. She made the decision to choose adoption, just as thousands of other women have done.

The author frequently sites "force" as being the reason children are placed for adoption. Again, societal forces, religious forces, paternal forces, governmental forces, etc. I think this erroneous choice of words cheapens the the tremendous sacrifice and act of love many birth mothers absorb in order to do what they believe is best for their child.

The author makes brief mention of a time when she was pregnant and had only 5 cents in her pocket. However, in her hindsight and a perfect world fantasy, she would have been able to provide for the child and everyone would have lived happily ever after. Could this fantasy have happened? Maybe. But it could have ended a lot worse as well. I feel that the anecdote is representative of the books deep seated problem: the needs of the birth mother come first, the needs of the adoptive child come second.

As previously mentioned, the author is a proponent of abolishing adoption. Her solution? If a potential adoptive parent really cared about the child, they should just cut a check to the birth mom and be financially supportive in order to help her keep the baby, circumstances be damned. An adoptive parent will never be good enough for a child. Send them the money, that's all you're good for.

Adoption is painful and unnatural. But when done correctly and done with an unadulterated love for the child, adoption can be a beautiful thing. It will require work and there will be a need to actively grieve for the loss, but adoptive parents can and should understand this unavoidable grief and help the adoptive child by being supportive during these trying times.

My opinion and advice to any member of the adoption triad, pass on this drivel and read - Being Adopted: The Lifelong Search for Self - or - I Wish for You a Beautiful Life: Letters from the Korean Birth Mothers of Ae Ran Won to Their Children - or - Primal wound.

Adoption literature is in dire need of material covering birth mothers and I was initially excited to not only find this book, but to also see that it was written from a birth mothers perspective. However, instead of being the cream of a very small crop, Adoption and Loss turned out to be the scum on top of a pond.

In the begining of the book the author states "...adopted people who do not acknowledge their original mothers are not living authentically..." I take exception to this statement. The person who gave birth to me IS NOT my mother. My mother is the person who guided me and loved me throughout my life. I have never had any urge to search for my "original" mother and I have several adopted friends who feel the same way. I do not deny the existance of the woman who gave birth to me, but I do deny that she has had ANY impact (other than DNA) on my life and who I am today.

This book just perpetuates the myth that adopted children feel they are "missing" something (in this case the woman who gave birth to them.)