Customer Reviews

The Girls Who Went Away: The Hidden History of Women Who Surrendered Children for Adoption in the Decades Before Roe v. Wade

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This book was recommended to me by one of the subjects within. As I am an adoptee who was surrendered in the mid 1960's I found the books revelations both informative and unsettling. I had never put the picture in my head of how socially motivated and financially interested some of the adoption agencies of the time were nor the gamut of emotions felt by these birthmothers. This is well researched from a historical standpoint as well as a facinating read delving into the very human feelings shared by those in the triad of adoption. Feelings, I might add, that are not well understood by those outside of this subculture. I have recommended this book to several counselor friends of mine and would do the same for anyone who may find themselves across the couch from persons involved in the adoption process. Mrs. Fessler's book flows very smoothly and is quite an easy read. The books stories are filled with the heart wrenching fear, dissapointment, guilt, anguish and uncertainty felt by many birthmothers but the ultimate message is one of underlying love, resolution and final completion. My final thoughts were of hope. Hope for governmental reform in its policies, hope for institutional reform in their practices and proceedures and hope for adoptee and birth parent alike in the illimination of uncertainties and for final completeness.

If you're interested in social history, "The Girls Who Went Away" makes for a fascinating read. Ann Fessler interviewed dozens of women who were sent to homes for "unwed mothers" between the 1945 and 1973. The tales the women tale are harrowing and extremely human. Interspersed with the interviews are Fessler's essays about society at the time, and how the post-war situation affected the average family. The book overturned several assumptions I had always made about life in that time period, e.g., that not many teens were sexually active. The shame of sexuality at the time, and the ridiculous lack of information teenagers were given about their own bodies, created a climate in which thousands of girls became pregnant and were forced to hide out from the world, until they could give birth, relinquish the baby, and return to "normal" teen life. Unfortunately, the reality wasn't so simple. The devastating emotional impact of bringing a pregnancy to term, and then having to give up the child, often without so much as seeing it, haunted these women for the rest of their days. The intense secrecy that surrounded the issue only made things worse. It's impossible to read the book without feeling sympathy for these young women, who were given so little control over their own lives. Although the book doesn't answer every question about adoption, or about how to deal with the problem of teen pregnancy, it's a valuable work that makes a big contribution to our understanding of motherhood. Hopefully psychologists, educators and legislators will learn some lessons from it.

I got this for a family member who was/is one of the 'Girls Who Went Away'. Turned out that my younger brother had already sent her a copy. She rated it 5 stars as an accurate depiction of the subject in that era (I remember her going passing through the extremities of the family structure on her way to a Salvation Army home).

Read this if you don't understand why reproductive freedom is so important.

Every heart rending story is told by a birth mother who was made to feel ashamed and guilty about her pregnancy before marriage. Most of these young women were coerced into giving their babies up for adoption. These are eye-opening accounts of young women abandoned by their families, lovers and the social systems of the time.

In "The Girls Who Went Away," Ann Fessler interviews several women who surrendered their babies for adoption in the years before Roe v. Wade (1973). Fessler spares the reader historical fill-in facts and avoids covering the pages with interview-style "Q&As." Instead, she points her recorder in the direction of the women, and lets them talk. Their accounts, spoken candidly and without self-pity, left me with a sense that they had actually sat with me at my table, sipping tea, when not wiping away bitter tears. What makes these stories and, indeed, the entire book so special is the author's personal familiarity with the subject (her own story's reveal comes at the end).

The women recall the moments they first discovered they were pregnant and then relate the shock, disgust and, often, condemnation expressed by their parents after being told the news. Some of these memories include accounts in which the boyfriend or lover of the unwed mother demonstrated a desire to marry his pregnant girlfriend, only to have the request refused by one or both sets of parents.

One woman remembers aloud the afternoon her father arrived home early from work to find his daughter and her boyfriend making love on the rec room floor, and goes on to tell the repercussions.

In most of the accounts, after the girls revealed their pregnancies, they had no choice but to comply with their elders' decisions to send them away. Some of the girls' parents permitted them to live at home until their pregnancies became physically obvious. At some point, however, all of the girls went away to give birth, and returned with empty arms. Once home, parental and societal expectations called for the young women to resume living their lives as though nothing had happened, while enduring placating reassurances that they would have other children some day.

The book is a testament to the closed-minded, "only one way out" system that once existed in the adoption business. It examines adoption workers' dismissive attitudes toward birthmothers who desired to keep their babies, and the persuasive tactics they employed to convince such women to change their minds.

The common themes are many, but none so wrenching as the one in which a birthmother recalls savoring each second with her newborn before he leaves with his new family. One woman recalls going to the nursery to see her baby a few days after giving birth. Instead, she finds the baby's empty cot, a seering visual confirmation of the permanence of adoption and the infinite nature of her loss.

Perhaps the most enduring footprint left behind by the majority of the birthmothers was one that time could not erase: The desire to see their babies again, no matter that those infants had grown up. The mothers go on to explain the decision to enroll in an adoption search registry system, as they relive the nail-biting wait for answers. Although the first reunions of birthmothers and adoptees are not covered in great detail, the author does capture the universal emotions that precede, accompany and occur after the process.

The "Girls who Went Away" answers questions that evidently no one but the birthmothers deemed important enough to ask in the years before 1973. Thankfully, Ann Fessler has pushed those questions out into the spotlight while the courageous women in her book supply all of the answers and more. A compelling, stunning expose' about a formerly exploitative industry and the women who became its unwitting victims.

I bought this book to validate the feelings I experienced surrendering my daughter 37 years ago - although it took my breath away reconnecting with the pain, I also found I wasn't alone. A wonderful complimentary tool to those seeking therapy to cope with the loss of a child through adoption.

This is an important contribution not only for the stories of mothers who reliquished their children for adoption but for the analysis of the culture of the time between 1930 and the early 70s. The shift from church groups who helped mother and child stay together to the more "professional" social worker who separated mother and child is well documented. The rationale created by the "professionals" is scary. This book is a must read for all those mothers who relinquished thier children and for their families and friends.
I was one of those mothers who got caught in this in the late 50s and after living a life of secrets and shame, this book offers an alternate insight into what had happened.

This in an incredible book written about a period in time that is truly difficult for someone of my generation (age 42) to comprehend. The author does an excellent job of weaving her interviewing experiences with facts of the times and these incredible life stories. I would highly recommend this book to everyone (and have).

For whatever reason, Amazon has not incorporated the reviews from the hardcover edition of this book onto the release of the paperback, which gives me the opportunity to again encourage everyone to READ THIS BOOK, especially now, when many schools are prohibitted from, and many parents refuse to, teach basic sex education. And the Supreme Court is hanging by a thread contingent on the next Presidential election. This reviewer is shocked, chagrinned, and embarassed by generations of females behind me, like Elisabeth Hasselbeck on *The View,* who totally "don't get" the ramifications. This could be where Yogi Berra says: "it's Deja Vu all over again!"

Between the end of World War II in 1945 and the 1973 United States Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade, many unwed girls and women were forced by society to "go away" during unplanned pregnancies - < to "hide" the physical evidence of their perceived moral turpitude, while the fathers, blameless and shameless, were free to roam about their usual lives and wild oat sowing> - and surrender the baby to "good homes" (2 parent households.) Now, adding insult to past psychological injuries, the Men in power continue to refuse to allow adequate access to birth and adoption records such that the members of the "adoption triad" (birth parents, adoptive parents and adoptee) can't find each other. Thus is created a large segment of the "Baby Boom" generation without medical/genetic history.

Ann Fessler found her history and has written an excellent, empathetic, anecdotal and well-researched history of her mother and other mothers who "gave up" their babies and the confluence of forces in the age of Ozzie and Harriet, McCarthy, and beyond. As this reviewer has cautioned in other reviews, a lot of younger women take for granted the great strides made in the brief period between the 1960's and now. This book and In Our Time: Memoir of a Revolution will remind those of us who lived through this period of the progress we've made - and teach the younger generations that they must be eternally vigilant, lest those rights be taken away. Rosie the Riveter, paragon of "We Can Do It!" womanhood in the 1940s, was shuffled off to June Cleaver's kitchen in the 1950s. As Santayana said: "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

/TundraVision, Amazon Reviewer

As an adoptee, this book took my breath away. I always knew that the women of that era, the ones "in trouble", were sent away, but I never really grasped just how cruelly they were treated. Not just by the "system", but by their own family and friends. And it's amazing to me that the fathers of the children weren't treated any differently by society, even though some suffered their own grief and guilt.

After reading this book, I have to wonder if any of those doctors, social workers, nurses, and adoption agency staff felt any remorse at all for what they did to those poor women. We do get from the book that at least some of the family members, friends, and fathers of the children regretted their actions and words later on.

Although the book drags a bit when providing some of the statistical data, it provides more insight than I could possibly have imagined. The women's stories are scary, touching, and truly brave. Especially when you consider how young they were when they were sent off to strangers and "abandoned" by those they depended on.

These women were given no options toward keeping their children. Thanks to society and their parents and their boyfriends' parents, they were judged, reprimanded, condemned, and told to keep their emotions in check. They were shunned by friends and family (during and after their pregnancies) and were never given the chance to cry or vent or talk about it, even years later. Until I read this book, I never dreamed that even after 30, 40, or 50+ years, that these women would still carry so much shame and guilt. My heart goes out to all the women who shared their stories here and to those who suffered the same fate.

This is an excellent read for adoptees, adoptive families, birth families, and any historians or sociologists who want to know what happened. I wouldn't trade my family for anything, but I hope like hell that the mother who carried and bore me didn't suffer what these women did. I hope she at least had a choice in her decision to surrender me. Probably not. That's just sad.