The story of my stolen extended family goes back to my mother's forced
adoption in 1950. She was sixteen years old at the time of the forced adoption.
Her real father refused to sign the papers during her 15 years in a private
foster home, I still have had no information on my grandmother born 1908, other
than she was still alive and writing to her other 3 children in another Care
Home from a variety of addresses following her failed marriage with my
grandfather.
I found out this information mid 2006 after I applied to the former 'Care Home'
for the files of mother's siblings. The siblings she had been separated from.
The siblings she had no knowledge of.
To go back to the beginning -my mother who was born 1934 grew up, raised 3 kids
of her own without knowing her birth identity. The information of 2 older
brothers slipped out accidentally when my mother was 47 years old, and by this
time a mother and grandmother herself.
The authorities who had power over her, in conjunction with her foster parents
and later the adopters (same couple), decided her fate should be that she should
lose her entire birth family on the basis of a failed marriage between her
parents. My mother was not aware of her loss because of the withholding of
information. She was only a year old when she was taken to a Nazareth House
orphanage owned by the Catholic Church. I believe she spent hours confined
lacking stimulation in an orphanage cot, the result of by 2 years of age was
struggling to walk and talk.
The family to this little girl, my mother was denied her for over 47 years. She
was to be raised in private foster care as an only child with genetic strangers.
In reality mother's loss was of 2 elder brothers, an elder sister, grandparents,
a mix of 8 aunts and uncles on her father's side, 8 half siblings, and cousins
too many to mention. Who decided that a foster child should have no knowledge of
her identity and family? Those with the power to decide that on her behalf are
the answer.
Mother always said 'If my father was such a bad man as the visiting social
worker inferred when she visited my foster parents, then why was he allowed to
re-marry and have 7 more children with a widow who had already got 5 children,
and raise them too?''
If my grandfather was so bad and abusive as the social worker used to rub under
my mother's innocent nose as a child, then why did we learn 25 years ago, that
everyone loved her dad especially his kids? Why did the social worker frighten
my mother by growling at her when asking ''If she (my mother) could see her real
father would she''? My mother told me that her inner voice was screaming ''YES'
I WANT MY REAL PARENTS'' - but she was too afraid to do other than give the
social worker the answer she was looking for. Meanwhile, and ironically, her
foster carers would threaten my mother with ''being sent back to where she came
from''. These foster parents had it was revealed, sent back a child they deemed
unsuitable. My mother always declared ''that child had a lucky escape!'' My
mother was surrounded by little bags of manipulation, and emotional abuse within
an isolated and lonely environment during her early development years. This is
damaging for all children.
However her foster parents felt entitled to some reward for their 15 years of
conspiracy with social services, and whatever out of pocket expenses had been
incurred, and thus mother was ''freed up for adoption'' and gained legal parents
in 1950. Her real parents had lost out to a legal loophole, where time was
played out to the advantage of the ''good catholic parents in waiting''. My
mother's heart sank as her fate was sealed in 1950. She heard for the first time
the names of her real mother and father in court that day and hid them deep in
her mind. She never did cure her adoptive mother's infertility, nor the ill
health of the TB that caused the problem.
Then the law changed in 1975 allowing adopted people to know who they were. The
obligation to ''be counselled'' prior to any disclosure of ''the birth family''
resulted in my mother becoming angry when it was put to her that this was the
'legal' deal. After all her adoption was ''forced'' and no papers had been
signed from her real parents. There had been no request from any ''birth
relatives'' that personal privacy be honoured, but I think even today adoptees
are still treated with a blanket policy.
My mother and I spent 25 years searching for family she and her children lost to
this forced adoption. In February 2006 mother died. Two months later I found a
death certificate for the one brother we were unsuccessful in tracing. He died
in 1997 of EXACTLY the same heart condition as his sister, my mother. My mother
died on her lost brothers' birthday. So many examples of synchronisation I could
give you.
It wasn't social services that found her 'stolen' siblings. The breakthrough
came after a media article appeared in the region of the Care Home where her
siblings were placed.
This is the legacy of secrets, lies, and a separated sibling group of 4 children
from a poor background in the 1930's.
All 4 of those children that passed through the care system, separated from one
another are now dead, but 3 of them had children and are genetically cousins. I
found my ''lost'' uncle had 2 children, and was successful in tracing them both
2 weeks ago. They are out in Australia, and had no idea of my existence. What we
have shared for over 44 years is mutual ignorance through no fault of the
grandparents we hold in common, our parents, nor ourselves. This is the legacy
that ripples through the generations, and it's about time this ‘‘loss’’ and it's
inter-generational ''curse'' was given significant recognition by those who
created it i.e.: - not us, not our family members who were vulnerable innocent
children.
After I found my now middle aged 2 cousins I received a letter from social
services saying that I should use a ''relevant agency'' when tracing. I found
both my cousins as a result of what may be called a miracle, and that has given
us the opportunity of exchanging emails, phone calls, and photographs.
The issue of obtaining my mother's care file from 1935 to 1950 remains close to
my heart, as does what happened to my grandmother. My mother's foster/later
adoptive parents de-valued my grandmother by telling my mother that ''her mother
couldn't have been much good''. However in the last month I have found copies of
hand written letters from my grandmother to her 3 older children who were placed
in care about 60 miles from their home town. These letters span from 1935 -
1943. It is obvious that in the beginning, shortly after losing her children,
that my grandmother wasn't told where her children were, and wrote pleading
letters as best she could to be informed of where her children were, so as to
granted permission to see them.
Grandmother's letters are heartbreaking, and she's very distressed in her tone.
It's clear from her letters that she loved all her children, and also clear that
she needed financial and possibly practical help to raise her 4 children as a
single mother. Instead the state probably paid out more to keep the children in
Care than help their mother. The children were never re-united with their
parents again. In 1953 a member of their father's family approached the Care
Home for news of the children, but there seems to have been a response from the
Home that they did not have any forwarding addresses. This was a Catholic Care
Home that took away children's first names and replaced them with numbers. This
was a Care Home that hit the headlines linked to abuse cases some years ago.
Now they have appointed a full time social worker at the former Care Home whose
job is to help trace children (now adults) and help re-unite untold numbers of
fragmented souls. Social Services always want a fee for their tracing services,
even this once orphanage requests a donation, and it seems yet another indignity
for those elderly and middle aged home-children who are still attempting to fix
their emotional wounds. What if someone does not have any spare money? I suspect
you don't get the service. Even today, the invisible and voiceless soul-wounded
are measured by finance to pay for what we should never have lost forever in the
first place.
This is a 25 year story to date, and I doubt I have another 25 years in me to
find out exactly what happened to the grandmother I was never allowed to know,
where she is buried, who buried her, or anything about her life. But I know she
loved her children, and I know she never signed any adoption papers, so I think
it is time people like me who are the first generation of a ''forced adoption''
were validated in how our parents felt, and how that impacted upon our own
childhoods. I can relate to the relatives of those young soldiers who were shot
in the trenches of the First War for so called 'desertion'. The injustice lived
on, and the cause of the wrongness and suffering was taken up by the next
generation, and the next, until a governmental apology came.
How can any ''After Adoption Support'' counselling help us, when from the 'off'
the counsellor assumes wrongly that you or your parent was willingly
relinquished for adoption? ''Do I feel angry that my grandfather and grandmother
gave my mother up for adoption?'' The answer is they never gave her up, or
signed any papers. But Social Services have no qualms in writing to me to say
that if I choose to trace birth relatives, that I should choose a relevant
agency.
Given my grandmother would be 98 years old now if she were still alive, I would
imagine Social Services could give her a heart attack if it were possible to
write her! The adoptee oldies and people in middle age seem to have been
overlooked vastly by any help agencies out there. We see glossy ads in papers
about adoption, but even adoptees grow old, and the pain of lost family
intensifies with age. So how about articles on the oldies - they really are the
forgotten ones. They are covered in stigma, past old practices, secrets, lies,
no help until the advent of Post Adoption Support some years ago, which is
poorly promoted, not to mention the 'before 1975 adoption law'.
So I guess Social Services mean themselves when they refer to tracing through a
relevant agency, and that leaves me feeling they have common ground with being
both the disease and the doctor. But they, with a history of so much upside down
thinking, and mistake making, get to do the necessary ''counselling'' before
they allow you as a pre-1975 adoption case, to have a care file that's personal
to you!
They own your family knowledge. That knowledge remains in the bondage of their
filing cabinets unless we play ball, then when you do receive it, how are we to
know we are given the entirety of it? They decided what you needed to know in
the old days, and they still decide. I am having visions of a 71 year old woman
going for After Adoption Support, and applying year after year for her care file
- it should make tears come to your eyes. There should be a support group set up
specifically for the pre-1975 adoption cases as they are treated differently,
and also for those affected by Forced Adoption as they too are treated
differently.
We should demand that whilst we are united in suffering the loss of our families
there are differences that should be recognised. Forced Adoption, and pre-1975
adoption cases to name but two differences that dictate that we are classified
and treated with 'legal' difference when we apply for birth certificates and our
adoption files for example. All played down, and I have a sneaking suspicion
that not too much is on offer for the pre-1975 folks as we grow nearer towards
the grave and the matter no doubt will be taken care of by the Grim Reaper! A
horrid thought that I hope is proved wrong.
Maggie
