“I have the feeling that adopted people who have chosen not to bring children into the world have a lot to say.” -Anne Heffron

I saw this post on Instagram and had a visceral reaction. I was adopted and decided not to bring a child into the world. The post hit a nerve because I am rarely if ever asked about my choice. Certainly, never in connection with being adopted.

After the popularity of the post, Anne googled the topic. After finding nothing, she decided that there should be something google-able for adoptees who have chosen not to parent or who are trying to decide.

So, she brought a group of us together virtually for a few hours on an early Sunday morning. We explored our various reasons for not bringing children into the world. The stories were unique, but with consistent patterns and varying levels of regret.

Through the lens of adoption, it is impossible to escape grief. This was no exception. Within our stories of choosing not to have children the common adoptee themes of loss, individual and generational trauma, unworthiness, shame, relational issues, and pressures to conform to the needs of others were all present.

As is true in so many adoptee gatherings, there was the wish expressed that we had been able to process being adopted earlier in life so that it did not negatively impact major life decisions. There really should be a voucher for lifetime therapy available for adoptees instead of an amended birth certificate. 

Deep appreciation to Anne for gathering us and to all the writers that share their stories here.

 

Kate Murphy, LCSW

Society puts pressure on women to become mothers. One of the first things that happens when you get married is people around you will start asking, "When will you have children?" I never wanted children. As a kid, I told my adoptive mother I never wanted children. I knew it.

That was the one thing she desperately wanted. She could not understand that this was not what I wanted. She had always dreamt of being a mother, but her choices were taken from her. She was married before my adoptive father. When she went in for gallbladder surgery, her husband at the time asked the surgeon to perform a hysterectomy. Her rights were taken from her because it was legal for him to do that. This wasn't that long ago. Before going past this, I want to say that this can very well be what happens again if we don't stop the direction things are going. Even if your beliefs differ, no one has the right to tell you what to do with your body. If my adoptive mother were alive, she could tell you all the dangers of giving people too much control because of an agenda. I digress but not that much.

I grew up knowing I was adopted. Although I was loved, I never felt like I belonged. I could see how my friends would be close to their mothers and families. I knew something was wrong with me because my feelings were confusing. I didn't have a natural closeness to my adoptive parents. I wanted to, but it wasn't real. I had no choice in the relationship. They thought I was their's and that was it. The people working at the adoption agency told them I was a blank slate. This lie damaged any chance we had of an honest relationship.

Growing up, my adoptive parents told me to find jobs to earn money.  Most girls my age would babysit. I never babysat. I still to this day have not changed a diaper. I never felt the longing to be a mother. Not in pretend, when other girls would play house, or later when I could actually have one.

My adoptive mother wanted me to get married and have babies so bad. I didn't get married until I was 41 and never had children. I don't regret my choices because I'm happy with my husband and life. We have been together for almost 24 years. This month makes 16 of those years married.

When I found my biological sisters, the second after me didn't have children either. Our youngest sister did have children. The sister that doesn't have children, rejected me. My youngest sister and I do have a relationship. We have talked honestly about our mother. She thinks our mother was also a victim of what society demands. Our mother couldn't have kept me. It was the 60s, and unwed mothers were seen as immoral. Some people still believe this. This belief system caused what is known as the Baby Scoop Era. I was one of about 4 million babies from that time that were relinquished. Society deemed some mothers as being unfit, and babies were adopted to typically married couples for a "better life." Some people's pressure to conform to society will make them do anything.

I was adopted because neither of my mothers had control over their own bodies. That is the hard truth. Maybe that is why I never had children, or perhaps I really have no maternal drive. Either way, I did take control of my body. I chose what was right for me.

@theadoptedchameleon

 

Child free as an adoptee. This is the subject of the conversation. How do I feel? How do you feel? What do we share in common, this alien band of humans who feel as if we’ve never been born ourselves?

Do I feel free as an adoptee who made the choice to end a pregnancy I didn’t plan, never expected, and couldn’t see myself going through?

I couldn’t see myself because I had only ever been seen through other people’s eyes and told other people’s stories about why I was born and how I was meant to be part of the family I was raised in. No one talked about my mother - the “real”[1] one, the one who would have made me feel real and whole enough to trust that I could nurture a life inside and outside my body. My body was not my own and I did not own my feelings except for fear. The constant fear of detachment, disembodiment, and disconnection.

[1] “Do You Know Your Real Parents? and Other Adoption Microaggressions”

Liz DeBetta, Ph.D.

Recently I was scheduled to have a breast MRI. This is my new annual protocol since discovering my biological grandmother died of breast cancer at age 53, the same age I am now. I sometimes wonder what my life outcomes would have been had I never learned my medical history, a biological privilege denied to most adoptees. Knowing I have an increased risk of breast cancer allows me to make informed choices about preventative care. Although I first requested my health history from my adoption agency at age 20, it would be 25 years until the laws in the state I was born changed. This legislation passed granted the basic human right to my identity by giving me the civil right to my unaltered, original birth certificate at age 45. As I was in the shower this morning awaiting the results of my MRI and checking for breast lumps, I started thinking about a close friend who died of metastatic breast cancer at age 35. I remember her saying she felt the tumor for several months but didn’t get it checked out because she was young and figured it was nothing to worry about. By the time she went to the doctor, it was too late. She spent the rest of her life trying any and every treatment possible to stay alive for herself, for her young daughter, and for the grandchildren she will never meet.

That’s what it feels like for me to be a childless adoptee. I found out too late the knowledge I needed to make a conscious decision about whether to procreate. During my reproductive years, I experienced two unplanned, crisis pregnancies that ended in abortions. Twenty-five years later, I learned that my biological mother also experienced two unplanned crisis pregnancies that ended in closed adoptions. What are the chances that both of us would conceive children that we never got to raise and both of us would spend decades suffering with the secrecy and shame of our choiceless choices? I intentionally call these choiceless choices because neither my mother nor I were equipped to save ourselves or our descendants from the catastrophic trauma we both inherited through our ancestors’ DNA. My grandfather lost his entire family, his home and fled two countries to survive World War II. I have come to believe that the devastating impact of these losses transcended multiple generations and severed our family tree. While we each take full responsibility for making the best decisions we could at the time with the information that we had, neither of us feel that we had truly viable options or informed choices, and we both have regrets that play out as an endless mind game of what if’s. What if my first mother had been given choices over birth control? What if abortion were legal when she got pregnant? What if society had accepted single mothers and their children as legitimate in the 1960’s? What if she had a family that could have supported her? What if research on closed adoption and family preservation had been known and understood by adoption policy makers and child welfare practitioners before she relinquished my sister and I? What if the government had not withheld my true record of birth for 45 years? What if I had known my identity sooner? What if I would have trusted the timing of my life? What if I would have had more courage? What if I received therapy to help me make sense of living adopted at each developmental life stage? What if my mother or I were encouraged to consider the magnitude and permanence of our decisions and that this would be the only opportunity we had to parent?

I spent the first ½ of my life searching for my roots. I got the answers I was looking for, but they came too late in life for me to save my branch of the family tree. The complex trauma from being relinquished and losing my family has impacted every single part of my being, and I will spend the remainder of my days trying to heal from my disenfranchised grief. On my best days, I find the wings I call Hope and Grace, and they carry me forward by helping me stay present in the moment and choose love, instead of punishing my younger self, wishing I could go back and rewrite the story, or worrying about what the future will bring. We live our lives forward and understand them backward. I received vital health history early enough to take precaution against breast cancer. I also recognize that my grandmother had to die from what I am trying to prevent for me to have this knowledge to inform my future choices. So is my hope with this essay, that a young adoptee will read these words, and her outcomes will be different than mine and my mothers were because she has greater capacity to have informed consent and a real choice when it comes to deciding if, when and how she will create her family. That an advocate for unsealing birth records and reforming adoption policies will know his efforts are worth it and not give up the fight for change and justice. And that any childfree adoptee who has struggled with this choiceless choice recognizes they are not alone.    

EVE

Why childless..? It was an unconscious decision. The universe protected me. I thought I wanted children. I spent a lot of time around kids. However, something always kept me from acting on the desire. As an adult, I now know the desire to have kids was to make me feel like I belonged. I thought I would be needed. Wanted. To love and be loved unconditionally.  

I would not have been emotionally able to be a parent. My trauma would have negatively impacted the relationship. I would have passed that down but not had the ability to provide the child their maternal medical history or ancestry. 

I could pass down my pain and hurt, trauma, but not provide them with basic information. Wooooo. That’s fucked.

I feel protected, and I broke generational trauma by not having children. 

M.L.