Striding Dyke

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are you my mother?

I have been extremely moved over the past week by posts Jan Logie has been putting up via FB with regards to the forced removal of children under the 1955 Adoption Law between the late 50s and 80’s and the trauma birth-mothers experienced.  Minister for Children Anne Tolley has said she will not be holding an inquiry as there is no proof that the practice of coercive adoption was endorsed by the government at the time. In 1997 the then social welfare department, a branch of the government, officially acknowledged that coercive adoptions occurred for more than 30 years.  They however shelved any opportunity to hold an inquiry arguing it would not necessarily help those hurt by past practices. in 2013 our Australian counterparts made an official apology on behalf of the Australian people, for the policies and practices that forced the separation of mothers from their babies.  Gillard told the audience that these practices “…created a lifelong legacy of pain and suffering"

I was born in 1960, in the height of the sexual revolution.  Whilst the rest of the world was leaving the stodgy conservativism of the 50s in their wake, the majority of New Zealanders were getting on with business; working and raising families.  Looking back at how parents raised their children most of us would cringe at their reliance on punishment.  Scolding, shouting, and smacking were considered as necessary and any thought of rewarding and or praising children was tantamount sparing the rod spoiling the child.  

Concomitantly women were experiencing a boom, with increases in job opportunities and for some chance to attend university; life was good.  However for those who found their new found freedom leading to a pregnancy, life was less rewarding.  Prior to the 1940s, it was believed that making mothers who fell pregnant (something I have never understood – the whole falling pregnant concept) keeping the illegitimate child was a fitting ‘…punishment for the mother’s sin and a warning to others’.  In the 1950s New Zealand’s welfare state focused on supporting married couples with young children.  Single, mothers were left to struggle financially and would often have any benefits they may receive withheld leaving them to rely on highly religious welfare organisations.  The 1955 Adoption Act produced a new regime of thought based on a complete break ideology.  The complete break and secrecy shaped our adoption policy for 30 years.” Women were coerced into giving their child away.  Birth-mothers and their adopted children were then to have no contact, ever.  Through government policy “…a wall of secrecy was placed between the adoptee and their origins.  This was sanctioned via a bilateral partnership between governments and church and buttressed by a patriarchal view of women as second-class citizens and ‘fallen-women’ as unfit.  The government, a bastion of maleness (I wonder how many illegitimate children they fathered), supported adoption through various actions such as making it illegal to sell contraceptives to anyone under 16 years of age (1954 and 1977).  Moreover, it was illegal to even discuss contraception with under-16-year-olds until 1989.  Adoption agencies and the bible reiterated the need to ensure those born outside wedlock be given the best opportunity.  Therefore single mothers found it difficult to receive support and were encouraged give up their children as there was morally, and financially no support for them and or their child. 

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Whilst minister Tolley suggests that the government was not active in the forced removal of children she is certainly ignoring the lack of financial support and government policies that rendered women helpless to prevent pregnancy and once pregnant to bring their child up. Abortion was only dangerous it was illegal. 

Oblivious to the political and social environment that would construct a large part of my identity I was immediately whisked away to be put up for adoption.  Looking back on my adoption and childhood I cannot excuse either the system or my adopted parents for their callous mistreatment of myself as an ‘illegitimate children’’.  My adopted parents however, functioned within a structure that felt like a second-skin to them; what they did seemed ‘natural’.  For them it was natural / right for a woman to give up her child, did she not want better for her infant, a loving family, like them, who would offer security, normality and the opportunity to be a better human being than the infants birthmother, wasn’t their home then not the best place for this child. 

This romanticised notion of rescuing a child from bedlam helped construct the savior mentality of both my adopted mother and myself as something ‘special’ until the day, minute, hour – time it all changed.  Maybe it was my father’s sexual abusive nature that opened up the schism they tried so hard to hold shut.  Maybe it was my ongoing questions about whom my mother was, where she lived and why she left me behind, or maybe it was everything as life, my mother’s health, my fathers and mother’s violence erupted into the chaos of family life.  What I do know is that between Joyce, Stand and my adopted grandmother I learnt that the blood flowing through my veins was tainted and it was their responsibility to eradicate this infection.

I felt my abandonment deeply.  As a baby my adopted mother (Joyce) said I was the quietest baby she had met.  I have always wondered if deep within my being I stayed still and quiet so as not to be left again. The veneer of being ‘special’ certainly vanished as I grew older.  Misdemeanors were placed on my origins and it became clear that my parents used Christianity to try and eradicate the evil within my body.  Blood was understood to hold the sins of the mother and as a female child born out of wedlock I was tainted.   My grandmother believed beatings would help, my parents were not overly keen on this idea however tended to overlook and later participate in giving me a good hiding in the hope that it would correct me.

Worse still was the ridicule of some children I attended school with. They took it upon themselves to enforce my place in the school ground hierarchic.  Ridiculed and stigmatised I found solace in daydreaming and beside my friend Karen a young Māori girl who used violence to defend her sister from ridicule.  Like her it became my role to defend my younger brother and sister from children who truly believed we should not be allowed to be part of their world.   Eventually I internalised all this hatred finding an outlet in blaming my birthmother for having given birth to me.  I often swore that if I ever meet her I would spit on her.  This anger ran strongly beside a hope that one day she would arrive on my doorstep and take me away. 

In my early teens I would often find myself drawn to woman who look liked similar to me or who showed me kindness and wonder ‘are you my mother’?  I would construct elaborate stories acting them out in my head using them to protect me from the growing hate and violence that was becoming part and parcel of my everyday life.  Most puzzling to me was why two people would adopt children and then treat them with such hatred and violence.  I finally began to think that this was in fact the sole purpose of my adopted – I was brought into that home to be abused. There were times of great love, rarely occurring as I grew older but those moments fade in the assault of hatred, anger, violence and abuse.  By the time I was in my mid-teens my parents were outright aggressive towards me arguing that they had wished they had never adopted me and that any traits that caused strife were directly inherited from my birthmother.

In the mid 1980’s I finally received my original birth certificate.  In the mid 90’s I made finally found the courage to contact my birth mothers family, only to find out she was dead.  I have learnt to live with the conflicting dichotomy of being adopted - the love / hate confusion has played badly in my life but also given me insights into the human psyche.  Not that it has given me any really concrete answers.

For the minister to state that they play no part in the forced adoptions of children between the 1950’s and 70’s is ludicrous and as a child forcibly taken away from my mother I support those women who are standing up making a noise.  My only criticism of these women is that they have thoughtlessly left us behind.  For nine months those women carried us, a symbiotic being, we went through the good and the bad and on the day of our birth strangers separated us and guarantee our separation would in some cases be for life.  To fight this government’s refusal to acknowledge the evil of the past and to bring about a holistic solution for mothers and children I really believe that those of us who suffered through our adoption should work together with these women, as it is essential that healing plays a massive part of any challenge to a destructive inhumane system.