Mathair Áil |
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Mother of the brood……………The Source |
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The industry knew this in 1978. Why do they still pressure mothers to surrender? "B---- Parents Revisited After Adoption," Pannor. R.. Baran.A. and Sorosky.A. 1978. The findings of a thousand letters received from the three parties in an Adoption Research Project revealed that many exiled mothers had not resolved their feelings for their relinquished child that they were told they could never see again. Many were found to have a lifelong unfulfilled need for further information and in some cases contact with the relinquished child. Many report varying degrees of grief, the persistence of troubled feelings, and no viable alternative that would have made it possible to keep their child. Their findings reflect the fact that the natural parents seem to be functioning on two levels. They are functioning well within the existing marriage or family, but they harbor deep unresolved feelings and sharp memories of the bearing and losing of the child. Fifty percent of the natural parents interviewed said they continued to have feelings of loss, pain, and mourning over their child. Some expressed the feeling that "I have never got over the feeling of loss, I still have feelings of guilt and pain when I think about it. Giving up my child was the saddest day of my life". They summarised by saying that feelings of loss, pain and mourning continued many years after the relinquishment. An overwhelming majority experienced feelings of wanting their children to know they still cared for them. Anger In The Natural Mother Kate Ingles (1982), talks about the anger of the natural mother following the loss of her baby. Anger at her helplessness and the officialdom that represents the power to decide what happens to her baby, a power she is without. Anger at all those known and unknown persons who could not and would not rescue her. Anger at her prolific body, so at odds with her circumstances. Anger at her parents, anger at friends, anger at the "unfairness" that allows the man involved freedom from the experience she must endure and integrate. Anger at the adoptive parents for all they have and all she needs. Anger at the world that elevates motherhood to sanctity but failed her as a mother. Anger at her discovery that "approved of and supported motherhood" is very rigidly defined and excludes her. Anger on behalf of her baby who she feels is defined as unwanted unless she is removed. Anger that must be suppressed and contained that could provide a list of causes and directions too immense and personally derived for us to take account of. She may, if the common numbness described by such mothers does not lift for many years, only come to anger years after her lost baby is grown up and the specific persons involved are far distant or dead in her present life. She may begin her pregnancy in anger and resentment and continue for years with a randomly placed rage.
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