Gabrielle Glaser
Autore di American Baby: A Mother, a Child, and the Shadow History of Adoption
Sull'Autore
Gabrielle Glaser is a journalist.
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Etichette
Informazioni generali
- Data di nascita
- 20th century
- Sesso
- female
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Recensioni
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Statistiche
- Opere
- 5
- Opere correlate
- 1
- Utenti
- 270
- Popolarità
- #85,638
- Voto
- 4.0
- Recensioni
- 11
- ISBN
- 16
In the post-WWII boom, the United States commodified so many things, including babies. Adoption was (and now, to some people) portrayed as a "win-win-win"- a better life for baby, a child for a couple that wants one, and an elimination of the birth mother's 'shame'. In the overwhelming majority of these cases, however, birth mothers were coerced into giving up their infants. Adoption agencies lied to both the birth parents and adoptive parents about each other in effort to obtain babies and adopt them out. In the case of Margaret Erle, she never wanted to relinquish David and fought her parents and the Louise Wise agency every step she could.
The concept of closed adoptions infuriates me. It deprives parties of information they need because... why, societal comfort? When I read and reviewed The Girls Who Went Away, I was actually days past my abortion a decade ago, and the feelings were still fresh. When I wrote "shamed into silence", there was probably some irony because my ex didn't want our mutual acquaintances to find out about what happened, and would have favored a closed adoption if he could make the choice. Rewritten this last paragraph a couple times, but suffice to say that the pressure and coercion attempts (implications that I'd be an unfit mother at the time, that adoption would provide 'a better life', etc.) haven't gone away with the era of maternity homes. Sealed records maintains the cruelty that was inflicted years ago. I'd encourage anyone who thinks adoption is the end all be all for unwanted pregnancies to read the accounts of birth mothers and adoptees, to put actual voices to hypothetical concepts.… (altro)