This Reminds Me

I finished a fascinating book this week - The Baby Thief – The Untold Story of Georgia Tann, The Babyseller Who Corrupted Adoption.

Georgia Tann kidnapped or illegally procured more than 5,000 children in Tennessee in the 20′s, 30′s and 40′s to sell to wealthy(er) parents.  Not all babies either – some were young teenage girls, sold to single men.  Many were school-age children, snatched from their front yards with the justification of a court order secured by bribery.  Scores if not hundreds of infants died in her care, often sweltering in the summer heat of attics.

Horrifying stuff.  And yet – really historically interesting, because she also single-handledly created the first American market for adoption.  Fighting the prevailing national eugenics ferver which condemned children needing homes, she convinced couples to adopt – and thus line her own pockets with handsome fees.

I don’t agree with all of the author’s  conclusions about Georgia Tann’s legacy affecting adoptions today.  Though she herself is an adoptive parent, she refers to us “as the most pampered of the birth triad.”  Sorry.  The adoptive parents I know have been anything but pampered.  I also don’t agree that every single adoptee has the right to know his birth family.  In a perfect world, that would be true.  But if a girl has chosen life for her baby under the condition of anonymity, I think that anonymity has to be respected.   To me, that’s no different than honoring the Baby Moses laws.   This society created the “right to choose,” and that means the right to choose privacy, too – or watch for more girls to make more difficult choices.

The book’s recurring theme is the constant gnawing ache of these adoptees to know their histories, especially if they were taken at an age when they could remember a past life.  Their pain oozes from the pages as they describe frustrating, life-long quests to fill that familial void.

I couldn’t help but think of Julia, whom we adopted at age six.  She remembers Russia, of course – the good and the bad.  And I’ve made an effort to ask her questions about what she thought when she met us – what foods she liked to eat – who her friends were – what she liked to play – so that as she forgets, I can tell her those things as part of her adoption story.

The day we met in the office of the Director of Children’s Home #47 – isn’t she a cutie?!  Keith could easily lift all 37 lbs. of her with one arm.  He said, “I don’t remember this little.”  Rachel, Lois and Hannah were that size around age 2 1/2.

I’ve made an effort, too, to talk with her about her first mother.  We know little about her, but I do know she cared enough to give Julia life, and was in difficult circumstances herself.  Julia will never hear a harsh word from Keith or me about her.  Julia and often speak at bedtime about how we’ll all be together in heaven one day, and how I’m going to hug her first mother’s neck and tell her how proud I am to share a daughter with her.  I want to keep the lines of communication open on First Mother, because I don’t want my baby afraid to talk about her.  Ever.   I don’t want her afraid to “offend” me, or be swallowed by the black hole of loss, frantically “looking for love in all the wrong places.”

I think adopting an older child is a lot like getting married.  You choose them – but they also have to choose you.    There are two families coming together, not just one absorbing the other.  The honeymoon is way easier than the distance.   And while you don’t know what tomorrow brings, you know each of you had a past that will influence it.

An adoptee kidnapped by Georgia Tann said, “There’s a hole in me that can never be filled.”

That hurt me just to read it.

Pray that we families of adoptees do the things we need to do so we don’t have to live it.

6 Responses to “The Baby Thief”