American Baby
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15
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A New York Times Notable Book The shocking truth about postwar adoption in America, told through the bittersweet story of one teenager, the son she was forced to relinquish, and their search to find each other. During the Baby Boom in 1960s America, women were encouraged to stay home and raise large families, but sex and childbirth were taboo subjects. Premarital sex was common, but birth control was hard to get and abortion was illegal. In 1961, sixteen-year-old Margaret Erle fell in love and became pregnant. Her enraged family sent her to a maternity home, and after she gave birth, she wasn't even allowed her to hold her own son. Social workers threatened her with jail until she signed away her parental rights. Her son vanished, his whereabouts and new identity known only to an adoption agency that would never share the slightest detail about his fate. Claiming to be acting in the best interests of all, the adoption business was founded on secrecy and lies. American Baby lays out how a lucrative and exploitative industry removed children from their birth mothers and placed them with hopeful families, fabricating stories about infants' origins and destinations, then closing the door firmly between the parties forever. Adoption agencies and other organizations that purported to help pregnant women struck unethical deals with doctors and researchers for pseudoscientific "assessments," and shamed millions of women into surrendering their children. Gabrielle Glaser dramatically demonstrates the power of the expectations and institutions that Margaret faced. Margaret went on to marry and raise a large family with David's father, but she never stopped longing for and worrying about her firstborn. She didn't know he spent the first years of his life living just a few blocks away from her; as he grew, he wondered about where he came from and why he was given up. Their tale--one they share with millions of Americans--is one of loss, love, and the search for identity. Adoption's closed records are being legally challenged in states nationwide. Open adoption is the rule today, but the identities of many who were adopted or who surrendered a child in the postwar decades are locked in sealed files. American Baby illuminates a dark time in our history and shows a path to reunion that can help heal the wounds inflicted by years of shame and secrecy.
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As a Jewish Baby Boomer with friends who were adopted, this book made a big impression on me. I knew the basics of how adoptions worked in the 1950s-60s but hadn't really stopped to think how cruel the process was to both birth parents and their children. The fact that the children were frequently placed in foster care limbo for months while a “perfect match” was sought for their personalities and intelligence is just horrifying to me considering what we know now about attachment, and the damage that can be caused when that process is disrupted. And the shame and grief that the birth mothers had to bear, while being told to “forget about” children they carried for nine months, is inconceivable in today's world where single parenthood is no longer a stigma.
Glaser does a good job balancing the portrayal of Margaret and the son she was forced to relinquish, with the larger picture of how the adoption process evolved over time and the unethical, immoral practices that were carried out, frequently in the name of “science.” I wish she had delved a little deeper into the macro issues; while Margaret and David's stories were poignant, there was nothing unique about them. Also this book might speak less to readers who are not white and Jewish like me; Glaser admits that there is a very different history of adoption in the black community that she is not capable of telling.
I had a childhood friend who was adopted, with a biological younger sister who was frequently referred to as the parents' “real” daughter. My friend never discussed how much that must have hurt her, but years later after both parents had died, she found her biological parents through genetic testing. Now in her late 50s, she has half siblings, nieces and nephews who have enriched her life. If her adoption had been open, how would her life had been different? Glaser's book shines a spotlight on Margaret, David, my friend, and thousands of other individuals whose pain was minimized unjustly. American Baby rightfully speaks for them by acknowledging a shameful part of American history.
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