The father of my children was adopted at birth, and as a psychologist I now counsel many who have been part of the adoption triangle. The stories that reach me convey a sense of being robbed an abandoned. While for some there is gratitude for the life that has been 'given' to them by their birth mother and subsequently the adoptive parents, there is commonly also a pervasive rage.
The jury is now in. The Senate Inquiry into Forced Adoption has revealed heinous practices.
These included denying the mother any sight or knowledge of her baby and being told the baby had died, or the baby being cared for in a nursery with minimal attention being given to facilitate 'bonding' with the adoptive parents. Ignorance was no excuse: even in the '60s English psychologist and child development expert John Bowlby exposed this kind of care as dangerous for infants.
There is now a call for a national and unambivalent apology. As with the Rudd apology to the Stolen Generations it needs to be unstinting and refrain from justifications.
You may not have noticed, but The Royal Women's Hospital has already quietly apologised to single women who gave birth in the hospital from 1945 until 1975 and who were forced to give up their children for adoptions.
The findings of a study by historian Shurlee Swain, 'Confinement and Delivery Practices in Relation to Single Women Confined at the Royal Women's Hospital 1945–1975' have a ghastly Dickensian ring. Young single new mothers were subjected to unsympathetic prolonged labours, denied access to their newborns, encouraged to adopt by social workers and not offered other options or information.
As the Senate inquiry has shown, these horrendous practices have resulted in a lifetime of grief, hurt, shame and anger for many women. Teenage mothers received little or no emotional support and many were instructed to forget about the whole experience. There was a stigma surrounding conception out of wedlock and families hid or denied the truth about the lost babies.
Many women who were forced into a 'choice' to relinquish their child have gone on to lead double lives, carrying internal scars while concealing the 'illegitimate' births from partners and subsequent children. Some later sought reunion, but this has not repaired the loss and rupture of so many years.
This angst has also been bestowed on many of the adopted children. Some have told me that although they felt loved and cared for by their adoptive parents they still felt different, isolated and confused. Many have been lied to, and revelations about their birth were devastating.
Some adoptions have not turned out well. We learn our patterns of love from our earliest caregiver, usually our biological mother. When early bonding and attachment is disrupted or fails, the development of strong attachment may remain impaired for a lifetime.
Upon reunion with their biological mother many report the joy of instant recognition, but also of the sadness of irretrievable loss. The years of separation cannot be restored.
Out of the most horrifying experiences we may collectively learn important truths. What are the truths bequeathed to us by this squalid chapter in our history?
Last century the adoption policy was born out of ignorance, prejudice and lack of empathy. It was premised on the espoused beliefs that there were right and wrong, rigid rules about suitable and unfit parents. These reflected the bias of the day about the sanctity of marriage, the superiority of sex within these bounds and the irresponsibility of young women who had sex outside marriage.
Men were largely allocated a minor role as providers of economic stability and respectability, or as an absent progenitor who was driven by that old male urge.
The pregnant girl had failed to exercise her responsibility of saying no and was treated as 'sinful'. Many of these girls, as young as 14, absorbed the notion that they were bad and unfit, and the kindest thing they could do for their child was to surrender it to a good couple. The solution to these 'unwanted' pregnancies was seen to be to supply the 'right' sort of family.
We now know that loving, well-supported parenting provides the best environment for children. This may be in single, gay, partnered, married, religious or non religious, white or Indigenous families (or families of any race for that matter). Stigmatising the circumstance of the birth or the class of the parents and the ensuing isolation is enormously damaging.
Adoption can be an option, but it is best when it is an open process and is not incited en masse by poor policies and welfare and social systems imbued with prejudice and ignorance. Deep human bonds are best nurtured in the compassionate care of both mother and child.
Lyn Bender is a Melbourne based psychologist.