Birthmothers: Women Who Have Relinquished Babies for Adoption Tell Their Stories

Rating:
Summary: Birthmothers: Women Who Have Relinquished Babies
Review: An important work! I recommend that all triad members and adoption social workers read it. Jones is not a member of the adoption triad (i.e., she's not a birthmother, an adoptee, or an adoptive parent). The author interviewed birthmothers and put important nuggets of their experiences into this book. Though we don't get to know any of the birthmothers in depth, we do learn how they felt about relinquishment long-term, feelings ignored by our entire society for much too long.

Rating:
Summary: Birthmothers: Women Who Have Relinquished Babies
Review: An important work! I recommend that all triad members and adoption social workers read it. Jones is not a member of the adoption triad (i.e., she's not a birthmother, an adoptee, or an adoptive parent). The author interviewed birthmothers and put important nuggets of their experiences into this book. Though we don't get to know any of the birthmothers in depth, we do learn how they felt about relinquishment long-term, feelings ignored by our entire society for much too long.

Rating:
Summary: Informative- Yes; Encouraging- No
Review: As a young woman (Birthmother)who has selected adoption as the best choice for an unplanned pregnancy, I would say that I found this book disturbing at times, downright upsetting at others. I would argue that while there are some common themes that could be drawn upon in writing this acccount; there were too many "scary stories" included in this book to make it credible as any worthwhile reccomendation for the average birthmother, adoptee, or adoptive parent. The author documented incidences of incestuous relationships between birthparents and their relinquished children in a way that made them sound somewhat typical; this was unsupported, and in my opinion a disservice to the entire piece's integrity. She also coined a phrase, "The Birthmother Syndrome" wherein attempts were made at classifying, categorizing, and diagnosing women who have been through a similar experience, but cannot possibly be so easily analyzed as she has done here. Ultimately this book (from my perspective) propagated stereotypes and was a discouraging piece to read

Rating:
Summary: Informative- Yes; Encouraging- No
Review: As a young woman (Birthmother)who has selected adoption as the best choice for an unplanned pregnancy, I would say that I found this book disturbing at times, downright upsetting at others. I would argue that while there are some common themes that could be drawn upon in writing this acccount; there were too many "scary stories" included in this book to make it credible as any worthwhile reccomendation for the average birthmother, adoptee, or adoptive parent. The author documented incidences of incestuous relationships between birthparents and their relinquished children in a way that made them sound somewhat typical; this was unsupported, and in my opinion a disservice to the entire piece's integrity. She also coined a phrase, "The Birthmother Syndrome" wherein attempts were made at classifying, categorizing, and diagnosing women who have been through a similar experience, but cannot possibly be so easily analyzed as she has done here. Ultimately this book (from my perspective) propagated stereotypes and was a discouraging piece to read

Rating:
Summary: Should be required reading for prospective adoptive parents
Review: I just last night finished this book. It is one of the best I have read so far. In some places of this book which I underlined or marked it was as if I myself wrote it. I felt alot of the things described and still do. I am a birthmother of 2 daughters from the 70's so I lived in the era that condemned, shamed and lied to us. It is a relief knowing it was NOT me who had all this happen to all alone that there are hundreds of thousands of other women. We birthmothers need to know we are not alone anymore. I highly recommend not only birthmothers to read this but adoptees and adoptive mothers as well. We all in this triad need to learn to feel for each other and understand each others pain. But most of all our adoptees need to be put first. They must no more be made to feel ashamed of who they are, they didn't ask to be adopted did they? PLEASE no one flame me for my opinion here! After all I am human and have a heart.

Rating:
Summary: The best book I've read so far with research on Birth Moms!
Review: I wasn't so sure how useful I would find this book since it's about closed adoption birth mothers (and doesn't include research on semi-open or open adoption birth mothers.) However I found that so many things in the book apply to ALL birth mothers!! I especially think the author did a GREAT job talking about the depth of grief and life long effects it has on birth mothers. I haven't read a book on adoption yet that even comes close to being as accurate as this book is on the subject of birth mother grief and pain! Highly recommend this book for ALL members of the Adoption "triad"!

Rating:
Summary: A painful and compassionate eye-opener
Review: This is a beautifully written and valuable book for our understanding of birthmothers who describe experiences in both closed and open adoptions. Many have grieved; others have felt relief; a number have entirely repressed their emotions. Regardless of what they think about relinquishment, many continue to struggle with the emotional effects of suppressing their maternal drive in the form of rage, frustration, sorrow, guilt, and self-doubt. Many birthmothers emphasized that reunion was not a cure for the regrets, angers, or grief they faced after relinquishing. The author writes that 'even in mutually rewarding reunions, most birthmothers experienced profound sensations of loss.' Yes, I understand this feeling because I have personal experience with the birthmother of our daughter. Relinquishment occurred in 1969, when the baby was 4 days old and 28 years later our birthmother found us. Today, we love one another and our daughter has a cordial relationship with her birthmother, but our birthmother is facing the terrible reality that her grown daughter, now a mother herself, is not the needy little baby she had relinquished and a late mother-child relationship is impossible. 'Even reunions can't make it right.'
I recommend this book to everyone, not just to members of the adoption triad. It is a book about humanity.
Gisela Gasper Fitzgerald, author of ADOPTION: An Open, Semi-Open or Closed Practice?