Adoption and Loss - The Hidden Grief

The question most often asked of women who relinquish their babies to be adopted is "how could you." Few in society have any understanding of why women relinquish their own babies to the care of others. Hence, I believe, the myth has arisen that these mothers never loved their babies and voluntarily abandoned them. In her book Evelyn Robinson carefully analyses why pefectly normal, sane women allowed their babies to be adopted. This is essential reading for all natural mothers of adopted children, adopters, adopted persons and policy makers.

Evelyn Robinson states "It is obvious that a serious loss is experienced by the women...who gave birth to children who are subsequently adopted by someone else...." She explains why the grief of these women does not diminish with time, but increases in intensity with the passage of time. Her analysis of this phenomenon releases natural mothers from their rusty shackles of shame and guilt. It is clear that not only did natural mothers have little in the way of financial resources to enable them to care for their children, their families, society, social workers and health professionals conspired to disempower and silence them.

The author encourages natural mothers to search for the adult children they relinquished to be adopted. She describes her search and subsequent reunion with her son, the difficulties encountered along the way, including telling her other four children that they had an older brother and the ongoing relationship they now have.

Evelyn Robinson relinquished her son in the early 1970's. Much of what she describes in her book - the pain adoption causes to natural mothers and adopted persons - is now well known by professionals involved with adoption. One must question why this practice continues - who benefits?

The last part of Evelyn Robinson's book is a call for an end to the practice of adoption, and an exploration of alternative forms of care for children whose families are unable to care for them.


True Insight into the Adoption Process   March 17, 2003
Dave Perren (Adelaide South Australia)
24 out of 24 found this review helpful

Evelyn's book provides a rare insight into the mind of a mother who has given her child to adoption. It details the tremendous pain suffered because of this action and the life long grief it leaves. The book records the life of the author from the time of her birth till the present, and it is an honest and candid exposé of her thoughts and feelings about the conception, gestation, birth, and finally the reunion with her son Adam (later renamed Steven by the adoptive parents). Evelyn's story is one that has, in many ways, mirrored the experiences of many other women who have lost their children to adoption. It is a story that needs to be told and one that needs to be heard.

Evelyn raise the question of `acquiescence' for the natural mother and then dispels it by revealing the truth about the coercion involved in gaining consent for adoption. Evelyn also acknowledges the pain and hidden grief suffered by adopted people and lifts the veil of secrecy that surrounds adoption. She examines adoption's dark underbelly and the [idea] of silence that often works to maintain the spiritual, intellectual and physical separation between natural mother's and their children.

This book is highly recommended and a `must read' both for professionals working in the area of adoption and all of those many millions of people, worldwide, who have been touched by adoption. This book will be especially valuable to adoptive parents because it provides an account of the (often unacknowledged) experiences of birthmothers and their children. Many of these individuals have in the past, and will continue in the future, to be consumed by adoptions unresolved grief.