Book: American Baby : A Mother, A Child, and the Shadow History of Adoption

“In her new book, “American Baby: A Mother, A Child, and the Shadow History of Adoption” (Viking), journalist Gabrielle Glaser writes a story familiar to millions of Americans – one of loss, love, and a search for identity – about a woman who lost her first born, and the grown child wondering from where he had come.”

” Nearly every state had laws that sealed the records that would allow children to find their original identities. The adoption agencies involved in many of these arrangements said they had a duty to protect the privacy of the birth mothers, even though there was little, if any, evidence that they had either been promised confidentiality nor were continuing to insist upon it.

As I dug into the archives and interviewed scores of birth mothers and adoptees, I came to understand the dynamics behind these decades of entrenched secrecy. I realized that the way the United States had dealt with unplanned babies in the decades after World War II – when abortion was illegal, contraception was forbidden even for married couples, and discussion of sex and reproduction was taboo – revealed a great deal about this country. Again and again, the national’s powerful religious and political institutions collaborated to control women’s lives and the destinies of babies born out of wedlock. Today it is socially acceptable for women (and men) to raise children on their own. But for many adoptees and their birth mothers, the shame lingers, the skewed principles of the past remain in place – and the conflict about whose rights deserve protection rages on.

For David and Margaret, and for countless others, the miracle of modern genetics smashed open the secrecy created by the politicians of the twentieth century. DNA testing kits made it possible for David and so many others to spit into a vial and track down distant, or not-so-distant family members, facilitating reunions that seemed unimaginable just a decade ago. Through the advocacy of adoption reformers, who argue that access to the birth certificates is a human and civil right, several states have finally opened their records, turning the random chance of a DNA search into a certainty for people who happened to be born in them. This transparency has come at an incalculable emotional cost. Even the joyful reunions are bittersweet, shadowed by the fundamental, unanswerable question: Why did you give me away?

Every family, every adoptee, every birth mother, has their story. This is David and Margaret’s.

Their tale – one they share with millions of Americans – is one of loss, love, and parallel search for identity: one a mother who lost her first born; the other as a child grafted on to a family of loving strangers, wondering where he had come from.”

Book excerpt: “American Baby,” on the shadow history of adoption
[CBS 3/20/21. by Gabrielle Glaser]

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