Ann Fessler, author of The Girls Who Went Away: The Hidden History of Women Who Surrendered Children for Adoption in the Decades Before Roe v.Wade, will be speaking and showing her film in progress on the same topic at the University of Pittsburgh at 8 pm Monday, September 22. The free event will be in the Frick Fine Arts auditorium on the University of Pittsburgh Campus.
Contact Marianne Novy at [email protected] for more information.
There will be rooms reserved at the Holiday Inn University Center until September 2 for people from out of town who want to be at this event. It is a 5-10 minute walk mostly across the university campus from the Frick Fine Arts Auditorium. Rooms will be available for the reduced price of $114 a night (cheaper if you share). Reservations must be made by
September 1 to get in the block with the reduced rate; call 412-682-6200or 1-800-HOLIDAY.
Tell them it is the Ann Fessler conference (though it is just one talk and a reception afterwards).
Wish I could be there with Ann Fessler and my sister’s of adoption loss.
I am one of those girls who went away but I am back now, and I am telling my story. To let others know what happened to us mothers, and what was done to us because our babies were needed by those who couldn’t have their own.
My baby wasn’t an orphan, he was born to a me his mother and should have stayed with me. So what if I wasn’t married that was not a criminal act to be unmarried and pregnant. But society along with agencies,churches, Dr’s, lawyer’s all saw a way to make a buck. The buck was made separating mothers and babies, and society was saving money. Just like today, adoption is a very lucrative business with its many ‘facilitators'(many of these people that have adopted a child before) arranging adoptions.
Guess what my son ended up in a two parent family and soon after my son was adopted he was in a one parent family just like he was born into with me his mom. Wonder how much money his amom took from welfare to support him and the other adopted child she had?
So society doesn’t save money by having babies adopted into the supposedly two parent family as those families do break up, divorce, and NEED help too.
Adoption is a lie.
jessy
Thank you Anne for the book, the truth, and helping others see the lies that were told about us moms, that WE didn’t want our babies.
Damn..how I wish I could be there as well. Thanks Marley for bringing this event to our attention. Ann has managed to do for so many mothers, what no other person or org has been able to do in regards to senior surrendering mothers, and I thank her from the bottom of my heart.
I am ‘Christine’ in Ann’s book..and I will always be extremely grateful that she came 100 miles out of her way to interview me and use snippets of that interview in her book. We sat together in a hotel room for almost 4 hours..and many a time when I cried, Ann’s eyes would water as well. A most compassionate and understanding woman. Thank you again Ann! And thank you again, Marley..
If some of you are the moms in Fessler’s book, then why are you so mean to alot of adoptees on the internet? Could it be that you are mere prima donna’s who think it is all about you and your pain? Many of you act like you hate your long lost baby because losing it hurt you and you blame your child. Most of you are as screwed up and abusive as you say adoptive parents are. Every time a birth mother treats an adoptee like dirt online, you come off like the biggest liars on earth.
Wow, who licked the red off your candy? The accurate response from us mom is that we don’t like be berated for what one adoptee thinks his or her mother did. Sometimes, simple disagreement is seen as abuse by an over-sensitive person. The road of who’s being nasty to who runs both ways, IA.
Anon, why did you say IA at the end of your post? If that meant me, I didn’t write what that other anon wrote about BSE Mothers. I think you have a lot of nerve to say I did. And btw, there is NO such thing as oversensative-that is like a nun calling you real Mothers oversensative because they took your baby away and you were upset. God, get a brain. And a heart.
Liars?
About what about telling our truths and adoptee’s trying to retell the story?
Tell me I am all ears I want to know what makes us moms liars and abusers.
Where were you abused by mothers?
Really, anonymous, we are screwed up for telling our truths? I am screwed up from losing my baby to adoption. The big adoption machine, adoption business, gave us mom’s the business..and they got the business from adopters.
sounds like you might be screwed too?
The biggest liars on earth are the money makers those who have a business in baby selling.
Along with those who adopt to save a child, or adopt to complete a family, or adopt to become a savior whether the child is an orphan or not, no matter.
“”If some of you are the moms in Fessler’s book, then why are you so mean to alot of adoptees on the internet? Could it be that you are mere prima donna’s who think it is all about you and your pain? Many of you act like you hate your long lost baby because losing it hurt you and you blame your child. Most of you are as screwed up and abusive as you say adoptive parents are. Every time a birth mother treats an adoptee like dirt online, you come off like the biggest liars on earth.””
Sheesh! Who pissed in your Post Toasties today??!! I don’t know who you are since you write anonymously.. I think I will give you same.. you call me a liar…I call you a coward! Treating adoptees ‘mean’, O! for chrissakes already, Grow Up!! I have a hunch you are an anonymous adopter person.. who treats ‘burfmuggles’ Mean!! Wahhhhh!!! And WOW! thanks for the compliment…I have never been called a ‘mere prima donna’ before. I can take mere..better than being called a ..A Big Whore who wantonly and lustfully spread her legs for the whole football team!!! O! how I miss the good ole days! Get over yourself already!
Chris
“Merely a prima donna” is waiting for response from the person who called us mothers liars.
I liked the post after her’s the road does run both ways.
I should run away but I want to hear her response.
I would like to hear from those who have adopted and why they think not telling the kids they were adopted them until the kid was told by the little league the bcertificate didn’t have a seal. So adopted kid goes home and searches and guess what he learns he is adopted by that search.
j
“”If some of you are the moms in Fessler’s book, then why are you so mean to alot of adoptees on the internet? “”
Please state when and where this ‘meaness’ occurred towards adult adopte people?
“Many of you act like you hate your long lost baby because losing it hurt you and you blame your child.”
My ‘long lost baby’ is lost to me forever. I did not reunite with a ‘baby’, I reunited with an almost middle-aged woman.
“Most of you are as screwed up and abusive as you say adoptive parents are.”
And you know this how??
“Every time a birth mother treats an adoptee like dirt online, you come off like the biggest liars on earth.”
Again, please state when and where burfmuggles are treating adoptees online like dirt.
And what are we burfmuggles lying about? And have your adoptive parents never lied to you? Inquiring/curious minds are awaiting your response!!
Some adoptees are nasty, obsessed, bitter,liars, narcissistic and in some cases mentally ill. Some birthmothers are nasty, bitter,obsessed, liars,and in some cases mentally ill. Ditto for some adoptive parents. No matter what group, often these annoying individuals are vocal and ubiquitous on the internet.
These regrettable qualitites are not confined to one group, but do account for a lot of the nastiness on the internet, that goes both ways. Nothing is 100% for any group, and hating or accusing “all” of any group is a waste of time and stupid.
However, most adoptees, adoptive parents, and birthmothers I have known are decent, sane, reasonable people, and that would include those of all eras from the 50s to today. No group is all persecuted saints nor all evil sinners.
“Girls Who Went Away” is a great book, largely because of how Fessler edited the stories down to their essence, taking out political agendas and weird jargon like “burfmuggles” (does that mean those of us who surrendered do not have magic, and cannot be wizards and witches in Harry Potter’s world?:-)
The stories stand alone, and are a true testament of how badly so many of us were treated who surrendered in the bad old days. This is a book that is a classic, no matter what anyone says. Let it stand on its own merit, and lets try to see each other as individuals, not labels.
Maryanne…
I like the Harry Potter series and I also like to use the word ‘burfmuggle’ on the internet..I think it has a special ring to it, even magical. When I use the word ‘burfmuggle’ is tongue in cheek, if you get my drift. Different strokes for different folks, Maryanne!
“”largely because of how Fessler edited the stories down to their essence, taking out political agendas and weird jargon like “burfmuggles” “”
And you know this how Maryanne?? I am really interested in hearing how you know all about Ann’s audio editing.
Christine,
I too am a big Harry Potter fan,read all the books, so I know Muggles have no magic:-)I’d rather be Hermione than any sort of Muggle!
By the way, back in the day when we wanted to be ironic or tongue in cheek we just said we were “Sluts”:-)
I was just using “Burfmuggle” as an example of jargon, not as a specific word that was edited out.I don’t think it even was invented until after the book came out.
I know that “Girls Who Went Away” was superbly edited because I read it, and also am familiar with quite a few of the women who were interviewed, and have read their writings and in some cases, rantings on the internet. And that ranting and over-use of insider jargon was not there in Ann’s book, just the stories which stand on their own. And I have not heard that anyone interviewed complained about how her story was edited. I do know that Ann said her book would not have been taken seriously in academic circles had she been seen to be pushing anyone’s agenda.
No, I do not “know all about Ann’s audio editing” nor do I claim to. By the way, “editing” is not a dirty word, all writers need editors to sharpen their work to its best. There is an awful lot of self-published stuff out there that could greatly benefit from a good editor.
“”By the way, “editing” is not a dirty word, all writers need editors to sharpen their work to its best. “”
I never said ‘editing’ was a dirty word, nor did I imply as such.
“”By the way, back in the day when we wanted to be ironic or tongue in cheek we just said we were “Sluts”:-)””
Well, good for you and whoever else ‘in the day’ ‘wanted to be ironic or tongue in cheek we just said we were “Sluts”. Guess I wasn’t and still am not part of your ‘we’. You take exception to ‘burfmuggle’, but evidently not to ‘slut’. How curious!
Better to be a slut than a Presbyterian.
Christine, I have been involved in adoption reform groups since the mid-70s, was one of the founding members of CUB, the first birthparent group. Even in those days when dinosaurs roamed the earth, there was a lot of dark humor about adoption, a lot of satire, laughing so we wouldn’t cry all the time. That was what I meant by “back in the day”. Some of us came to this earlier, some later. Maybe some day we can learn from each other.
Also back in those days there was more “we” in the sense of common goals, and whole lot less feeling sorry for ourselves and breaking down into smaller and smaller factions of in-groups with their own jargon and us-vs.-them mentality
No. we did not think of ourselves as sluts, or enjoy being called that by others in malice, but yeah, we joked about that and a whole lot more among ourselves.
As I understand it, terms like “Burfmuggle” and “the B word” are not meant to be ironic, but to avoid uttering the blasphemous word “birthmother” that to some people has the same power as the name of the evil wizard Voldemort if written or spoken aloud.
I have read the reasons some mothers prefer other terms for themselves, and understand that. Anyone can use any name they want for themselves. What I do not understand is the hysteria and hype around one word in some quarters. Does it really make some people’s head explode to utter it or hear it?
“”Does it really make some people’s head explode to utter it or hear it?”
birthmother, birthmother, birthmother, birthmother, birthmother, birthmother, birthmother, birthmother, birthmother, birthmother…..
And my lovely head is still well planted on my shoulders, with my brains still firmly in place within! Sheesh Maryanne, don’t you ever get tired of this same ole tired debate of yours? Give it a rest already. I bet you are a most Top-Grade A Birthmother..and if your happy, then I am happy for you. I actually just prefer plain ole Mother for myself.. Like I have said before…Different Strokes for Different Folks..
And I know, I know..Maryanne…I have read your ‘resume’ many, many times on the net.
“I stand in front of you today,
not for acclaim, neither for approval.
Rather I am here to demand acknowledgment for who I am today and have been,
A Woman and A Mother”……….. Chris Hernandez
Former Surrendering Unmarried Mother – 1964
Exactly, “different strokes for different folks”, we can all call ourselves whatever we wish. And yes, we are all just mothers in our hearts.
But so are adoptive mothers; sometimes a word is needed to differentiate which mother one is speaking about, especially when one is speaking to those outside the adoption reform community. That’s all.
If using a different word, calling myself just a mother all the time would wipe out the surrender and adoption and mean my son had only one mother, me, I’d use that word in a heartbeat. Just as much as you do I regret surrendering my son because I was not helped to keep him.
But sadly,one mother for an adoptee is not reality. So I am both a mother and a birthmother, first mother, natural mother etc. Words can obscure or pretty up reality, but cannot change it.
Mary Anne Manning Cohen
Mother and birth/first/natural mother
1968
By the way, I do not have a “resume” on the internet, just scattered writings, and if you only know me online you do not know me at all, nor do I know you.If we met in person, maybe we could even get to like and respect each other.
Well here it is several yrs later,but Im commenting anyway.Ann Fessler is a true hero.If not for her work,I wouldnt have my mother back.Adoptees are not the only ones with a story,through ANN,I learned there’s way more to this than I ever imagind.My poor mother suffered immensely for years because of the way things were.Thank you for shedding uch needed light on a once very scret subject Ann,you’ve earned a place in heaven and my heart forever