Putting Shame Away

When I was a little girl my mother belonged to a group that contributed money to a place called The Florence Crittendon Home. I overheard Mom talking about it to someone and asked her what it was, and she said something entirely dismissive and vague, like "It's a home for girls who get into trouble."

I was in 3rd or maybe 4th grade. I didn't know the facts of life yet. "What kind of trouble?" I asked. 

"Grownup trouble. Don't you have homework?" 

Eventually Mom explained to me about the Florence Crittenton Home, that it was a place for unmarried pregnant girls to go and have their babies, away from people who would gossip. You can read more about that organization here.  

Skip ahead a few years, to the late 1970's. I was in high school. I had heard a rumor about a girl I knew in 8th grade who got pregnant and dropped out of school. Such stories were really scandalous.  It was considered just flat out wrong to have a baby outside of marriage. Such pregnancies were considered shameful, problematic -- and best kept hidden. 

In 1984 I finished college and couldn't find a job, and went to work in a small bookstore. One day the manager's daughter came in, pushing a cute baby girl in a stroller. I admired the baby and went back to work. I later learned the daughter wasn't married! The baby was illegitimate! The manager had shown off her granddaughter and acted just like a normal grandmother, which astonished me. I knew in my heart my mother would have had a conniption fit if I had gotten pregnant and had my child without a husband in the picture. 

It's many years down the road from that day... Now I am an adoptive mom, and my son was born to a woman who was unmarried, and who didn't even know the father's identity.  There was no father's name on the birth certificate. Nobody bats an eyelash about it.

We have managed to erase much of the shame and public censure around unmarried women having and raising children, which is [overall] a very good thing, in my opinion.  

What prompted me to write this blog is that I am fascinated by genealogy and I belong to a couple of Facebook groups for people with similar interests.  People keep posting about their family members that show up [or not] on the popular testing sites like Ancestry and 23andMe and MyHeritage. They think there has been a mistake. 

[DNA doesn't lie! I want to holler. I restrain myself.] 

People under the age of 50 or so cannot comprehend that until about twenty or thirty years ago pregnancies outside of marriage were cause for great consternation and shame. Babies were passed off as belonging to fathers who weren't their biological fathers. Teenagers were sent to homes for unwed mothers and babies were taken away and put up for adoption --regardless of whether the young mother wanted that or not. There was a lot of heartbreak around illegitimate children. Secrecy and shame prevailed. 

I've watched many episodes of a wonderful show, Long Lost Family, always with a box of kleenex nearby because most of the time those people in the shows make me cry. So many women were forced to give up their parental rights because of shame, in the late 20th century. So many children grew up feeling they didn't quite fit into their adoptive families, despite often happy childhoods. 

I am not simply a disinterested observer. 

In the past few years I've helped several of my cousins figure out their connections to me, and it has been rewarding but also sad sometimes. My mom was close to one of her first cousins and he never knew he had a child from a relationship after he was divorced. The child [a daughter I'll call Ann] was born to our cousin's girlfriend, who had quickly married and told her daughter she was the child of the husband, not my cousin. Many years passed. Ann grew up, eventually got genetic testing done, and showed up in my list of DNA relatives. I was puzzled. I knew most of my second cousins. It made no sense. I got in touch with Ann and my cousin's son from his first marriage, and we figured it out. The lost daughter was welcomed into the family with open arms. Sadly, her dad had died shortly before we figured out the relationship. So the outcome was bittersweet, but overall very positive. I was thrilled to be able to facilitate a family expansion of such happiness for all involved.

Other efforts to help were not quite so successful. I've helped two of my more distant cousins to try and figure out their birth parents and in one case, birth grandparents. Results were less happy because in one case both birth parents were dead, and in the other case the family [not mine, bio family members in California] was not welcoming.  Even today, not all families welcome new members born outside of marriage.

Shortly after helping Ann figure out her relationship to us, I was inspired to write a novel called Dancing in the Wreckage, which touches on all aspects of unwed pregnancy and adoption. [It's not Ann's story, fyi, but solving DNA mysteries intrigued me.]

I am a big proponent of getting genetic testing done. You may discover unknown relatives, or like my friend Robert you may even discover that the man who raised you wasn't your biological father! Family secrets don't always need to be buried. I think most times it's better for everyone to open their arms to new family members, and bury the shame and secrecy of the past. Love and empathy accomplish more healing that shame ever could.