Baby Boomer. My generation is the Baby Boomer generation; the generation given many handles: spoiled, lazy, educated, hippies, immoral, and the list goes on. But you never hear about us girls who paid the price. After reading the statistics published by the National Adoption Information Clearinghouse, I know I was far from alone, back in 1969. There was a silent mob of us out there in hiding. There has been an unseen mass of us out here, mourning our loss in silence, ever since. The NAIC reports that "The estimated total number of adoptions has ranged from a low of 50,000 in 1944 to a high of 175,000 in 1970. (Maza 1994)" ? We Baby Boomer girls, who were unwed mothers, were viewed quite differently from the Baby Boomer girls who had sex out of wedlock, but did not get pregnant. In retrospect, it seems that society viewed the condition of being pregnant as our 'sin'. We could 'shack-up' and be forgiven, just so long as we brought home no child. Is it any wonder that the girls who followed us chose to abort? No, I do not believe in abortion. It is, however, a sad commentary on our society, a society where you can have sex out of wedlock, just don't get pregnant. Well, some do get pregnant. Then they have a choice. 'Get rid of it' or suffer the consequences (you and child). I think all too often abortion is not the desired course of action; only the most expedient. The anguish, of loss, for the surrendering Birth Mother, is most often excruciating. Perhaps the girl today who chooses abortion, somehow deludes herself that she will not suffer that loss, if there is no baby. We Baby Boomer girls had no such thing as a Welfare system in place to help us support our babies until we could get our feet on the ground. Today's unwed mothers do have this advantage. They also have a more accepting society than we Baby Boomers had. And if this is still not enough for them to be able to keep their babies, then their choices are down to: adoption or abortion. As a BirthMother who surrendered her baby 37 years ago and found her 2 years ago, let me plead with you, do not have an abortion. Yes, it is painful to let someone else be the Mom. But, my daughter is alive and well, happy and productive. She's a Mom and is raising two of my grandchildren. She is my joy. |
