
The Long-Lasting Effects of Adoption in the 1940s - 1970s
A while ago, I started writing a memoir. But for someone with a degree in psychology and a life-long interest in the ways that people are unique, it wasn't long before I began to consider how much I had been shaped by my genes and how much by my adoptive parents (nature vs nurture). But then I began to wonder how much I had been impacted by the process of being adopted.
All that led me to look for books by adopted individuals, which led me to books written by mothers whose children had been taken from them either though their choice or against their wishes.
I was deeply affected by what I read. It gave me a lot more understanding of what my birth moher went through. A lot more understanding of what my adoptive parents went through. And a lot more insight into why I am the way I am.
Do I wish I hadn't been adopted? No. I don't regret anything that happened. But I can see how everything could have been better for everyone involved.
Anyway, to read some of the things I discovered, check out the blogs below.
Since November is Adoption Month, I thought I’d mention a short story I wrote called “Conversations in Baby Blue.” Although it’s fiction, it was actually based on a true story. Years ago, I shared a double hospital room with an unwed teen mother. Since this was back then people stayed in the hospital longer than nowadays, and
If you haven’t read Part 1, please click here. Thirty years after she was a resident at a home for unwed mothers, Anne Petrie interviewed a number of other women from across Canada. In addition to telling her own story, Anne profiles six other birth mothers in detail and also mentions comments from other interviews