A biological mother’s anguish
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By Jaana Laitinen
The situation is very difficult a mother cannot afford to keep her child. Sometimes there is pressure from family or society. Some of biological mothers who give up their children for adoption do so because they have no other choice.
“There is a belief in the West that only orphans are adopted from developing countries. This is not true. These children can have a mother; on rare occasions they also have a father, they often have siblings, or a wider family”, says Riitta Högbacka of the Department of Social Sciences at the University of Helsinki.
Högbacka is one of the few researchers to collect information on the biological mothers of children who are given up for international adoption. She has also visited South Africa three times to interview mothers who have given up their children for adoption.
The stories that she has heard are quite moving.
“The mothers might cry and say that they sometimes wonder after many years how their child is doing. Learning that all is well, and that the child is in a loving home brought a sense of peace to many.”
In many poor countries children are sometimes brought to orphanages temporarily. If the family’s conditions improve, the child is taken back.
Högbacka met one mother, who had left her child at a children’s home. She planned to take the child back when she had got her things in order. It took years for this to happen.
When the mother went back to the children’s home, the child had been adopted abroad. “There are some children in orphanages that are not intended for adoption.”
Not all mothers understand how permanent a written commitment for adoption really is. “Adoption is a foreign concept for many in Africa. Even if it is explained that after adoption, the child is no longer yours, they hope that the child will come back some day.”
Some mothers needed to give up their children because of poverty.
“They are not bad mothers. They simply wanted to their child to have a better future. If they had been able to care for their child, they would have kept it.”
China also has mothers who reluctantly give up their children for adoption. People want to have boys, and as only one child is acceptable, the tendency is to give girls away.
In India, abject poverty and the stigma that is linked with single motherhood force mothers to give up children. Light-skinned boys are adopted within the country. Dark-skinned girls get sent abroad.
In South Korea, illegitimate children are considered a disgrace for the whole family. “There are no programmes that would support single mothers. It has been estimated that the state saves in social welfare costs by sending children out of the country.”
Högbacka notes that international adoption is always a complicated process.
“It is important to make sure that children who need a home do not end up spending too much time in an institution. At the same time they need to develop methods of support so that mothers who want to keep their children would be able to do so.”
Knowledge of a child’s background and the situation of the biological mother are matters that adoptive parents often want to know, Riitta Högbacka says.
“They are happy about their child, but they are also sorry that the child could not live with its biological family. Adoptive parents often want the natural mother to know that they will do everything to make sure that the child has a good life.”
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 18.1.2010
Helsingin Sanomat
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| 19.1.2010 - THIS WEEK |
 A biological mother’s anguish |
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