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A review by robsfavoriteaudiobooks
The Girls Who Went Away: The Hidden History of Women Who Surrendered Children for Adoption in the Decades Before Roe V. Wade by Ann Fessler
5.0
This is the future conservatives want.
I vaguely recall knowing about the concept of a “House for Unwed Mothers” for a long time but until reading “Want Me” last year and hearing Tracy Clark Flory relay her own mother’s story of being forced to have a baby and give it up for adoption in the 60s I hadn’t realized the full scope of what this system was set up to be.
In the years between the end of World War II and the Roe v Wade decision women and girls were largely not told about how to prevent pregnancy or, in a not-insignificant number of cases, weren’t even educated about the basic functions of how sex or childbirth worked. In this era it became more socially permissible to have premarital sex but anyone who found herself pregnant would be subjected to shame and often coerced into either marrying the baby’s father or being sent away to a facility where they would give birth, give their baby up for adoption, and then told to “forget about all this and go back to normal life.”
When I first started this book I assumed this was a well-known piece of history and that I’d been irresponsible for not learning more about it sooner. By the end though I was convinced that the details of how American Society treated these mothers and children was intentionally kept under wraps. It’s clear that a large number of parents, teachers, doctors, and priests were complicit in a system that convinced these women that they didn’t have any choices, didn’t deserve a chance to decide whether or not they wanted to keep and raise the baby themselves.
In this collection of personal accounts Fessler gives voice to so many women who otherwise never get to share this painfully unforgettable experience. Some stories have their best option of a happy ending where they meet their biological children decades later with warmth and understanding from child, bio mom, and adopted parents alike. But there are also plenty of stories of women who tried to find their child later only for them to be permanently separated by the system.
Worst of all: this social structure of shame, isolation, and control is absolutely something that conservatives are working to bring back. In the Dobbs decision last year a footnote from SCOTUS referenced the phenomenon that “the domestic supply of infants….available to be adopted had become virtually nonexistent” and this is absolutely relates the type of system of subjugation that a small but powerful group of people want to make happen in this country.
All of this history is relatively recent. If you’re reading this now in 2023 you almost certainly have a mom, a grandmother, an aunt, or other family member who personally witnessed something like what the women in this book describe. If you feel comfortable approaching the topic with them I would encourage you to consider asking them about it. The silence has been broken and there is still more that needs to be heard.
I vaguely recall knowing about the concept of a “House for Unwed Mothers” for a long time but until reading “Want Me” last year and hearing Tracy Clark Flory relay her own mother’s story of being forced to have a baby and give it up for adoption in the 60s I hadn’t realized the full scope of what this system was set up to be.
In the years between the end of World War II and the Roe v Wade decision women and girls were largely not told about how to prevent pregnancy or, in a not-insignificant number of cases, weren’t even educated about the basic functions of how sex or childbirth worked. In this era it became more socially permissible to have premarital sex but anyone who found herself pregnant would be subjected to shame and often coerced into either marrying the baby’s father or being sent away to a facility where they would give birth, give their baby up for adoption, and then told to “forget about all this and go back to normal life.”
When I first started this book I assumed this was a well-known piece of history and that I’d been irresponsible for not learning more about it sooner. By the end though I was convinced that the details of how American Society treated these mothers and children was intentionally kept under wraps. It’s clear that a large number of parents, teachers, doctors, and priests were complicit in a system that convinced these women that they didn’t have any choices, didn’t deserve a chance to decide whether or not they wanted to keep and raise the baby themselves.
In this collection of personal accounts Fessler gives voice to so many women who otherwise never get to share this painfully unforgettable experience. Some stories have their best option of a happy ending where they meet their biological children decades later with warmth and understanding from child, bio mom, and adopted parents alike. But there are also plenty of stories of women who tried to find their child later only for them to be permanently separated by the system.
Worst of all: this social structure of shame, isolation, and control is absolutely something that conservatives are working to bring back. In the Dobbs decision last year a footnote from SCOTUS referenced the phenomenon that “the domestic supply of infants….available to be adopted had become virtually nonexistent” and this is absolutely relates the type of system of subjugation that a small but powerful group of people want to make happen in this country.
All of this history is relatively recent. If you’re reading this now in 2023 you almost certainly have a mom, a grandmother, an aunt, or other family member who personally witnessed something like what the women in this book describe. If you feel comfortable approaching the topic with them I would encourage you to consider asking them about it. The silence has been broken and there is still more that needs to be heard.