Fannish 50 2026 #18: on Mother's Day, media and adoptions
May. 10th, 2026 09:52 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
elaynaI didn't like that first (the 10t?h) season of The X-Files return, but all I really remember is Scully talking to Mulder about their child she gave up for adoption for its own protection and crying that she hoped the child didn't think she'd thrown it away like garbage. I wanted to hit the screen.
Around that time, on a Doctor Who episode, a man was pregnant, to a boy because for his people, the men birthed the boys, the women the girls, and he planned to put the baby up for adoption, but in the midst of a space station about to be destroyed, the Doctor's companion(s?) convince him he has to keep the baby because despite knowing almost nothing about the guy's life or culture, clearly the baby should be with the birth parent, that was always best.
Today Post_Secrets had a collection of postcards focusing on adoptions, and one of the adoptees mentions feeling abandoned and rejected all their life.
It drives me nuts, how our culture denigrates adoption and always assumes the very worst thoughts and motivations of the birth mother.
In 1957, at the age 0f 19, my mom gave her baby up for adoption. She had a high school diploma, one year of college, a job in a diner, a family that was ashamed of her, and a boyfriend who didn't want to be involved. The doctor arranged the adoption to a family where the man worked in construction and they had one child already. She always thought it was best for the child, a stable family that could give that child a better life than she could.
I was 8 or 9, I think, when she told me about my oldest sibling, so this is the attitude that I absorbed, that adoption is a good thing, a difficult but reasonable decision that puts the needs of the child first.
I watched two shows recently, Resident Alien and The Irrational, where a woman had given up a baby for adoption as a teenager and then as an adult, reconnected with the child, one a late teenager, the other a successful adult. And both reconnections were somewhat bumpy, with fraught emotions on both sides, but ultimately leading to positive relationships between the mom and child. I was very pleased at the nuanced but supportive depictions. (Though did note that both women were people of color, I guess getting pregnant accidentally is not something white girls do? *rolls eyes*)
My brother signed up with adoption agencies in the 1908s, trying to match with that kid. These days, I'm on Ancestry.com (and my brother was on 23andme until the bankruptcy), still trying to find our sibling. (Wow, we have a lot of 2nd and 3rd cousins once removed.) Our sibling would be 69, it's odd to think I could be biologically an aunt and great-aunt many times over, who knows? It's looking like I never will, but I continue to hope.
Children given up for adoption are not unloved and discarded. Or who knows, maybe sometimes they are, but I would be surprised. Being pregnant and giving birth is a long and difficult experience and I really expect most moms want the best for their babies. Certainly my mom did. I'm glad some media is beginning to push back with a better and more reasonable depiction.
Around that time, on a Doctor Who episode, a man was pregnant, to a boy because for his people, the men birthed the boys, the women the girls, and he planned to put the baby up for adoption, but in the midst of a space station about to be destroyed, the Doctor's companion(s?) convince him he has to keep the baby because despite knowing almost nothing about the guy's life or culture, clearly the baby should be with the birth parent, that was always best.
Today Post_Secrets had a collection of postcards focusing on adoptions, and one of the adoptees mentions feeling abandoned and rejected all their life.
It drives me nuts, how our culture denigrates adoption and always assumes the very worst thoughts and motivations of the birth mother.
In 1957, at the age 0f 19, my mom gave her baby up for adoption. She had a high school diploma, one year of college, a job in a diner, a family that was ashamed of her, and a boyfriend who didn't want to be involved. The doctor arranged the adoption to a family where the man worked in construction and they had one child already. She always thought it was best for the child, a stable family that could give that child a better life than she could.
I was 8 or 9, I think, when she told me about my oldest sibling, so this is the attitude that I absorbed, that adoption is a good thing, a difficult but reasonable decision that puts the needs of the child first.
I watched two shows recently, Resident Alien and The Irrational, where a woman had given up a baby for adoption as a teenager and then as an adult, reconnected with the child, one a late teenager, the other a successful adult. And both reconnections were somewhat bumpy, with fraught emotions on both sides, but ultimately leading to positive relationships between the mom and child. I was very pleased at the nuanced but supportive depictions. (Though did note that both women were people of color, I guess getting pregnant accidentally is not something white girls do? *rolls eyes*)
My brother signed up with adoption agencies in the 1908s, trying to match with that kid. These days, I'm on Ancestry.com (and my brother was on 23andme until the bankruptcy), still trying to find our sibling. (Wow, we have a lot of 2nd and 3rd cousins once removed.) Our sibling would be 69, it's odd to think I could be biologically an aunt and great-aunt many times over, who knows? It's looking like I never will, but I continue to hope.
Children given up for adoption are not unloved and discarded. Or who knows, maybe sometimes they are, but I would be surprised. Being pregnant and giving birth is a long and difficult experience and I really expect most moms want the best for their babies. Certainly my mom did. I'm glad some media is beginning to push back with a better and more reasonable depiction.
