A tough life made harder

Boys at children's homes are less likely to be adopted, espoecially as they grow older, than girls. Many find life extremely hard not knowing who thir real parents are - File photo

Patricia Watson, Staff Reporter

It is a subject that is not often discussed openly in Jamaica - the pain of giving up one's child for adoption and similar torture felt by the child abandoned by parents or relatives.

We hear a great deal about the joys felt by parents, who after years of trying to have children, are blessed with one of the many given to the state or private homes.

Imagine the joy that fills the home with the arrival of the child and then try to picture the emptiness that fills the home and heart of that woman who had to make that difficult decision.

It is indeed difficult to imagine the agony or the smile that masks the emotional pain felt by women who give up their children. In many cases, there is no one to acknowledge her loss. Those who do acknowledge the pain tell her she will forget and will later have a child she can care for. She is told to move on with her life.

But can she forget her child? No matter the circumstances that led to her pregnancy and ultimately giving up her child, it is hard to fathom the woman who would forget her child. On the day she gave birth, the pain must have been horrific, not purely because of the fact that birthing is painful, but because she knows she will not be able to care for it.

Pamella McNeil, director of the Women's Centre Foundation of Jamaica, explained that giving up a child is one of the most difficult decisions a mother, especially a teenage one, ever has to make.

"It's somewhat like abortion," Mrs. McNeil said, "something you will never forget."

Reasons

According to her, there are different reasons why a woman may have to give up her child. These include a child conceived through rape, and unfortunate family and financial situations. On many occasions, she said, the young girl is unable to provide financially for the child and if her immediate family cannot or refuses to help, then the only choice left to her is to give up the child for adoption.

Mrs. McNeil said when the decision is made to give up a child, counselling must take place to minimise the pain that the woman will feel.

"Counselling has to be intense, and may have to take place every day up to birth," she explained.

"It is a very sad thing, but in practical terms, the women know it has to be done. Some of the girls love their babies so much that they will hold on to the child up to the last minute."

Social workers explain that women, after giving up claims to their children, feel a huge sense of loss. Some cry a lot, others will become withdrawn. And because the whole event is shrouded in secrecy in Jamaica, there are those who feel ashamed and fear that persons will consider them less than human because of the decision they made. This is one of the main reasons it is absolutely necessary for women to receive counselling before they decide on adoption.

State's choice

In addition to those women who consciously make the decision to give up their child, are those for whom the decision is made by the state. Some women lose their children because of lack of financial help from their spouses. These women end up making the sometimes fatal decision of leaving the child alone at home while they go to work.

Every year scores of children are adopted in Jamaica, but an equal number remain in homes waiting to be taken in by a family who will love them. In 1999 240 children were adopted locally and 23 sent abroad. There are many too who will remain in the homes until they are age 18, and these include the physically and mentally challenged or older children. Of these, boys are at a greater disadvantage as persons tend to adopt more girls than boys.

For those children left in the homes, the feeling of not being wanted is great, and if left untended can grow into mountains of hate.

"It's a struggle trying to get them to come to terms with their situation," said Carmen Allicock, director of the National Children's Home. "It is not easy to watch them struggle. Some wet beds because of the deep down feelings they have."

She explained that many of the children are extremely angry, especially with their mothers for leaving them. Based on this, she said, the staff has to be able to respond to the children's needs and deal with them as best as possible.

Mrs. Allicock further explained that based on how delicate the children are, the staff needs to stay longer at the homes. She also said they should be enlightened in terms of the behaviour to expect from the children.

Speaking with a number of children at the National Children's Home, it is easy to identify their daily struggles. Imagine the hollow feeling, the numbness the child experienced when he sees his birth certificate for the first time: Father, "unknown"; or mother, "unknown".

The children yearn for even the slightest connection to a relative and their joy on seeing visitors is unmistakable. Visitors make them feel, if only for a few moments, that they are important and cared for.

Mrs. Allicock said when the staff is able to get the children to speak without fear about their feelings, they recognise their need to know where they are coming from and what will happen to them when they leave the home, having no one.

It must be quite lonely, especially at nights, for these children. Making decisions about the future is difficult even for those persons in stable families, much less those approaching age 18 and living in the homes.

These children probably spend sleepless nights just figuring out how they will survive on their own.

In this light, the decision taken by Mrs. Allicock and her team at the National Children's Home to try to reunite children at the home with their parents and relatives must be commended. Even if the relatives cannot afford to take back these children, at least the contact with the children could serve to heal some of the pain felt on both sides. It would be an opportunity for the children to understand where they are coming from, in order for them to move on in life. The parents would also get the opportunity to know where the children they gave up are and how they are coping.

It would be good if other homes across the island decide to do the same as a way of reducing the rage which these children feel.

"We have to stop the rage and one way of doing this is to understand the children's pain," Mrs. Allicock said. "If the children feel abandoned, they will grow up with the rage and hate."

As a result she said the children must be told why they were given up. Children who are adopted may also feel a sense of abandonment even if they are brought up in a loving home.

A gentleman who was adopted explained his feelings in The Adoption Magazine, a United States wire publication. He said while growing up, friends asked him if he ever wondered about his real mother.

"I bristled then as I do now at the suggestion that one of my mothers is somehow less than real," he said. "All I could say was that I believed that the mother who had let me go loved me very much and couldn't keep me and that my mom was quite real."

He said despite his bravado in truth he did wonder about his real mother.

"In my imagination she was a guardian spirit, or a ghost that watched over me from a place I did not know, and I thought about her often at night in the quiet time before I would drift off to sleep especially on my birthday. But I did so in my private space, knowing that such questions only pained my parents," he noted.

The above gentleman was able to meet his mother eventually, but there are no facilities in Jamaica which would allow mothers who really want to meet the children they gave up for adoption or vice versa to do so.

It would be good if this process could be made easy for those who really want to know.

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