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~ The Words Matter

Catherine West

Tag Archives: Birth Mothers

Four Aussie Authors. Three generations. One Story.

22 Thursday Nov 2012

Posted by Catherine West in Blogging, Life, Reading, Writing

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Adoption, Birth Mothers, National Adoption Awareness Month, The Greenfield Legacy

It has been widely reported that Adoption in Australia is a difficult, time consuming, and expensive process. In recent times the number of adoptions, both inter-country and overseas has dropped dramatically. Some have suggested that Australia’s past adoption policies have had a significant impact on the political and social ‘red tape’ that exists in today’s adoption process.

During the period of 1950 – early 1980 it was the policy of the Australian government to take babies born to unmarried mothers and have them adopted out. A large portion of these ‘forced’ adoptions were supported by the birth mother’s family due to the social stigma attached to an unmarried pregnancy.

In the wake of an inquiry by the Federal Senate, and the growing list of Australian States formally apologising to those affected by the forced adoption practices, comes a new novel addressing the traumatic results of negative community and political attitudes towards young, unmarried mothers during this period.

The Greenfield Legacy is a new contemporary novel co-authored by four Australian fiction writers; Paula Vince, Meredith Resce, Amanda Deed and Rose Dee that highlights the emotionally damaging repercussions of the clean-break policies that deeply affected families.

What made four authors decide to embark upon writing a book with the theme of adoption?

Amanda Deed: Paula had seen other novels on the market with four authors, although they were each a set of novellas with a theme running through. She thought it would be great to see something like that done by Australian authors, so after thinking over it some more, contacted Rose, Meredith and Amanda to see if they were interested. We all thought it would be good to have a go.

From there, through discussions on Facebook, Skype and email, we put together a plot and created characters we each would write. It quickly became obvious this was no four-part novella collection. This was one story with four voices. The theme of adoption came through when Mattie had to give up her baby. The roll-on emotional effect of this became the basis for each character’s story.

How did this theme play out within the storyline of the novel?

Rose Dee: The novel starts with one drastic event – the taking of a baby. This event drives the entire emotional wave of the storyline. 

After having been forced to give up her child, Mattie finds it hard to invest in any relationship, whether that is with her husband, daughter or granddaughter. But when the child she gave up finally makes contact, she is hopeful that some light will be shed on the pain she suffered. Unfortunately, a long term future with her daughter comes too late. Annette has sought out her biological mother because she is dying.

The entry of Annette into the lives of Mattie’s family has a drastic effect. Her daughter, Connie and granddaughter, Brooke both have a myriad of emotions that sends them on a roller coaster ride of self-analysis. And Annette’s daughter, Navy, who had been abandoned by her mother, is not only forced to face what she perceives to be hostile biological kin, but also the sense of rejection that her mother has passed on to her.

Adoption has a wide reaching effect, and as authors, we wanted to show the damage that holding onto negative experiences and perceptions can have, and also how God can heal hurts and change hearts.

 What are the emotional impacts of adoption in the storyline?

Paula Vince: Firstly, of course, our characters, Mattie and Annette, were impacted greatly. After being forced to give up her baby, we see Mattie’s subsequent hardening of her heart for self-protection, as she couldn’t bear the possibility of feeling so vulnerable and hurt again. The baby herself, Annette, grows up with the belief that she must have been unwanted by her biological parents, and she feels inferior to her sister, the biological child of her adoptive parents. Our story shows that Annette’s assumption was entirely false, but it helped form attitudes in her heart which caused her to make negative decisions in her adult life.

We also hoped to show that the impact of adoption doesn’t end with those directly concerned. Mattie’s biological daughter, Connie, has grown up resenting what she perceives as hardness and lack of maternal love from her mother. She copes with this partly by throwing herself into her career and becoming a high-achiever. This, in turn, impacts her daughter, Brooke, who has grown up feeling a pressure to excel. And Annette’s daughter, Navy, has been raised without her mother’s influence for many years, creating a rejection complex which she tries hard to hide. Our stage is set for plenty of emotional upheaval when these characters end up beneath the same roof. The original decision for Annette to be adopted is a major catalyst for the whole story, as emotional repercussions rippled wide for many years.

What do you want the legacy of this novel to be, and how does the theme of adoption feature in this legacy?

Meredith Resce: As ‘The Greenfield Legacy’ project began to take shape, I really began to feel the burden of Mattie, the older woman who was suddenly forced to face the tragedy of her youth. The young Mattie had got pregnant to the love of her life, only to lose him as a victim in the Vietnam War. The unyielding attitudes of her highly religious parents and an unforgiving society forced Mattie to give her baby up. It went against everything she felt inside, loving the baby and loving the baby’s father. But both were cruelly torn from her. It was at this point in her life that she emotionally closed down. Unable to cope with the grief of loss, and returning to a home and community who didn’t even want to acknowledge there had been anything to lose in the first place, Mattie carefully constructed a wall of hardness. It was this wall that succeeded in then destroying her marriage to a decent young man, and cost her a relationship with her legitimate daughter from that marriage. Some forty years later, she is faced with the trail of emotional disasters and the associated grief.

I really wanted to examine this vault of pain: the causes, the consequences and the hope for eventual healing and reconciliation. Even in the writing, I as the author, and I believe also the reader, have to travel with Mattie back through each experience and find the healing that needs to happen. I am really hoping that this story will be a trigger for readers to come to that place of realizing they may need to face past mistakes and past pain, and travel the journey toward healing.

 

http://www.facebook.com/TheGreenfieldLegacy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mafPNA9cBSk

 

 

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November is National Adoption Awareness Month!

01 Thursday Nov 2012

Posted by Catherine West in Life, Reading, Writing

≈ 3 Comments

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Adoptees, Adoption, Adoptive Parents, Birth Mothers, Catherine West, Faith, Hidden in the Heart, National Adoption Awareness Month

Welcome!
This month, in honor of National Adoption Awareness Month, I’m thrilled to be devoting my blog to all those affected by adoption in some way. I put out the call some time ago, and have received wonderful posts from adoptive parents, adoptees, and birth mothers. I can’t wait to share them with you! There are some days when I did not receive a post, so I will pose a question from the Discussion Questions at the back of Hidden in the Heart, and perhaps we can talk about it. Feel free to ask me questions too. It has been great to have so much discussion about a topic that is near and dear to my heart.

We will begin our journey on Saturday, with a post by my friend and author, Christine Lindsay, who is a reunited birth mother. Fridays will carry on as normal with Friday Featured Authors, and tomorrow Gail Sattler will be my guest.

Last week, I had Katie Ganshert as my guest, talking about her journey as a prospective adoptive parent, and giving away a copy of her novel, Wildflowers from Winter. The winner is:

Sonia Meteer! 
Congratulations, Sonia. I know you’ll enjoy it!

I hope you’ll join me this month in sharing our thoughts on adoption. I think some things may surprise you. As I am learning from reader responses to Hidden in the Heart, not everyone sees things the same way. And that’s okay. God made us all differently, with the right to our own opinions. But I do ask that if you wish to respond to a post that you may not agree with, please do so in love. I reserve the right to remove any comments that may be perceived as hurtful to someone else. 

Today’s Question:

Psalm 139; 13-16 is quoted at the beginning of the book. What does this verse mean to you? How might it practically affect the way you see others? Yourself? God? The world around you? The subject of adoption?

For you created my inmost being; 

you knit me together in my mother’s womb. 

I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; 

your works are wonderful, 

I know that full well. 

My frame was not hidden from you 

when I was made in the secret place, 

when I was woven together in the depths of the earth. 

Your eyes saw my unformed body; 

all the days ordained for me were written in your book 

before one of them came to be. 

—PSALM 139: 13-16 

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Why The Words Matter

Life speeds along and we do our best to catch up. Some days its hard to take a breath, let alone form a sentence that makes sense. Is anybody listening anyway? You might be surprised. The words matter. All of them.

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