Written evidence from Adrian Parker (ACU0056)

The circumstances of my adoption

Conceived at the beginning of 1960, my parents had dated for two years when my mother unexpectedly became pregnant.  Her parents with whom she was still living reacted badly, her father in particular, and the ‘naughty’ man was sent packing for getting their daughter pregnant out of wedlock.  I know nothing about what happened in the months that followed, and have no idea what combination of factors familial and/or societal exerted pressure on my mother to offer me up for adoption.  What a pity for my parents, who likely loved each other and would have wanted to stay together, perhaps getting married and keeping their ‘love child’, had they not been judged and condemned by society for what they had done.

My adoptive parents always told me I was adopted so it was never a bombshell dropped at a certain age; that was good. Apart from that, they would never talk about the subject, why they needed to adopt or anything about the circumstances of my birth parents. My maternal grandmother hinted in very broad terms at one or two things to me as an adult, but because of my adoptive parents’ unwillingness to talk about the subject, I felt it would be wrong to quiz her further.  The only other information I have been able to glean came from visiting the street where the family had lived in 1960, some years ago.  Walking down the road one weekday afternoon, I literally knocked on doors hoping to find an older couple who had lived there long enough to have known my birth family at that time. To my amazement I succeeded. 

The couple I found were very helpful, and through them I learned a little bit more about the circumstances around the time of my birth and in the year or so thereafter.  Tragically, both my mother’s parents lost their lives around that time.  Her father from a heart attack seemingly triggered by stress, due in part at least to the shame my mother’s pregnancy brought upon the family, and her mother subsequently from suicide, a reaction to that stress and sudden unexpected loss of her husband.  My mother may well have blamed herself for the death of both her parents.  This was a very serious impact indeed on the wider family of the societal pressures and practices at that time concerning unmarried mothers.

I was adopted into a working-class family with a mother who was one of the oddest, most miserable, and socially inadequate people you could ever come across.  Both she and my adoptive father came from large families, but my many aunts and uncles always gave the family a very wide berth indeed, because of how my mother was.  My dad was lovely, but I never really got to know him since he was very quiet; living in my controlling mother’s shadow, he couldn’t stand up to her and had learned to keep his mouth shut for an easy life.  A counsellor once observed when I touched on this subject “so your father was physically present but emotionally absent from your life?” to which I replied “yes, and my mother too”.  I sometimes wonder what life would have been like with my ‘real’ parents, I will never know; it might have been better, it could have been worse.

Age 41 following the death of my adoptive mother I finally decided to find my birth mother.  She was quickly discovered by someone who traced birth families as a hobby.  I then reached out to her very gently, using that individual as an intermediary.  Sadly, but unsurprisingly given all the shame that had been heaped upon her, I must have ended up as her deeply buried, ‘dirty secret’ that she had never shared with anyone, not even her husband.  And so the arrival of my letter must have really frightened her, that after all these years her ‘cover’ might be blown.  Not surprisingly I received a brief reply, confirming that she was indeed my mother, but telling me that I must never contact her again.  Although not the response I’d hoped for, this has never upset me; I completely understand the fear and shame underlying this apparent rejection, given how badly such unmarried mothers were treated at the time.

Was the right to family life of unmarried mothers and their children, as we understand it now, respected at the time?

Clearly not.  Although I don’t feel at all bitter about it, the reality is I was robbed of my family, forever; the opportunity to grow up with the parents who had conceived me, or at very least, with my mother, the woman who had given birth to me, as well as with any other children she subsequently had, my biological siblings or half-siblings.

I understand that many mothers forced into adoption were so traumatised by the experience that they never had children again, and that must be truly dreadful for them.  However, others including my mother went on to marry, have more children and lead a family life, and so those mothers at least would have known what it is like to have children who are theirs, who they have given birth to and brought up. 

Conversely, once robbed of my birth parents I could never, ever experience what it is like to have a mum who is truly mine, who conceived and gave birth to me; or to have a dad who had fathered me.  The closest I can get is two half-brothers, the only other known blood relatives I have. After my mother’s rejection I’ve waited another two decades until she eventually passed away, before confirming their existence within the past year.  Still uncertain of the wisdom of making contact, I am taking time to consider this carefully.  It would surely have been my mother’s firm wish that I didn’t, and it would come like a bolt out of the blue to my half-brothers, a completely unexpected revelation to emerge after all these years.  I would hope however that after the initial shock was over, they would be able to come to understand just how brave a young and vulnerable woman my mother must have been.

The one compelling reason I’m contemplating making contact is to find out more about my mother; what she was like as a person, what kind of life she had.  My father is lost in history, and I have never held any hope of ever tracking him down.

I find it a little odd that most of the emphasis in these present-day matters including this inquiry is on the mother.  This inquiry’s webpage begins “The Joint Committee on Human Rights has launched a new inquiry to understand the experiences of unmarried women whose children were adopted…”.  It only then goes on to include the children, almost as a parenthesis.  Adopted at just a month old, I was completely unable to stand up for my rights or protest at my separation from my birth family; I could have no say in the matter whatsoever.  Nobody was protecting my rights to stay if I wanted to. Surely that is at least as bad as the way the mothers were treated, so why are we the children seemingly regarded as almost an afterthought, with the focus being primarily on the mother?  This one-sided emphasis has been quite clear whenever the movement for an adoption apology has received attention in the news media; almost all the focus has been on the mothers, they are the ones being interviewed.  It appears the apology being sought is solely for what was done to the mothers; the children being a mere sidebar to the main story. 

And what of the fathers?  They receive no mention whatsoever.  My dad was likely forcibly separated from his son, a result of the same societal pressures exerted on the mothers.  Mother, father, child, all had their right to family life equally stolen from them.

How the experience of being adopted, or having a child who was adopted impacted on the family life of the unmarried mother, child, and others?

Although I know in my head I’m adopted and had real birth parents out there who I’ve never met and never will, at the same time this knowledge is very unreal.  It feels unbelievably surreal, so it’s hard to feel anything in my heart and emotions about it.

Growing up with the adoptive parents who were inevitably without my involvement or consent selected for me, the sad truth is this; reflecting on what I came to know and understand once an adult, I would never have chosen them (I recognise that some who grew up with their ‘real’ parents may share the same sentiment).  I’m sure they loved me in their own way, although they never told me that or found ways to demonstrate it, apart from showering me with almost obscene quantities of presents each birthday and Christmas.  I would have loved instead simply to be have been hugged and told how much they loved me. 

Many will have grown up with parents whether natural or adoptive more challenging than my own, but I still wish it could have been different, that I could have had relatively ‘normal’, sane parents, for normal they certainly were not, at least my mother.  There would have been no guarantee that my birth parents would have been such.  Nonetheless, my upbringing was difficult enough that I grew up to become as a young man nothing like the person I was truly made to be.  Reflecting on my childhood and adolescence as a young adult and what I had become, I spent the entirety of my 20s and even my early 30s identifying then bit by bit dismantling the ‘damage’ caused by my upbringing, to discover and unleash the real me.  What finally emerged was a man so completely different from what I had grown up to become under the care of my adoptive family.  My childhood and teens would have been so very different and much happier if during those years I had been able to be the person I was meant to be.

What, if any, information and support were provided to expectant mothers to help them make decisions or to enable them to keep their baby?

Although not the expectant mother to whom this is addressed, I am responding to underscore a point. Nestling in the womb I was completely oblivious to the strife concerning my unplanned and unwanted existence going on in the world around me.  I had zero access to information or support to help me make a decision whether to ‘keep’ my birth mother.  Nor I suspect would there have been any support available to me had I been able to request to ‘stay’. I could have no say in the matter; I did not have capacity at that time, and would not until many years later when the deed was done and it was far too late.  I suspect those in control believed they were making a decision based in part at least on “what’s best for baby”, but they were sadly very misguided.

How the lack of recognition of the impact of adoption practices… has affected those whose child was adopted or who were adopted as a child during this time?

As I observed earlier, the fact that I had birth parents who were not the ones who brought me up is a very “unreal reality” for me, like a mostly faded dream I dreamt a very long time ago.  So how my adoption has affected me has never been immediately and fully obvious to me; it needs careful self-examination and soul-searching.

To me, two things were wrong in those years. The first was the societal beliefs, pressures and practices regarding unmarried mothers, which so often resulted in mother and baby being separated for life, very often against the wishes of the mother and always without the consent of the newborn child. 

The second is the practice at that time of putting up an impenetrable ‘firewall’ between birth family and adoptive family, such that growing up I was never able to gain any knowledge of, meet, have any ongoing contact with or form any kind of relationship with my birth parents.  It was only later in life that I learned what my rights had by that time become to have access to records about my adoption.  By then, it was likely far too late to undo the damage done to my mother, such that she might have been open to some contact with me.  Worse, my parents had absolutely no right of access to information about me, if either of them post-adoption had subsequently wished to find or contact me.  Once “given up for adoption” it was all so very final; I was gone for good, and could never, ever be seen again.

It appears the motivation and intent of society was to provide a cast iron guarantee to the adopting couple that my birth family would never, ever be able to emerge from the shadows.  It was as if the commitment made to my adoptive parents was that society would do everything within its power to make me as close a ‘simulation’ to a ‘real child’ of theirs as humanly possible, by in effect erasing my natural parents – as though without that I would be a poor ‘second best’ to the real thing.  Badly ill-judged, this treats the child like a mere possession.  The fact that my very birth certificate was replaced with what in effect was a fake, a replacement that names my adoptive parents powerfully underscores this reality.  I was remanufactured into something I wasn’t.  I only had one birth, so why more than one birth certificate?  My real parents were quite literally erased from the only official documentation recording my coming into this world.  Perhaps it was thought this was doing the best thing for the child; how wrong that was.  I have never been ashamed to speak of my adoption, and certainly have never felt the need for a second birth certificate to hide it; it is a part of my life’s story, and nothing of that should ever be erased.

In more enlightened times such practices have ceased.  I would have much preferred, in some small way at least, to get to know – or at very least, know about my birth mother, and ideally my birth father too.

I should perhaps have made an effort much earlier in life to try to find and make contact with my birth mother.  What held me back was knowing how incredibly difficult my adoptive mother would have found that (my adoptive father passed away when I was only 28); how much she would have disapproved, and shown her displeasure.  I could have simply not told her, but in those years she still had somewhat of a controlling influence on me, at least within my own psyche.  It was only once she passed away in 2001 that I finally felt freed to begin the search for my birth mother.

Final remarks

I have spoken here rather negatively if honestly about my adoptive parents, in particular my mother. My father was quite a likeable man, and I now realise he had a number of very positive traits about him.  But I was never able to fully appreciate him while he was still alive, due to the domination of my mother in the relationship and in our family getting in the way, taking up all the attention and expending all the energy needed to maintain an unhealthy family dynamic. 

I want to put on record that the one thing my adoptive parents did do for me which I very much appreciate was to pay for a good secondary education.  I suspect this was done largely for the wrong reasons; neither of them themselves had had opportunity for a decent education, and so I imagine their main motivation might have been to fulfil whatever ambitions they might have had for success – a good career and the standard of living that goes with it – vicariously through the achievements of their son.  Nevertheless, I am very grateful for the positive impact that excellent education – which carried on at university, where they continued to support me – has had throughout my life. 

My very final point concerns abortion.  Although not legal in 1960, ‘backstreet’ abortions of unwanted children still happened.  I will never have any idea whether my birth mother came under any family pressure to choose an abortion.  If not, I will be eternally grateful to her family that this was not the case.  If however she did face pressure to choose this path of convenience, I am equally grateful to her for whatever resistance she put up, such that this was not the eventual outcome.  Unlike the many unfortunate ones who are still today terminated while growing within the womb (a first ‘home’ that should be one of the safest of spaces possible), simply because they are an unplanned inconvenience – and this is something I will personally never be able to get my head around, how society can allow, indeed endorse and facilitate that, still in effect trample all over the human rights of the unborn child to be, the most vulnerable members of society – I was given the gift of life, and for this I am eternally grateful.  Everything else that I wish had not been pales into insignificance when I stop to reflect and be thankful for the fact that LIFE was chosen for me, and for the part my adoptive parents – flawed though they were – played in securing that for me; I’m sure they did their best.  The right to a life would certainly have had my vote.

Thank you for this opportunity to share my story.  My very best wishes for this inquiry, which I hope will where needed bring a measure of healing for the mistakes of the past.

28/10/2021