Abandoned at Birth by Janet Sherlund
“I’ve always been grateful that Grandma treated you kids like you were real grandchildren.”
Those words, while meant as a compliment, go a long way in understanding the lens through which adopted children must see the world and manage their emotions.
They were uttered by the mother of a young Janet Sherlund, author of Abandoned at Birth: Searching for the Arms that Once Held Me (Forefront Books), a memoir in which she traces her upbringing and search for her biological mother.
“I had no idea why our grandparents might not see us as regular grandchildren,” Sherlund writes. “Despite my own feelings of disconnection, which I felt but didn’t understand, it never occurred to me that others might feel that way toward us.”
“I watched Mom. I was not her real child. I didn’t belong, and she was surprised when anyone treated me as if I did.”
In the book, Sherlund describes in great detail the detachment and longing of an adopted child and the search to find her biological mother. It’s a raw and real examination of the grief and trauma caused by this primal separation and the determination it takes to find a way out of it or make sense of it. We got a chance to dive deeper with her and fully explore the emotions and intentions behind this story, and what she hopes readers take away from the experience.
Q: Why did you write this book?
A: I wanted to capture what it feels like to be adopted, to affirm the experience for adoptees, and educate non-adoptees, who most often hear the narrative of adoptive or birth parents. We hear about the needs/wants and morality of birth and adoptive parents, but little attention is given to what the individual being passed between them will need to grow into a healthy adult. Adoptees rights are taken from them when they are defenseless, and they are robbed of their true biological, historical, and emotional identity. They are expected to be grateful for the false identity assigned to them and suffer through unrecognized trauma. Love is not enough to heal the wounds of adoption.
Q: What do you feel are general misconceptions about adoptees? What do people not fully understand about them, and what would it help to know?
A: The narrative is that adoptees should be grateful for placement in the home of strangers, which is usually portrayed as “better” than any home within their biological family. People don’t understand how critical a biological connection is to identity and belonging, how crucial it is to be mirrored by kin as you grow up. Adoptees have four times the suicide rate of the general population, it is trauma to be separated from your birth mother and removed from your authentic family.
Q: What was the most difficult part of this book to write?
A: My childhood. I cried when told I should write my story as a memoir, I didn’t want to relive those years. The level of grief and loss I felt as a child was overwhelming and “going there’ to capture it was difficult.
Q: Why was it so important to you to find your biological mother? And when you did, was the experience what you expected?
A: Searching for my birth mother was an attempt to heal the aching loss I lived with. The immediate and complete rupture from her voice, movement, and smell at birth severely damaged my sense of safety and self. I was driven to find her, and believed re-connecting would make me whole. Finding my birth mother was not at all the experience I expected, but it did answer profound questions and was crucial for me to understand myself more fully.
Q: Tell us about adoptee rights, what do you advocate for and why?
A: Adoptees’ rights are taken from them when they are defenseless, and in 40 US states their records and authentic identities remain permanently sealed. It should be everyone’s birthright to know who they are and where they came from. Birth records should be open in every state. Further, states and institutions should prioritize keeping a child within its biological family before every considering adoption to strangers. Where adoption is the only answer it should be open with acknowledgement and respect for the family of origin and understanding of the adoptees loss and grief. The needs of the adoptee should always take precedence over the desires of the adoptive parents.
Q: What do you hope readers will take away from this book?
A: An understanding of what it feels like to be adopted and how critical biological, historical, and emotional connections are to create a healthy, intact individual. I hope this awareness informs the reader when they make decisions about complex issues we face today, such as opening birth records, adoptee rights, the rights of donor conceived individuals and even reproductive rights.
RELATED POSTS:
Gripping Memoir About Adoptee’s Lifelong Search for Identity and Connection
About Janet Sherlund:
Janet Sherlund raised her family and served on nonprofit boards in education, health and the cultural arts before writing her memoir, Abandoned at Birth. Her single most significant life event was being given up for adoption at birth. Being adopted undermined her sense of trust and personal value and impacted every decision she made. It also led to a lifelong quest to find her biological mother, with the hope of finally feeling a tether to this world, a sense of belonging and, ultimately, herself. Her memoir fulfills a lifelong dream of raising awareness about loss and grief in adoption, and why it takes more than love to survive that trauma. A graduate of Colgate University, Sherlund lives on the island of Nantucket off the coast of Massachusetts. Visit www.abandonedatbirthbook.com.
