Practice Babies?

 

In 1919, Cornell pioneered the first degree-granting program in the country for women called “Domestic Economics.” Its aim was to apply scientific principles to domestic tasks deemed “Mothercraft” — such as making meals, cleaning and ironing, household budgeting, and raising children. Female coeds — five or six at a time — lived together in on-campus “Homemaking Apartments” and collectively mothered the practice babies.

Ranging in age from three weeks to a few months old, babies were loaned to the college for a year. The contracts between the orphanages and Cornell stated the babies “could be returned at any time if there was dissatisfaction on the part of the college.”

Their birth names and identities were erased, and they were fatted and raised by a rotating lineup of up to six practice mothers at a time. The co-eds’ work was divided into six parts, including the job of mother and assistant mother.

Domecon babies were highly sought-after for adoption. Adoptive parents were convinced that because the babies were being raised in ideal conditions and by scientific methods it would ensure a smooth family transition. A 1923 newspaper article titled “Coeds at Cornell Mother Real, Live Practice Babies” referred to the babies as “super children.”

The program ran through 1954. In all, 119 children were raised in this manner and adopted, and Dickie Domecon was the first. Most grew up with no knowledge of having been abandoned or surrendered, or having been a Domecon baby.

All identifying records were destroyed.

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This essay is excerpted from Megan Culhane Galbraith’s The Guild of the Infant Saviour: An Adopted Child’s Memory Book, published by Mad Creek Books, an imprint of the Ohio State University Press.

 

Broken Circle: What is an orphan?

Adoption was invented for orphans, children who lost their parents and needed immediate attention and help - to save their lives literally. The family circle was broken with the death of parents.
Children were orphans because there were no other relatives to care for them.
We know how "adoption" created new families for these orphans. That makes sense - it was a safety net.

Ask yourself:  how is the word orphan to be interpreted today?
In the Third World and Indian Country, those places on Earth where the most destitute live in poverty, an orphan is not necessarily without parents: some of these children are without necessities: food, water, medicine and clothing.
We know Americans will rescue the child but not their parent. Americans will call these children orphans. Is that true? Is it not selfish for an American to choose a child over the parent of that child?
Are Americans OK with separating that child from their parent via closed adoption?
The numbers of adoptees (7-10 million) today answers that question - yes.

In Indian Country kinship adoption means an orphaned child is raised with an auntie, grandparent or other relative.  Families remain intact and the child will not lose their family, language or their culture.
America's closed adoption model for Indians was purely destructive, severing a child's contact with culture, language and tribal kin, erasing their sovereign membership and their treaty rights. A few Americans involved in the Indian Adoption Projects have apologized, so we know they admit they did this heinous thing.
Can you imagine - Native children (thousands!) removed by the Indian Adoption Projects for the sole purpose of destroying families and tribal nations? It happened and yes, it was devastating.

America still places a stranglehold on Indian people with its judgement of us. This has gone on many years. Every treaty that was made was broken; all because American leaders wanted to secure more land and what was on those lands (minerals, water and food).
Plot after plot, year after year, you see the American government screwing Indians and stealing from tribes, or turning us against one another, one way or the other.
It's about control. It's about creating poverty and making us fight each other over scraps. This America goverment does not want us to be united in our struggle. They'd prefer us fighting each other over what little we're lucky enough to be granted or given by them.
A Northern Cheyenne friend said they start a fire in your front yard so you don't know what they are doing in your backyard.  They divert our attention this way, and have used it many times successfully.
That is why states historically do not deal with Indians - only the federal government. This is supposed to mean the feds are more fair or the feds have a better grasp of treaties and history - yet they control us with their beauracy, laws and delays.

Fast forward. Do you see American kids being sent to Africa or Russia for adoption? No.
Americans are the biggest adopter in all the world.  It's their savior complex. Americans believe they offered a better life for Indians, International and Third World adoptees.
As an adoptee, it was real pain for me. I cannot grasp how deep that pain went or my confusion and fear when my mother disappeared after I was born. She never returned.  Eventually I stopped crying. I blanked out the hurt yet that deep pain reached into every aspect of my life. It took many years for me to step into the circle and rejoin my relatives... My mother was not dead but I was orphaned.

I hope you will leave a comment.

Living a mystery

          By Trace L Hentz (blog editor)

Grief grows when someone’s missing. My “someone” was Helen, the woman who grew me in her womb. Helen decided to sign me away to be raised by total strangers.

            What type of blind faith was that? What was required for her to decide to make me an orphan? How could she know I’d be safe? Someone must have told her.

            Maybe the Catholics convinced her. The Catholics arranged everything for her and for me.

             Why doesn’t America know being orphaned hurts the baby in a profound way? Prisons and psychiatric wards are filled with orphans and adoptees, some of the scariest and most violent offenders. Why haven’t we heard about this? 

            Losing Helen did hurt me in a profound way, but not enough to kill someone.

            Adoption was an experiment. Remember this. No one really knew how closed adoption would turn out. Our mothers never imagined how this could hurt us as much as it hurt them. Mothers were assured giving us up would be ok, and we'd be better off. 

             CUB Mothers are rewriting history and fighting to get us back and fighting adoption secrecy. (CUB means concerned united birthparents). An important essential book on America's unregulated adoption industry is Stork Market (there is a link on this blog). Riben's book will open your eyes in ways you cannot imagine.

            Then I find out our government forgets to count adoptees.  As a journalist, I was disappointed but not surprised to find out their U.S. figures are not recent, reliable or computed systematically. We’re not that important, I guess.

            Writing One Small Sacrifice, I was confronted with one reality then another. I woke up. I lived in a mystery novel. I can say now with certainty, it was an adventure solving the mystery.

             With obvious fear, I opened my adoption, even if it got me banished from my adoptive family or arrested for criminally trespassing in my own family tree!

            What lawmakers decide about unsealing adoption records in 2010, if they were not adopted and if they know their names, they may not get it. Expecting an adoptee to be ok with living a mystery is crazy.

            When you think about this, it’s obvious. The tree roots of trauma takes its hold in children. Orphans roots are scarred. My roots are scarred.

            I don’t think it should be so hard to find the woman who grew you in her womb. I don’t think an adoptee should be denied their name and their family tree and their relatives.

            I think about a lot of things but I pray that moms and dads across the planet can raise their own children and those children become strong and healthy moms and dads. 

** An adoptee wrote on Facebook: My sister and I have so many issues that a shrink wouldn't know where to start… Another wrote: I shut down my emotions at a very early age. Because I agreed with them, I wrote Ghost Shell and posted it on this blog on July 1.