People love boxes. The difference between collectors and consumers may be a matter of boxes. Collectors save, and consumers, throw away. As an artist and educator, I collect too many things, objects, books, and supplies all waiting for some yet undreamed of use. There are a plethora of container options. Some people believe, that if things can be categorized and safely stored in a box or a drawer, all is well.
In a similar vein, we can thank “The Baby Box Lady, Monica Kelsey,” for a neat third-world solution to unwanted babies. Conceived as a child of rape, her 17-year-old, (prior to the age of consent) birth mother carried her for 9 months and gave birth only to surrender her two hours post-partum at a hospital. How traumatic was carrying a child born of rape? How did the birth mother manage the rest of her reproductive and relationship life? How did she feel about her daughter finding her? Are they in reunion i.e., have a relationship now? Was the birth father charged with rape? Did he even know about the infant? Most sexual abuse is perpetrated by someone close to the victim and family. This information was not reported.
According to the article written by Lizzie Widdicom, Kelsey was able to search for and find her birth mother to learn this limited truth. Given closed records and time, less than 18% of adults who search for first parents find them and I are in reunion. Currently, there is unrestricted access to birth certificates in only 8 states.
Classically fed, the narrative of loving surrender from her adoptive parents and the adoption agency this discovery doubly traumatized Kelsey. The trauma of adoption regardless the terms of relinquishment is such an intimate grief and can be debilitating. How adopted people manage this trauma can be expressed in diverse ways.
There are some adopted people like me who are perfectly fine with not having been born. Does that surprise you? If anything, I have learned in all my years, that my life is no more precious than any others. I believe thinking the opposite is why some people are fine with stepping on the rights of others.
Kelsey on her journey chose to evangelize the practice of Baby boxes in the U.S. I use the term evangelize because her journey and choice were bolstered and are rooted in her religious mission.
Child abandonment and neglect laws though varied in terms of punishment, clearly assert the criminality of such acts. Newborns on the other hand according to, Safe Haven laws can be anonymously surrendered in some cases for up to a month after birth. Problem solved. Birth mothers are lucky to be unburdened and a new family desiring a baby will have their dream family come true.
The conclusion and solution Kelsey personally came to, is simple, clean, and easy for those interested in imagining babies came from immaculate conception without history, ancestry, time, and development in a unique person’s womb. There is a presumption that the baby that is then born is always not wanted and would otherwise end up in a dumpster. Kelsey was not put in a dumpster. She was given up for adoption.
Why is anonymity so important? Who needs or benefits from anonymity? A teen girl with no resources, a young woman with no support system, a woman with no partner, a grandmother or partner looking for an easy solution. The common denominator is a lack of resources, a lack of external care. Caring for the reproductive destiny of women is the least important priority in these cases.
Anonymity favors the clean slate narrative perpetuated by adopters and their facilitators. But any woman who has been pregnant, whether she has carried to term or not, knows the profound lifelong, physical, emotional, and economic toll her pregnancy exacts. Children also understand and carry the burden of their relinquishment and the loss of their history and ancestry. This knowledge is a gift that should be a right. People such as Kelsey are to lucky to find their birth families. What right does she have in abetting the elimination of that right for future children? This is what the anonymous baby box does at the basest level.
Unfortunately predating this trend, in 2012, the UN raised the alarm regarding the proliferation of Baby boxes in Europe. In an article published by againstchildtrafficking.org, “UN officials argue that baby hatches violate key parts of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) which says children must be able to identify their parents and even if separated from them the state has a “duty to respect the child’s right to maintain personal relations with his or her parent”. This alarming trend was also reported by the Guardian and NPR at that time. At present, the US does not abide by the UNCRC, which is why so many adopted persons do not have access to their history.
I personally will likely never see or know the face of my mother because such systems of anonymity were patronized. And though I and most adult adoptees come to terms with our relinquishment, should a birth parent not be held accountable or at the very least face, the life they fully brought into the world? Abandoned children are the greatest losers in this negligent and criminal solution. I am not alone in this thinking.
When I was in my 20’s my sister gave me a book on managing my adoption. The main metaphor used in the book was that adoption was like a box that you could store away and look at from time to time. The fundamental problem with this metaphor is that it denies the fact that unresolved issues from one’s relinquishment and adoption permeate all aspects of one’s development of identity and relationship building. Without continually understanding, addressing, and holding space for the ways abandonment and adoption have informed one’s development; the possibility for growth, self-love, and acceptance may be muted by denial, loss, and unacknowledged grief. I am not alone, in my 50’s newly managing this grief.
None of this will fit neatly in a box, least of all the life of a baby.
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