discovery refuge

First Disclaimer:  The people in this story are real.  The names used are real.  The events are as accurate as possible from the perspective told.  Recalling this story is like playing a decades-long game of telephone, where one child whispers a story into the ear of another and that child repeats the story to another child down the line.  Only in this game of telephone, a child may wait many years or decades to pass the story along.  During this time, the original story heard from the previous child has become foggy and the subsequent child may not remember it accurately.  Or the child has grown older and the original story has taken on a different meaning or significance than when originally heard.

As we await the Supreme Court’s likely reversal of Roe v. Wade, I am reading “The Girls Who Went Away” by Ann Fessler.  It is a heart-wrenching book about the “Baby Scoop Era” when millions of unwed women were forced to give up their babies for adoption during the years 1945 to 1973.  Without access to birth control or abortion, these women were kicked out of school and shunned from their communities, often labeled neurotic and psychologically deficient.  They were sent off to institutions until the babies reached full term at which time the women’s arms and legs were tied down while they gave birth.  Once the baby was born, many women were not allowed to hold their baby or even to see their baby.  After a short medical recovery, the mother would be coerced into signing the required adoption documents, if they ever signed documents at all.  The women were told to never speak of the events for fear of rendering them social outcasts for the rest of their lives.  Shamed first for having sex and shamed again for giving up their baby.  Meanwhile, the fathers continued on with their lives, assured that a single indiscretion should not derail their academic and professional aspirations.

The young boys in my elementary school had already been socialized to evaluate the female form and deem it worthy or unworthy. They decided my body was unacceptable. Starting with the onset of puberty, boys taunted me daily with assaults of “Fatso!” and “Chubby!,” entertained when they discovered my tears flowed easily and encouraged to masochistically taunt more viciously.