Ruth and her sister as children
I was born at the end of WW2. My mother was separated from her husband, and with her very young son was evacuated to the Sussex coast. My father was a flying officer in the Canadian air force, stationed nearby. He was recalled to Canada before my mother knew she was pregnant.
I was adopted by two women in their 60s when I was two weeks old. I think in the 30s practice had moved away from “spinster adoptions” and my guardians had to fight to adopt us. I have an adoptive sister, a year older. My guardians had had little contact with children and, as we and they grew older, they found the situation increasingly difficult. They were severe, undemonstrative and puritanical. The issue in my view is not that they were unmarried, or that they were probably lesbian, it is that they lacked warmth and empathy. We were meant to be a credit to them, and were called ungrateful if we rebelled.
My sister left home and married at 18; I left for university and spent little time at home. One of our guardians died when I was 21. The other lived another ten years. I had two mental breakdowns in my 20s, and decided for my wellbeing that I needed to avoid my surviving guardian’s manipulative behaviour.
Neither my sister nor I was in any way prepared for married life and we both left emotionally abusive relationships in our 40s. My sister became alcoholic and her second marriage, in her 60s, was also abusive. She left, was able to stop drinking and is now living in a care home. I spent many years in therapy, and, finally, in the last few year, I’m in a loving relationship.
In my 30s I made contact with my birth mother and we stayed in touch for several years. She was unwilling to tell her second husband or her son who I was and I eventually found the deception intolerable. I tried but failed to trace my father.
I am glad that late in my life the concept of adoption itself – and the separation from birth parents as traumatic – is gaining prominence. Adoption may in some cases be the least worst option, but that’s another reason for adopted children to be given extra care and support.