Overview

"Nothing can break the bond between a mother and her child. When young Linda finds herself pregnant and abandoned, she retreats to an unwed mothers' home to give birth. ""You'll never see him again. You'll forget,"" they promised her as they took him away for adoption. Time passes, Linda marries, has two more sons and becomes a psychological therapist. But when her youngest asks a life-changing question, she realizes no mother forgets her baby. In this powerful true story, Linda reveals her intensely personal experience when the '50s and early '60s culture demanded girls like her redeem their shame by giving away their babies. Along the way, the trauma and grief she's buried explodes. Her body has never forgotten what she tried to erase from her mind. As Linda embarks on her journey to reconnect with lost family, she knows she must have the courage to face her pain in order to heal the broken young woman left behind the wall of shame and secrecy."

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9781949642155

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Reviews

Franklin gives a painstaking account of how she comes to be one of the millions of unapprised and ultimately exploited girls of this infamous era. She captures with vivid, excruciating detail the day she signs the adoption papers, under the guidance of a creepy attending psychologist, Dr. Malone, who weeks later tries to seduce her. Franklin tells this part of her story with such honesty that we cannot doubt her adolescent innocence and vulnerability. Even more importantly, Franklin helps us understand adoption's aftermath: the undercurrent of regret, sorrow and guilt that birthmothers carry for submitting to closed records and permanent separation. Franklin exposes the emotional toll of a particular American Era as well as its ongoing legacy. Rather than simplistically representing adoption as a social and moral good, she demonstrates the ongoing error of a heartless policy and its detrimental effects not just on birthmothers but on families: children, siblings, parents, and spouses. Janet Mason Ellerby, Author of Following the Tambourine Man: A Birthmother's Memoir (2007) and Intimate Reading: The Contemporary Women's Memoir (2001)

Franklin gives a painstaking account of how she comes to be one of the millions of unapprised and ultimately exploited girls of this infamous era. She captures with vivid, excruciating detail the day she signs the adoption papers, under the guidance of a creepy attending psychologist, Dr. Malone, who weeks later tries to seduce her. Franklin tells this part of her story with such honesty that we cannot doubt her adolescent innocence and vulnerability. Even more importantly, Franklin helps us understand adoption's aftermath: the undercurrent of regret, sorrow and guilt that birthmothers carry for submitting to closed records and permanent separation. Franklin exposes the emotional toll of a particular American Era as well as its ongoing legacy. Rather than simplistically representing adoption as a social and moral good, she demonstrates the ongoing error of a heartless policy and its detrimental effects not just on birthmothers but on families: children, siblings, parents, and spouses. Janet Mason Ellerby, Author of Following the Tambourine Man: A Birthmother's Memoir (2007) and Intimate Reading: The Contemporary Women's Memoir (2001)

Author Information

Linda L Franklin is a writer, first mother of her son given up to adoption in 1964, clinical social worker and psychotherapist. She has written her memoir, I'll Always Carry You: A Mother's Story of Adoption Loss, Grief, and Healing in hopes that others will gain appreciation for the perspectives of mothers such as herself who lost their children to adoption. She is interested in increasing the knowledge of her professional colleagues of the grief that underlies adoption for all parties and need for help for those traumatized by it. She hopes for the day that adoption will no longer supersede all attempts to preserve original family units. Linda finds joy in friendships, nature, her autoharp, and meditation and is deeply grateful for relationships with all her three sons, three granddaughters, husband, and four cats.

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