Relinquished: The Politics of Adoption and the Privilege of American Motherhood by Gretchen Sisson may well end up being a deeply unpopular book, which is what makes it so important. Sisson has spent more than a decade researching the impacts of adoption on birth parents, and why they chose adoption. And although birth fathers were a part of her research, Sisson ultimately chose to focus on her interviews with birth mothers. Along with these lengthy interviews, she provides space for the mothers to tell their own stories through personally written passages. Sisson supports the personal accounts with statistics and facts. For example, Sisson notes, it would take only $2,500 on average for a birth parent to feel they could choose to parent rather than relinquish. And that is the choice most often--parenting or relinquishment.
Sisson digs deep into the American culture of adoption and how deeply entrenched it is with evangelical Christianity. She discusses the eras of adoption practices from the "baby scoop" era of the 1940s to 1970s to the open adoptions of the 21st century. Sisson includes positive portrayals of adoption from relinquishing mothers, but the book focuses on those who had negative experiences, which the majority of cases are.
Tough to read at times, Relinquished asks readers to reflect on the possibility that adoption isn't an altruistic family-building tool, nor is it the great choice that powerful adoption companies and popular media paint it to be. Birth mothers are people who need extra help and support, not people reckless and unfit for motherhood. "This book," Sisson writes, "seeks to correct this error." --Alyssa Parssinen, freelance reviewer and former bookseller