Note: Thank you to NetGalley, University of Oklahoma Press, and Rebecca Wellington for the advanced reader copy of the book. This review will also be posted on NetGalley. What follows is my unbiased review of the book.

For many years, babies have been looked at as a “clean slate” and children who were separated from their family during infancy were thought to be malleable to fitting in with whatever home they were placed in. More and more in the nature vs. nurture debate, it is clear that both play a significant role in developing a sense of self and for adoptees who have been cut off from their biological history it makes it harder to come to terms with one’s identity.

In the book Who Is a Worthy Mother? author Rebecca Wellington tackles the history of adoption in the United States and the many missteps it has made along the way. Dating back to the days of “orphan trains” to the west, many children were separated from their families by well-intentioned social workers who thought they were doing the right thing removing children from a poverty-stricken upbringing in the inner city. Others had a more nefarious attitude, knowing that the agencies they worked for only made money when an adoption was completed, and would say and do anything to separate what they deemed an unworthy mother from her child.

Wellington covers the history of adoption in a way I had never read before. As a product of the “baby scoop” era following World War II, I knew a lot about those days from talking to other members of the Triad (birthmother-child-adoptive parent) online throughout the years. I did not know the background of what led to the changes in this era. Wellington fills in a lot of the history of how social workers developed as a profession, and what their reasoning was in removing children from homes where a mother wasn’t considered “worthy.” Usually, that meant single, white, and unmarried.

Wellington discusses this in the context of her own adoption and that of her sister who grew up together in a Jewish home with two very different outcomes. Wellington seems to be a lot like me, trying to justify her existence while searching for her own sense of self. For her, it wasn’t about finding her birthmother, but something she found along the way while on a two-year sailing trip around the world. Her sister rebelled against everything, descended into drugs and alcohol, gave birth to a son she lost custody of, gave birth to a daughter who was surrendered to adoption, and finally overdosed at a young age. It was losing her sister that prompted Wellington to pull back the curtain on the fairy-tale that is adoption in this country.

Wellington addresses the topic of interracial and international adoption as well, something that has been missing from other books I’ve read on adoption. In particular, adoption across racial lines involving removing children from Native American mothers and places with white mothers is addressed. One testimonial is how the adoptee was the only “non-white” person in the small town where she lived with her placement. Wellington states that normally, in the Native culture, a child is part of the community, and if the mother has no interest in raising her, others will fill in the gaps while keeping the child immersed in their biological background. Once government social workers became involved, the children were removed to alien environments once they deemed mothers “unworthy” which of course they were if it didn’t match the concept of the white American suburban family.

The Eugenics movement in the United States is also addressed as is the mass sterilization of women allegedly ill-suited to being parents. For the most part, their crime is being an unwed mother. It’s quite startling to read everything that has been done over the last century to get birthmothers to give their babies away. Most people would think twice about what that means after reading this book. With all of the talk about Roe vs. Wade being rolled back and a “domestic supply of infants” needed for all the people suffering from infertility, this book really lays it on the line about the problems it entails for everyone affected by adoption.

I highly recommend Who Is a Worthy Mother? for anyone who is thinking about adoption or has been affected by it. The history here is presented neutrally, and Wellington doesn’t overwhelm the reader with her own thoughts and opinions about her experience and that of her sister. Still, knowing the context makes her testimonial all the more poignant.