It comes as no surprise in a macho culture
such as Australia (where historically mothers have been routinely excluded and
devalued) that it should – after a
little debate in the upper house, be deemed acceptable and ‘legal’ that
the ‘surrogate’ mother’s name be
excluded from the birth certificate of the child of two male parents in a gay marriage (Two Dad's and a Surrogate Create Legal Landmark,' Daily Telegraph, June 1, 2012).
The motherhood issue is complex as it involves not only the vexed and contentious issue – and concept - of the ‘surrogate’ mother; it also involves the issue of gay marriage. Here my interest is on the motherhood issue and the concept and cultural practice of excluding motherhood and hiding mothers which was equally considered by Australian federal government to be acceptable and was practiced as policy throughout many decades of the twentieth century, that have since come to be known as the stolen generations – as an allusion to the trauma this caused children, mothers and families.
The motherhood issue is complex as it involves not only the vexed and contentious issue – and concept - of the ‘surrogate’ mother; it also involves the issue of gay marriage. Here my interest is on the motherhood issue and the concept and cultural practice of excluding motherhood and hiding mothers which was equally considered by Australian federal government to be acceptable and was practiced as policy throughout many decades of the twentieth century, that have since come to be known as the stolen generations – as an allusion to the trauma this caused children, mothers and families.
The increase of ‘surrogate’ mothers- who are often women who
are already mothers who need to raise money to support their own children (and
are therefore being used for their reproductive facilities) should be very carefully examined and
monitored, so that women/mothers are not
being used as disposable reproductive receptacles for men’s use: as this ultimately could lead to forms of subjugation of
mothers every bit as painful and
traumatic for children, and mothers, and society overall (including potentially the adoptive gay parents) as
the policies and practices of the stolen generations turned out to be.
In all cases of surrogate parenting,
including sperm donation, the names of the parents (“donors”) should be
included on the birth certificate. The child has a right to know where they
come from, their genetic origins and to make contact with their human reproductive
parents. This does not undervalue adoptive or foster parents or the role they play in parenting, as mothers; yes, gay men can be mothers, mother is not necessarily a biological category (as poststructutralist matricentric feminism explains) but to exclude the human reproductive mother and deny her existence, on a birth certificate, is a mistake that leads to deep problems of identity.
Excluding a mother's name from a birth certificate is a very strong message and official statement that the mother does not matter. Not only that she doesn't matter - but that she does not even exist. No child will ever really believe this- after all they have been nurtured into life in the matrix of her womb; and if they do come to believe that this means nothing - what does that say about how our society is being controlled?
Excluding a mother's name from a birth certificate is a very strong message and official statement that the mother does not matter. Not only that she doesn't matter - but that she does not even exist. No child will ever really believe this- after all they have been nurtured into life in the matrix of her womb; and if they do come to believe that this means nothing - what does that say about how our society is being controlled?
Furthermore there is a larger social issue
to do with social engineering and the increasingly controlled practices of
reproduction where mother is being appropriated and subjugated, surrogate mothers follow in the line
of ‘wet nurses’ and prostitutes, where women’s biological sexual
and reproductive organs are being bought and used, very often by men supported
by a patriarchal state agenda. If this sounds alarmist, look at history.
Look at the Stolen Generation in
Australia. A history of white lies and
cover ups. I have nothing against gay marriage - or gay parenting as such. I have everything against
excluding and hiding mothers from the official records and from active
participation in family and social life.
I have been writing about the pain of a hidden grandmother in my own family for the
past year of my Blog, the Skilbeck Scrolls.
The suppression and hiding of mothers is a wrong that does not
disappear, hidden mothers do not vanish.
The pain and trauma of the hidden mother
lasts for generations. We should not forget this.
In gay and surrogate parenting all the parents, including the reproductive mother should be included in the family circle, and acknowledged in official records. If that seems too hard, or unacceptable, we need to change our way of thinking to become more inclusive, more diverse in our understanding of the meaning and reality of family, to develop new forms of extended family and family circles, rather than seeking to reproduce the nuclear family (and its 'white lies' and cover-ups) in differently gendered form.
© Copyright Ruth Skilbeck, 2012
O'Reilly, Andrea, ed. (2011) Maternal Theory- Essential Readings. Demeter Press, Toronto, Canada
Dale, Amy (2012) 'Two Dads and a Surrogate Create Legal Landmark', The Daily Telegraph, Sydney, June 1, 2012.
Dale, Amy (2012) 'Two Dads and a Surrogate Create Legal Landmark', The Daily Telegraph, Sydney, June 1, 2012.
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