“Ilana,” I began after listening to them carefully, “this agency supports
reunions. When an adoption has been through our agency, we go the extra
mile to facilitate it and make it the best experience possible. However, we
have a rule: the adoptee must be 18 before we can, or will, participate.”
Reunions were one of my favorite parts of the job. I had facilitated several,
mostly with adoptees in their late twenties to forties, and they generally
worked out well.

I understood and supported the reasoning behind the age requirement—
and still do, for the most part. But something was different this time. Ilana
had convinced me to bend the rules on her behalf. There was a lot of work
to do, and complicating matters, I was moving to North Carolina in
February. If this were going to happen, I would be the only one to make it
happen.

I knew I was heading for a battle with Grace Sisto, the very old-school head
of Children’s Aid and Adoption Society (CAAS). I was just one step down
from her in the hierarchy, but Grace loved wielding her authority.

Fortunately, I was the direct supervisor of the team involved
in this decision, and I’d always run things democratically. That paid off now.
My team listened because they knew I respected their input. We came to
an agreement, presented our plan to Grace—and we won.

Now came the harder part.

Lisa, Ilana’s birth mother, lived in New York State. She had gone to
college in New Mexico, where she met a young man from the South
Pacific. They dated for several months, and she became pregnant while he
returned home. She returned to New Jersey to have the baby and decided
to work with our agency to surrender her daughter.

Meanwhile, Beth and her husband had spent years trying to start a
family before deciding adoption was their best option. The process is long,
tedious, and often painful—but they faced an additional challenge. They
were Jewish.

There’s a perception that Jewish birth mothers are like unicorns—an
appealing concept, but do they really exist? To complicate things further,
Beth and her husband were religious Conservatives and observant. Though they
had grown up as red diaper babies—liberal in every way—they had chosen
to build a religiously observant home. They kept kosher, celebrated all the
holidays, and even built a sukkah in their backyard for Sukkot.

They worried that even the rare Jewish birth mother would be
uncomfortable with their level of observance. They knew their thoughtfully
chosen path might prevent them from having a family. But Lisa—modern,
Jewish, and perhaps influenced by the fact that her child would be
considered mixed race—agreed to place her baby with them. They weren’t sure of Lisa’s motivations, but they were thrilled to become the parents of
this remarkable baby girl.

There’s a myth that once an infertile couple adopts, they’ll then conceive
naturally. A classmate of mine had an older sister, and we were surprised to
learn she was adopted—but it made sense. They couldn’t have looked
more different. Still, this post-adoption pregnancy phenomenon may be
rarer than Jewish birth mothers.

Yet within seven years of adopting Ilana, Beth gave birth to two boys
and two girls.

We held several meetings with Ilana and Beth to prepare them. One
day, the entire family came in. Ilana’s siblings resembled her. They were all extremely well-
behaved children—but there were five of them, and I was overwhelmed. I had always known Beth was an amazing woman, but that day sealed it.

Lisa, however, was going to be a challenge. She had always been shy,
which came across as cold, and she had no interest in a reunion. She
seemed fearful, and to make matters worse, she was in New York while I
was in Metro New Jersey. In-person meetings weren’t possible; the phone
was our only option. I don’t know how I did it—probably through a
combination of support and concessions—but eventually, we set a date.
She canceled twice because of work.

Time was running out. I was leaving for Raleigh, NC, soon and wouldn’t be
coming back. I got permission to open the agency on a Sunday, and Lisa
agreed to come. She had a young son and needed childcare, but promised
she’d be there.

That Sunday, I woke up and looked out my third-story window—snow.
Heavy snow. NO. Lisa had to drive from New York State in that! I decided
that if she used the weather as an excuse, I would drive up to New York
and drag her down by the hair if I had to.

But she kept her word.

Lisa, Beth, Ilana, Michael (Illana’s father), and I met in a conference
room in an otherwise empty building. Lisa—small and pale, with dishwater
blonde hair—looked nothing like dark-haired, exotic Ilana, who must have
resembled her birth father. Lisa sat apart, arms crossed tightly across her
chest, radiating a clear message: Look, but don’t touch.

Adults are often disappointed because they have expectations about what
should happen. I counsel people about this all the time. So how could an
11-year-old resist that temptation when meeting her birth mother for the first
time?

But this remarkable little girl did just that.

She had a few questions—questions I no longer remember—but she
wasn’t upset about not meeting her little sibling. She had four of those at
home. She wanted to meet her birth mother, and while she only had one of
those, this wasn’t about replacing anyone. Her parents, her siblings, her life
—those were intact. She expected little, received little, and was perfectly
fine with that.

I felt real compassion for Lisa. I saw how much this cost her. Her
coldness wasn’t cruelty—it was protection. She was a very shy woman in a
profoundly difficult situation. And it was working out.

My heart went out to Beth. She had her own reasons for being there.
This woman, Lisa, had not only given her the gift of a daughter, but possibly
the catalyst for the rest of her family. Beth wanted so badly to walk over,
wrap Lisa in an enormous hug, and thank her. But she knew it wouldn’t be
welcomed. So she held back—and watched her daughter blossom.

A few months after I settled in Raleigh, I received a typed, two-page letter
from Ilana. I had always known she was special, but the letter was
beyond her years. She thanked me and said, in essence, that she could
now put this behind her and move forward with her life—which, ultimately,
was what Lisa wanted also.

It’s been more than 32 years since that day.

Beth and I connected on Facebook years ago. I love hearing about her
family. Those five well-behaved children are now successful professionals with their own families.  Beth and her husband now have a whole tribe of grandchildren, and I love hearing their stories.

I still think of that day—the spirited little girl and the reserved, shy woman
who brought her into the world. I know that if Lisa had tried to mother
Ilana, one or both of them would not have survived emotionally, certainly
not intact.

In The Ugly Duckling, a swan egg hatches in a duck’s nest. She doesn’t fit
in and goes searching for the flock where she belongs. Ilana was luckier.

She was born into the wrong nest but was quickly placed in the right one—
with a pack of talented, spirited siblings and a father who was perfect for
them all.

Most of all, Ilana found Beth—the woman God must have always
intended to be her mother.

Jeff, a fellow Hunter student, explained this (mansplaining?) “Look, she’s old and past her sexual desirability, in her 50s (so was Mary, BTW) and you are still young enough (I was 32) to have the sexual energy.”  I was very uncomfortable with his describing me that way; maybe he thought he had the right to do it, or assumed I would be flattered. I was mostly bothered that he reduced Rhoda’s nasty demeanor to being an envious old woman.  I argued with him, but of course, he was right, dontcha know.

*******

Throughout the hundreds of years of witch trials in Europe and America, being old was often considered a crime worthy of a witch trial.  Being old and not sexy meant a woman would be malevolent unless she were too sexy, which was also dangerous.

The history of witchcraft in 17th-century America includes trial by water.  Throw a suspected witch into a pond. If she is a witch, the pure waters will reject her, and she will float to the top and be executed.  If she was innocent, they tried and usually failed to get her out before she ceased breathing.  

Fast-forward to the late 20th century. After grad school, I attended one of the ubiquitous post-grad therapy institutes in the greater NY metro. Mine was eclectic, covering mostly the British School of Object Relations, Kohutian Self Psychology, and the like. Forty years later, I am grateful for what I learned there and have integrated most of it into my work, which today includes cognitive and behavioral work. I just wish they had taught Jung.

The entire faculty acknowledged Freud as the father of psychoanalysis, which is what we were being taught.  They revered him with no worship.  My favorite supervisor, Manny, once said to me, “I wonder if penis envy exists for women, I know men have it, but do women?”

We had two faculty members and one student who were total believers.  Penis envy is not just curiosity or the desire to have one, wishing that appendage was forever attached for the advantages, no.  Penis envy works this way:  Girls are happy with themselves until they view a penis.  It doesn’t matter what age she is; as soon as she sees one, she is thrown into the depths of despair, inferiority, and shame, which will guide everything in her life forever.  Her only chance is a good analyst who will help her recognize and admit to this so she can get on with life as a lesser, but mature being.  A woman’s maturity and mental health depend on her acknowledging her inferiority because of a body part. There you go, ladies, that explains it all. Don’t argue or even think about it.

Back to witches.  Dr. Bob M.  was a true believer.  I made the mistake of asking, “What about females with no brothers who never saw a penis until adulthood?”  Instantly I had floated to the top of his pond, I could vision him angrily pointing his index finger at me as he ‘calmly’  stated that what I just said was proof of penis envy. (Mine or his?) I knew better than to mention that older sisters often wanted to know what was wrong with their baby brothers.  I didn’t mention my college roommate, Lucy, who told the funny story of her brother’s birth.  She and her older sister, Linda, cried and wanted to know what was wrong with their new baby brother.  To Dr. Bob, they would have been resistant to seeing their own envy and at 2 and 3 were covering it.

The student was Dr Jim,  a PhD and the only male in our group of 5 with four female social workers.  When we were handed reading assignments from psychoanalytic journals, he would question if the class, including himself, was up to reading this. We ‘girls’ just read and discussed while he worried. He also had his proof.  The story was that a girl got her first period, her mother said she would get her a pad, the girl thought she said ‘pan’ and since pans have handles which are phallic symbols, well, you know the rest.

Having learned my lesson, I never mentioned that little kids, boys, and girls usually thought that people with unusual growths, such as warts, were gross, not something to be envied or feel inferior to, but as I said, that lake was cold.

Dr. Susan was an instructor so easy to ridicule or parody that describing her fills me with guilt. As an older teen, she was in analysis with a man who later became a widower. Susan then married him and mothered his son, having no children of her own. She often came to class in a red blazer, white blouse, and pleated skirt, looking very much like a Catholic schoolgirl and not the sexy kind.

Our classes consisted of her teaching us that every woman’s destiny was penis envy and mental health was admitting that and accepting the role that came with it.

I set up a small conference for area therapists.  These were the days when everything was done by mail.  Dr. Susan signed up to teach one seminar on penis envy, of course.  When the applications were returned, only 5 women signed up; that was “proof” that all women suffered.  There were two sessions with three options.  Hers was in the first group, and she planned to be driven back to the city immediately after. While other presenters attended other sessions, she had no intention of doing that.   When none of those who signed up attended her class, she gracelessly sat in the hall, pouting,  until she was taken home rather than attend someone else’s.   The saving grace for her was that she had more “proof”

One day in class, someone presented a case.  Her patient’s husband demanded and would only have oral sex.  I did ask if it was reciprocal, and no, it wasn’t.   Dr. Susan and I were both getting hot under the collar about it.  Wow, could it be that we agreed on something? I was annoyed by the selfishness.  Her problem, however, was that the woman was infantilizing her husband by not insisting on intercourse, and thus she was castrating him, which, wait for it, was proof of …..Penis Envy!    Witches were accused of stealing men’s penises, even though none ever went missing.  The water was getting colder.

This is well in my past, and I can joke about it.  Most of my institution’s people, students, and instructors paid no attention to it.  I used the valuable information from the sources that made sense and left the rest.

Recently, I got a new patient, a woman in her 70s who grew up as the second daughter of a large Catholic family in the northeast.  Her father worked during the day and went to the bar with his friends at night, coming home long enough to make another baby. Her sister had left by the time her mother got cancer, leaving her to care for the mother and younger siblings by herself.  After her mother died, the kids were her responsibility.  She went to the priest for help. He angrily told her that her father was a good Catholic man who made a lot of babies, and she would go to Hell for talking badly about him.

Fortunately, she did see a psychiatrist who told her that if she didn’t leave and move in with her sister, he would have her committed to a mental hospital.  That was in the day when a commitment would be months or years.  She went to her sister’s.

She got married and had a couple of kids, but her life was a struggle to escape her upbringing mentally.  She had gone into therapy with a woman while in her 30s in New York hoping to get rid of this past and the trauma from a rape when she was a child.  She hoped that she would get help.

She found a woman therapist who spent 2 years and 9 months talking to her about her “penis envy.”

And suddenly I stopped laughing, it wasn’t amusing at all.